Second Best? Think Again!

John Franklin Candy was a big boy, tall and strong. He dreamed of a career in professional football, but as luck would have it, he blew out his knee during high school and his football dreams turned to dust. So off he went to university, choosing journalism on a kind of “who knows?” basis, like most of us not entirely sure how life would play out.

On the side he began taking parts in local plays and comedies, and loved it. Drawn more and more into acting and comedy, before long he was part of the Second City comedy scene, and for John Candy, the rest was history. Stripes, Splash, Brewster’s Millions, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Spaceballs, The Great Outdoors, Canadian Bacon, Uncle Buck, and Cool Runnings.

Ian Tyson aspired to be a rodeo champion, and pursued the trade with all his heart. But one ride went bad, very bad, and he landed with a smashed ankle. While recovering, somebody gave him a guitar to pass his time and he discovered that not only did he have musical talent, but that music fascinated him even more than rodeos. The rest is history. Summer Wages (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o43TMGS9MU4) , Four Strong Winds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3m7ckGhnsc) , Someday Soon (https://www.google.com/search?q=someday+soon&oq=Someday+Soon&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCggAEAAY4wIYgAQyCggAEAAY4wIYgAQyCggBEC4Y1AIYgAQyCggCEC4Y1AIYgAQyBwgDEAAYgAQyBwgEEAAYgAQyCggFEC4Y1AIYgAQyBwgGEC4YgAQyBwgHEAAYgAQyBwgIEC4YgAQyBwgJEAAYgASoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&ip=1&vld=cid:4c553b6a,vid:N3O0TP03KIE,st:0) , and over a hundred and fifty more songs to his credit, many classics of folk and country music.

A few lucky ones of us knew, from our earliest moments, exactly what we wanted to be when we grew up. John Nelligan, one of Canada’s foremost trial lawyers, knew as an adolescent that he would one day argue the hardest cases. But that’s not most of us. The unlucky majority of us grope through the mist trying to find our perfect role, searching for the reason we were put on this planet.

Sometimes, like Tyson and Candy, it’s when we get thrown off our bronze “Plan A” that we discover our gold “Plan B”. By happenstance we stumble upon the thing we were meant to do.

But not all of us get tossed off a horse only to be given a guitar. Most of us actually have to sit down and try to figure out who we are, what our Giftings are, and who our ideal clients would be. And not all of us ever sort it out. The most common approach to career selection resembles the ring toss at the carnival– “Everybody gets a prize!” As long as you’re OK with hugging the same pink teddy bear for the rest of your life, that works.

These articles and my book deal with (among other things) the “how to” of finding your groove. But sometimes life hands it to you in disguise, the “second best” that actually turns out to be the Gold Prize. In such circumstances, how things turn out depends on what you do with your thumb– if you sulk and suck your thumb, well, the opportunity is wasted, but if you accept the turn of events with a “thumbs up”, you just won the prize.

Just got bounced off your horse? Happy to talk.