Opening Doors and Finding Ceilings

I am reflecting this week a bit on the way in which careers and lives unfold. At the end of my first stint in graduate school in the UK, I was asked by a senior figure at Oxford about what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to work for Disney, and on hearing this, one prompt email introduced me to the Disney C-suite in Los Angeles.

The set of forking paths from that email changed my career. But it also changed my sense of what could be possible, and broadened my imagination about a life I could live. It was one of those moments where I could truly feel life as a set of broadened horizons and expanding worlds. The tricky thing, though, is the consciousness that comes with knowing that, to borrow a Bond reference, the (current) world is not enough. That what we're staring at above us might just be a false ceiling.

It has taken great mentors and experience to realize that trajectories are shaped quite critically by doors that are opened, and false ceilings that are lifted. Looking into my time in academia for example, I knew so little about the norms and customs that, while I fully enjoyed myself and my research, I remained oblivious to the ceilings dictated by forces in the political economy of higher education in the US. Laughably so. I was a first generation doctoral student in another country - I didn't know what I didn't know.

To mentor effectively is not only to create the conditions for networks to grow, but to effectively impart to others the things that they never knew to ask. This care is and ought to be at the core of every interventional effort towards upward mobility and social equality. It is not a passive disposition of provision on request, but active anticipation on behalf of communities and individuals.

Now that I work with so many promising innovators, I feel these points so much more acutely. What would I have wished for if I was younger, had I known what I know now? And how can I translate that into benefit for others?

I recently reconnected with that figure who made the Disney introduction, to say thank you. It was such a joyful moment, and I think because it was not just a thank you - it was a sincere recognition that there is great beauty is sharing the heights of the skies over the shortness of false ceilings.

PS. I've written a Foreword to a wonderful essay series and pamphlet, The Elysian, curated by Elle Griffin, coming out this week.