Awareness of Age

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off in the middle of a dream where I was watching Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell play basketball in a parking lot. Random, right? I should mention that one of my favorite TV shows ever is Quantum Leap, which ran from 1989 - 1993.

So I got to wondering when woke up how old Scott Bakula was when he was in Quantum Leap. As a teenager watching the show, he didn't seem old necessarily, but maybe middle-aged. I took a rough guess that he was probably in his 40s. I was wrong.

According to IMDB, Bakula was 35 when he started Quantum Leap. That's just one year older than I am now. Now, I know I'm not an actor or a movie star, but I can't help but make a comparison. Here's this guy, at 35, starring in a television show.

Dean Stockwell, on the other hand, was 53 when Quantum Leap began. He had already had a long career (and has continued since). When he was 34, he had already managed to rack up an impressive resume of films and TV shows, but hadn't done anything that really defined his career as an adult.

Then I thought about John Wayne, arguably the most popular screen actor of all time. What about John Wayne at 34? It turns out that he, too, had been in many pictures by this time, but in reality was just starting to break out of B movies and into more starring roles. He had just made Stagecoach two years before and was still seven years from making Red River. Although by numbers of films he was roughly halfway through his career, his really defining work -the stuff that made him a legend- was still years ahead of him. Up until this point he had been building cred and paying dues. Even in Stagecoach, made when he was 32, he was called "the kid."

When we're little, we think (and we're led to believe) that we're going to go out in the world and set it on fire. In reality, there are very few that actually do, and those people tend to burn out. Look at child actors. Most are done by the time they're in their 20s or 30s. But then take Bob Newhart, whose first film credit came when he was 33.

This made me feel a lot better. I have to remind myself sometimes when I look around me that you can't get where you want to go right away. There's a journey involved, and that journey is what defines you. And as you continue along the journey, the journey - and you - get better. At age 34, in reality I'm only at the beginning of my career. I'm building cred and paying my dues and making B movies, but each project teaches me something new that allows me to grow and to hopefully be great someday.

A career is like a brand. Your current logo may be the current job or project and that can be sexy and exciting. But in reality, a brand is the accumulation of the perceptions of the public about your product. It's not any one thing - it's how all the things that your company does adds up. Your career is the accumulation of your failures and successes and projects and travels. As Jethro Tull said, "Life's a Long Song."

We're not always happy about where we've been on a journey or in a career. The key is, like in the middle of a journey, to look around and to be satisfied with where you are and have a direction ahead to aim for.