You’ll need to spend time in the trenches.

Why do we call it time in the trenches? Because nobody wants to be there but yet we must.

The latest read I’ve been immersing myself in is Robert Iger’s The Ride of a Lifetime, and he shares how he started his career as a Studio Supervisor at ABC. It took years before he finally became the CEO of Disney, and before that, he was spending his time in the trenches.

How will you know you are spending time in the trenches? Newsflash, you’ll be doing things that you don’t like (gasp!)

We all talk about getting the job we love and pursuing our passion, but 100% of the time in order to get to a spot where you are able to design the life you want to live, and thereby able to work in the job you love every day, you’ve got to put in the time to build your skill set to a point where you have the power to choose.

What does that mean? Having the power to choose.

When you start out, the work chooses you. You don’t get to choose the work; and, here’s a bit attitude point for you: you should not think that ANY work, and I repeat, ANY WORK, is beneath you.

Let me give you an example. At age 27, I decided I wanted to switch my career. I was in the world of finance running a Fintech startup and living the life of a hustling entrepreneur. I was in my 20s, so I thought it was a good time to have my quarter-life crisis and change careers and switch to the fashion industry.

MY TIME IN THE TRENCHES

I thought at the time that I was a bit too old to be a fashion intern and grabbing someone’s coffee, so how can I get started and test out as many roles as possible to see if it’s actually a career that I would enjoy? Well, first, I had to make some contacts in the industry, and the fastest way to do that was to help out with some fashion photoshoots. Yes, I did something that would make people “gasp”, I volunteered for FREE.

What did helping out with these shoots involve? Going to retail shops and brands to beg for free clothing usage (and can I return this after please?!), carrying clothing to several locations in the hot hot sun on summer days; or better yet, shooting for a summer catalogue on the beach when it’s the dead middle of winter.

Eventually, I got to lead some styling shoots for commercial projects and videos, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term. Being the overachiever that I am, I was testing out something else in parallel. The hypothesis here was that maybe I would love fashion show production, so how could I get involved? Would I be a runner behind the scenes at the fashion show? Would I be a dresser? Makeup Artist? Producer?

TESTING IN PARALLEL — YOU CAN BE IN TWO TRENCHES AT ONCE!

I liked to run the show and so I believed that I would be the Producer for a charity fashion show featuring the top 30 local retailers in my city. I didn’t know any retailers and they didn’t know me either, so how would I be able to get my foot in the door? My solution was to physically put my foot in their doors so they could get to know me.

I put on my best suit, put together a proposal deck for the event, researched a shortlist of participating retailers I wanted to take part in the fashion show, and off I went to visit each of the stores. It’s not every day that a fashion boutique gets someone in a suit walking through the door not looking for a job, but asking them to participate in a fashion show.

Oh, wait. I also had no way of funding the show myself, so how was I going to come up with the money? Great question. My answer at the time was (and this is probably more risk than you would want to assume) to have ticket sales and sponsorship provide the funding.

So in 3 months’ time, I managed to pull together a team of volunteers who also wanted to get their start in fashion, assemble a panel of industry-renowned judges from fashion schools, publications, and local designers, sell 400 tickets, negotiate and secure sponsorships, and produce the show. On show day we had makeup sponsored, models sponsored, volunteer dressers, makeup artists, a professional audio visual production team, and even a host!

It wasn’t easy and I spent months slaving away doing everything that was necessary to bring the vision to life. It was my time in the trenches. I paid my dues. We don’t always see results from spending our time in the trenches but at the very least you learned a new skill, made new contacts, or earned something else that would make the road smoother for you in the future.

BUILDING YOUR POWER TO CHOOSE

Let’s circle back to how this accumulated experience gives you the power to choose. I would say that after I produced a few fashion shows I started building up my credibility in the industry and in my local community, which gave me more power to choose who I wanted to work with and what I wanted to work on. It doesn’t happen overnight.

Don’t complain about having to go through a spreadsheet, having to wake up early or work late, or having to do cold calling for a few months (I’ll save the story of my 20,000 cold calls for later). If you don’t spend your time in the trenches and things aren’t hard, it’s not worth having and you’ll be the very thing that you feared so much — mediocre.

So, how will you choose?