CEO bootcamp

Check out this article USA Today published about the important lessons CEOs learned from their first jobs.

I have so many friends who didn't have to work at all during high school and college, and others who worked but not for a substantial amount of time. I never thought it really mattered, but maybe bagging groceries, brewing coffee and serving Chinese food will come in handy:

"USA TODAY reached out to dozens of executives who now run or once ran major corporations. Thirty-two responded, and although their ages range and they grew up diversely in big cities and rural towns, all worked as teens, eight of them before age 11."

... and now I'm watching as many of my friends are trying to start their careers. So many of them are freaking out because they aren't being offered their dream position with dream pay in their dream city. I guess you can't blame them. We all came to college with delusions of grandeur; the idea that we would put in a good effort and be hansomly rewarded by the white collar gods. I think parents with connections are about the closest thing I've seen to divine intervention.

We're Generation Y- we have no patience... we expect to get what we want... and we expect to get it now. BUT, as the CEO of SPX said, "A successful career is built incrementally, one step at a time."