Type into Google ‘hard work quotes’ and you’ll get pages of results all trying to achieve the same goal – to inspire you. They range from ones we’ve heard many times before, ‘Nothing good ever comes easy’ to those that are not as well-known but equally effective, ‘Those at the top of the mountain didn’t fall there’. But it’s only when you’re forced to put these into practice that you realise it’s fricken hard to do the work to get there.
I took the decision many months ago to move away from I&A Strategy and rebuild my career in Data Science in the consulting domain. It wasn’t a decision I took lightly because it meant I had to put aside a role I worked so hard for, start again to rebuild my personal brand and area of expertise. But after many discussions, research and of course, a good old pros and cons list – I believed it was the right path for me.
To quote Kirk Borne (Principal Data Scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton) who I believe summarised it rather well:
“The excitement in data science is in the journey toward achieving three significant kinds of results: discovery, insights, and innovation.”
And if that wasn’t enough, the thought of one day being able to work anywhere in the world with just my laptop and a bit of WIFI was appealing.