Last week I visited the University of Pennsylvania for a fireside chat with Roger Greenberg, a Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology, as part of the Wharton Undergraduate Healthcare Club (WUHC). I shared my personal history and answered questions from an audience primarily consisting of Penn undergraduate students. This inspired me to write down advice that I wish I could have given to my younger self.
This blog is a reflection on the traits of successful people (current tense), with advice I wish I had received as I was navigating the early stages of my career (subjunctive and past tenses). For fun, I used Google’s “Illuminate” app to turn the text below into a 7-minute podcast (podcast audio link here). Oh, the power of Artificial Intelligence!
[Disclaimer: I am a full-time employee of Bristol Myers Squibb. All views expressed here are my own.]
1. Beware of the personal narrative. When established individuals (i.e., old, successful people!) give advice to youth, they often spin a tale that makes sense in retrospect. The narrative may be accurate from an outcomes perspective but is often inaccurate from a journey Further, personal narratives often tell a story that makes the narrator look favorable at the expense of lessons learned for the audience listening.…