Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #296 - Dream Job

Episode Date: January 15, 2016

Mark defines what a dream job is and how you can get one.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today's podcast is based on an article based on a speech. So let me explain. So this actually follows the same path as 10 Things Every Game Needs, but it's a different topic. So, one of the things about having children is it increases you being asked to talk at their school. So, my oldest daughter, Rachel, was in middle school at the time. She's now in high school, but at the time she was in middle school, and they had a career day. And what they did is they asked parents to come in and talk about their career. So, I'm not sure how my name got on the list. I guess I

a game designer sounds like a fun thing for the kids to hear about. So they called me up and they said, hey, would you like to speak at career day? I said, absolutely. I would love to speak at career day. And I actually spoke middle school three years. So all three years that Rachel was in middle school, I spoke at career day.

And I predict my kids are just my youngest are just starting in middle school. I predict I will be. And I predict my kids are just, my youngest are just starting in middle school. I predict I will be asked this year, but that hasn't happened yet. Anyway, so I knew I wanted to, I wanted a theme to talk about because, you know, when you talk, having a theme is important. And so I decided I wanted to talk about the idea of what a dream job was. I said, if I'm going to talk to the kids about a career, let's aim high, you know. And so I explained to them what a dream job is, and I explained to them sort of, how does one get a dream job? Anyway, the career day speech went really well, and I'm always looking for material, and so I decided to write an article about it. So what I did was I intertwined

my own personal story about how I ended up getting the job I have now, along with the lessons of how to get a dream job. So I'm going to now do that for today's podcast. So this is a combination. It's a lot talking about what a dream job is, how to get a dream job, and then I'm using my job, which I will dub a dream job, but it is for me, as an example, so how I got this job and how the lessons apply. So it's a little bit about sort of getting a job and what jobs mean

and a little bit of a history of how I ended up working at Wizards. Okay, so lesson number one is first you have to understand what a dream job is. So let me talk about what a dream job is. There's a great graphic that I found on the internet. What I later learned is the person whom I copied it from, I credited that person. They didn't actually make it. I learned many years later that somebody else made the graphic. But it's an awesome, awesome graphic.

So I don't know if it needs... To the person who actually made this graphic, hats off to you. It's an amazing graphic. So it's a Venn diagram. For those who don't know what a Venn diagram is, it's a bunch of circles that overlap at certain points. Because a dream job is the overlapping of three things. Okay, number one, stuff you do. Number two, stuff you're good at.

And number three, stuff someone will pay you for. Okay, so what that means is a dream job is the intersection of three things. So let's talk about this. First off, it has to be something that you enjoy. I'm sorry, the first category is stuff you, not stuff you do, stuff you enjoy doing. Number two is stuff you're good at. Number three is stuff someone will pay you for. Okay, so stuff you enjoy doing. The first thing is, it has to be something that you like, that's fun for you, that gives you some sense of drive and sense of purpose. One of the things that's very important is, it is good in life to do things in which you have a passion for those things,

you care about those things, that there's things that mean something for you. So first off, you have to have something you enjoy. It's important in life to find the things you enjoy. The second thing is you need to be good at stuff. Part of having a job is

you need to have things that you excel at. Actually, forget the job for a second. Just in life, it is good to be good at things. You can't be good at everything, but you good to be good at things. And that you can't be good at everything, you know, but you need to be good at something. And being good. So for those that don't know, a lot of what makes you good at something is really dedication to that thing. A lot of the research, we talk about why someone gets good at something. There's multiple components. But one of the number one components that always is that the person put in the time and energy to get good at that thing.

That if you want to be good at something, you have to, like, one of the things you have to learn about any process in general is you're going to suck at something when you do it early on. You know, very few things that you do in life and like, just the first time you tried it, you were really good at it. No, you suck at things. Part of learning anything is you will suck at it and then you will get better at it. And the way you'll get better at it is by doing it and by getting feedback. There's a famous book. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Outliers where he was talking about how do people get really good at things.

And the whole hypothesis in the book I know there's been some disproving elements of the book but his main hypothesis, which is a pretty good hypothesis is the people that are really good at something put in the time and energy I think he said 10,000 hours with constant feedback. And what that means is look, they really, really put energy

to get better at something and they sought out feedback from people to improve upon it. And even though I'm not sure if the numbers are correct or whatever, energy to get better at something, and they sought out feedback from people to improve upon it. And even though, I'm not sure if the numbers are correct or whatever, his point is a good point. You want to be good at something, put the time in to learn it, and get feedback from it. Also, probably if you want to be good at something, take classes in it. Learn from people who know better than you.

Okay, so that's the second part. Third part is somebody will pay you for it. So this is also important. Um, a job, in dream job, the job part is still there. It is, even my job, which is a dream job, a dream job is not not work. A dream job is a lot of work. Um, so if you have the illusion that I want a dream job, so I don't have to work. No, no, no, no, no.

You work in a dream job. Dream jobs don't work. I work very hard, but I enjoy what I do. A dream job is not, it's not a dream relaxation. It's a job. Um, you got to remember it's a job. And part of it being a job is it has to be a skill set that it's a value to somebody that you do it.

The way you get paid for something is you provide a service that is of value to people and so they pay you money for it. Okay, so this is where the collection all comes together, which is, okay, you've got to find something you enjoy that you're good at that someone will pay you for. That's what the crux of a dream job. So what that means is, and this is what I said to the kids in the school when I talked, is you have some control over that because all three of these things, you have some ability to do something about it. First, things you enjoy.

Well, one of the things I said to the kids is figure out what you enjoy. What are the things you enjoy? A lot of people, you know, don't really take the time and focus to go, okay, think of the bubble number one. What do I enjoy? What brings me happiness? What fulfills me when I do it, you know? So first thing is, you want a dream job, you got to figure out bubble number one. What do you enjoy doing? What is fun for you? And it sounds silly, like, well, of course you know what you like. Do you? You know, that sometimes people don't really take the time and energy. Now, a lot of times it's obvious some things you like because, you know, okay, I do this thing a lot and I enjoy this thing. But you've got to dig a little deeper because once again,

you're trying to overlap three bubbles, which means the more things you enjoy, the more possibilities there are here. In each case here, you know, I mean, enjoying things is more a matter of what, I mean, what I would say is part of being good at bubble number one is A, exposing yourself to a lot of things. Because if you only expose yourself to a few things, well, then you limit how many things you can find that you like. So part of, and this is what I said to the kids early in life, is understand your passions. You know, experience life. Experience things. One of the ways to understand what you enjoy is to sample and sample a lot of different things.

And so one of the goals I said to the kids early in life is it's your job as kids to try a lot of things, to figure out what things you do like. And just because you like something doesn't mean don't do anything but that, because maybe there's other things you'll also like. And part of getting this bubble big enough, the bigger, each of these bubbles, the bigger you make them, the more chances overlap with the other bubbles. So it is important, it is important that you try to find as many things that you like. That doesn't mean don't enjoy the things you do enjoy. Obviously, you should.

But don't be afraid to expand out. Or even if you like something, stretch the boundaries of what that thing is. What exactly of that, are there subsets of things I like? You know, if I like cooking, do I like all kind of cooking? Do I like a certain style of cooking? You know, what exactly do I enjoy about it? And this is something where taking classes will help you in the second bubble in a second, but also help you expose yourself to things, learn about things.

So what can you do to help the first bubble is get out, experience life, and then have an understanding, you know, be introspective. Think about what you do and don't like about things and have a good sense of what you enjoy. Bubble number two, stuff you're good at. Okay, you've got to become good at something. In fact, probably multiple things. And how do you do that? Dedicate some time to it.

Figure out the things you enjoy and then get good at it. That if you want to make a dream job out of something, it can't just be because you enjoy it. You also have to be good at it. And being good at it means spending some time and energy on it. It means taking classes enjoy it. You also have to be good at it. And being good at it means spending some time and energy on it. It means taking classes on it. It means finding other people that also are good at it and learning from them. It means doing it a lot. It means experiencing a lot. You know, part of getting good at something is just doing it and doing it a lot and then learning from it. Feedback is also very important. It's not enough to just do it many times.

You have to get feedback from people that know what they're talking about to understand. This is why classes are very valuable. This is why if you're an artist, you want feedback from what people think about what you're doing. You want all kinds of feedback. You want feedback from experts or you want feedback from the intended audience of whatever you're doing. Number three, stuff people will pay you for. This third one is an educational thing. That once you, I mean, the first part is figure out what you enjoy.

Experience life, sample things, great. Second thing is some of those things get good at. And the third thing, which is intertwined with the second thing, is you need to understand what jobs exist. You know, once you figure out what you like, okay, well, in that area that you like, what jobs exist? How big are those jobs? How many people do them? You know, if your dream job is to do something that two people on the earth do,

okay, not impossible, but a challenge. You know, if there's a job that a lot of people do that you would enjoy, okay, pursue that. Understand that. So this third bubble is all about education and learning what is out there. Now, some of that will come also from taking classes. You know, there's a lot of intermixing here. Taking a class will expose you to new things, maybe find more things you enjoy, will help you get better at it,

and maybe teach you about what opportunities there are for employment in that field. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about me. So I grew up a game player. My dad loved games. He introduced me to his love of games. I played a lot of games growing up. Also growing up, I was very creative writing. My mom's very creative.

She writes a lot of poems and writes books, and I was very excited to write myself. I really enjoyed that. I wrote a lot of plays as a kid. I entered playwriting contests. And I did as much writing as I could when I was a kid. I found places where I could do that. So I loved writing and I loved games. Two of my enjoys, things I really enjoyed.

And I decided those are things I wanted to be good at. So writing, I just wrote a lot. Every chance I had to write, I would enter contests. I worked on the school paper, and I had a column that I wrote, and I was an editor. When I got to college, I joined the stage troupe, which was the acting organization. And I wrote plays, and I directed plays I did, and I started a writer's workshop where I got people to write skits. And I started an improv troupe. And I was proactive and I did things. I found stuff I wanted and I expanded upon that. And then I took action and I did it. Games. Games is something that I had always been very passionate about. And I played

a lot of games. And I played a lot of games at home with my dad. And when I got to college, I found a group of friends that liked playing games. And we would get together once a week and we would play games. And when we ran out of games that we had, we'd go buy new games. And we would play those games. And we would adapt games.

And we would, you know, I actively played games. And then when I got out to LA, I started making games. And I started making my own games. And I attended classes my own games. And I attended classes on game design. And I went to the Gamma Association. They had a big thing in Las Vegas where I could meet game inventors and go to take classes. And, you know, I actively sort of pursued things to try to get better at what I wanted to do, which is gaming. Now,

the funny thing is, originally in my life, I was planning to be a writer for television. You know, obviously those who've heard my Roseanne stuff know that I had a little success there. But that was my original plan. Out of college, I was going to write for television. And I went to L.A., and I was there for six years. And I was a runner, and I was working,

and I was being involved, and I was showing my scripts wherever I could until I eventually got an agent, and they showed it around, and I managed to get pitches, and I was showing my scripts wherever I could until I eventually got an agent and they showed it around and I managed to get pitches and I started working. Now, interestingly, so, the early part of the story

is I left college thinking that I wanted to be a writer. In my spare time, though, I was doing game design. I was designing games. I was going to conferences to learn about game design. I was meeting other game designers. I was reading whatever books there weren't many at the conferences to learn about game design. I was meeting other game designers. I was reading whatever books, there weren't many at the time, books about game design. Now, I thought

it was a hobby, but nonetheless, I was getting better at it. Okay, lesson number two. You have to keep working toward your dream job, even if you don't know what it is yet. So, a good example, so here's what that means is, if you want a dream job, you just keep the bubbles I'm talking about. Always be on top of what you enjoy and expand what you enjoy and branch out and try new things. If nothing else, by the way, you'll just find things you enjoy doing and it'll make your life better. Even if you don't try a dream job, just knowing things you enjoy will make your life better. Number two is getting good at things. That will will make your life better. Number two is getting good at things. That will also make your life better.

Getting skills is good. Learning things is good. You will find ways to apply your skills. Whatever skills you learn, you will lean into those skills and find things where you can use those skills. And just having knowledge of what's out there is also valuable because it will help you realize what jobs exist. And so lesson number two is, look, keep pushing on those things. You don't always know. One day, for example, if you're always pushing on the third bubble of figuring out what jobs exist,

one day you might find out about a job that you never knew existed. But you might have the skills and go all of a sudden, hey, I've been training for this kind of job. I have the skills. And in general, by the way, there are some skills that are also just good general skills to get. Skills with writing, communication, with comprehension, you know, that one of the reasons that stuff like college is very valuable is you can learn a lot of base skills that you can use. A perfect example for me is I thought I was going to be a writer. I still did everything I could to become better at game design. Not because I thought that was going to be my career. I did not.

But you know what? I enjoyed it, and I wanted to get better at it. And so my constantly pushing on that, my trying to get better, my constantly designing new games was something in which I was just trying to expand my skills and my abilities and find things I enjoy. And even if it was just a hobby that I did in my own time, you know what, that would make me happy. But it turns out those skills,

I later found a job that was perfect for those skills. Didn't think I was going to go there, but the fact that I never gave up and kept pursuing them opened up opportunities for me down the road. Okay, lesson number three. You have to be willing to take risks. One of my favorite quotes is, the greatest risk is never taking a risk. I talk about that in game design and magic.

I firmly believe that, in that life, I'm not saying you're supposed to take unnecessary risks or do crazy things, but I do believe that sometimes that part of getting your dream job is trying things. So my big story was I was working as a writer doing freelance stuff. The industry was tough. I mean, I wrote a column about this

for my Roseanne column where I had an agent and she quit the business and then I got a different agent and she pushed me to a third agent and then he got kicked out of the agency and I ended up with an agent that didn't even want to return my phone calls.

It never chose to be my agent. It kind of backed into being my agent. It didn't particularly want to be my agent, which, by the way, is not a good sign for an agent. I mean, that's not a good agent for you. Anyway, I started working in a game store part-time, not so much for the money, although I earned some money, but it was just, I was going stir-crazy trying to do my writing, and I said, you know what? Let me just do something I although I earned some money but it was just I was going stir crazy trying to do my writing and I said you know what

let me just do something I enjoy to make some money I really like games I said you know what I like interacting with the public I like games let's work at a game store and while I was working

at the game store people came in and started asking for this game Magic which I never heard of but I was intrigued by it so I tracked it down I found it at a local

game convention and I bought a bunch. I mean, not even tons. I bought enough like what you would buy for a normal game. I bought a starter and I think three boosters, and I opened it up, and I learned to play, and I was fascinated. So fascinated that I ended up going back to the store, and I bought two boxes of beta boosters and two boxes of beta starters.

They weren't all for me, but I knew the game was so hard to get that if I had friends who wanted to play, I'd have to sell them the stuff, which I did, and I later bought it all back from them because none of my other friends really started playing.

But anyway, the point of this is that I... Oh, so what happened was I got the very first Duelist when it came out, which is a magazine dedicated to Magic, and I felt that it was missing advanced content. I got the very first Duelist when it came out, which is a magazine dedicated to magic, and I felt that it was missing advanced content. And so I took it upon myself to,

I met one of the people who worked at Wizards at the time, a guy named Steve Bishop, the head of, the guy who ran the organized play at the time, and I got contact information, or I think I gave him my puzzles to give to Catherine. Catherine Haynes was the editor of the do list. He told me who the editor was. So he passed along, or maybe he told me, I forget, I think he passed it along, or maybe he told me your name and I mailed it, I forget exactly.

But I came up with the idea for a puzzle column, Magic the Puzzling, if anyone knows my history. And so the idea was it was a puzzle, much like a chess puzzle, where you started the game mid-game, and it's like, okay, you can see your hand, see the board, win this turn, as usually the kind of puzzles. Anyway, Catherine ended up liking the puzzles and started putting them in the magazine. In fact, the funny thing was, I hadn't heard from her in weeks, and so finally I got on the phone, I called, and the receptionist, you know, Catherine Haynes, there's a call

for you, or whatever, and I get her on the phone, first time I'd ever the receptionist, you know, Catherine Haynes, there's a call for you, whatever. And I get her on the phone. First time I ever talked to her. And I said, hey, how you doing? I'm at Rosewood. I sent you the puzzles. She goes, oh, yeah. I go, so you never wrote back?

She's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I love the puzzles. They're going in. So in Duelist one and a half, my first puzzle went in. I think one puzzle went in the first one. But anyway, but soon, puzzles became a big part of the thing. And so,

at some point, my job at the game store, I worked there, I had like eight different managers, and at one point, there was some rule that you couldn't wear tennis shoes, but I tried other shoes

and they hurt my feet, and I, so I talked to my manager at the time and said, look, no one can see my feet. I have to stand all day. Can I please wear tennis shoes? The other shoes were hurting me.

And he said, yeah, sure, whatever. Eight managers later, or I don't know, seven managers later, someone said, oh, you have to wear tennis shoes. You can't wear tennis shoes. And I said, no, I tried this. It hurt my feet. I go, I'm not willing to work this job if it pains me.

But I was the number one salesman. I'm like, I'm really good at this job and he said, fine, fine, and every manager looked the other way and let me wear my tennis shoes to the eighth manager who fired me I don't know why he fired me I assume it was my tennis shoes I don't directly know that's the case but anyway, he started and he got rid of everybody

he wanted to start fresh I don't know what his reasoning was. I believe maybe my Maverick status caught up to me. I'm not sure. But anyway, I was without that job. And I'm like, you know what? I enjoy writing the puzzles. You know what?

I'd like to do more with magic than I was doing. So I bought myself a ticket to Gen Con. Now, at the time, I was in between writing gigs, money was tight. It was actually a pretty big risk. You know, the idea of I'm going to go, I'm going to go spend some money that I, I mean I had I guess, but I didn't have a lot of money and I'm going to just go to Gen Con to try to talk to Catherine Haynes, the editor, and get more work was kind of a big risk at the time. But it turned out to be awesome for me. I met her for the first time.

Catherine was great. She's like, oh, you're good at magic. You write well. You turn things in on deadline. I'm more than happy. Pitched me ideas for articles. And so on the spot, I pitched for an idea of an article about Gen Con, but from the perspective of a magic player,

which the article's called an MTG-er at Gen Con. Not a wonderful name. MTG-er didn't stick. And then I also said I'd cover the finals. It was the first world's finals. Zach Dolan versus Bertrand Lestrade, which I did. It was a classic picture of me scorekeeping one of the matches going on. Very young-looking me.

But anyway, I took risks. That paid off. Through that, I started getting a lot of freelance work with other sections of the companies, seven other sections, actually. I was freelancing for seven different sections of the company when they were used to bringing up to Renton to do work. And one day I'm up in Renton and I see Mike Davis, who was the VP of R&D at the time. And I said to him, you know what? I'd be willing to move here. And he's like, when can you start? And that's, I got my job just because ID at the time, and I said to him, you know what? I'd be willing to move here. And he's like, when can you start?

And that's, I got my job just because I got in the door, I got to know me, I proved myself successful, and then I got it. Okay, we're leading to lesson four. Take advantage of every possibility. And this is a good example of what I did, which is, I liked something, I enjoyed writing, and I said, I want to do more of this.

I want to be more involved with magic. I really enjoyed magic. If you want something to be, you know, you have, no one's going to hand you the opportunity. You have to take opportunities. And every time you have an opportunity, you've got to take advantage of it. So I said I wanted to do something. I contacted them.

They liked my idea. Once I was in the door, I flew myself to Wisconsin, to Gen Con, and I talked her into letting me do more articles. And those more articles were able to lead into freelance opportunities, which led into a job. But notice that each take, I took the initiative, and even me getting the job

is me going to Mike Davis and saying, I am willing to move here. You know, I'm like, it wasn't like he came to me and said, are you willing to move here? I went to him and said, you know what? I'd be willing to take a job here, which for him go, you know what? Let's hire you. Lesson five, your big break will most likely come when you don't expect it, but when it does, grab it. And like for me, my big break at Wizards really was me being there and saying, you know what, I see they

need people. I recognized that Wizards was growing at a fast rate and that I could probably get a job that I hadn't in. But my life, my plan for my life was I was going to write television. That's what I was going to do. That's what I was going to be. And I really had to rethink and I said, okay,

you know, that is a dream I had and it's something I really had passion for. But this was also something I had passion for. Did I want to change? Did I want to do something different? And it's a real soul searching because when you think you're going to do something, hey, I planned my future out. I knew where my future was going, you know, and that this was a chance for me to say, hey, maybe my future is going to be different than I planned. And that's difficult.

That in itself was a big risk. I mean, one of my big risks is, I had no idea that Magic would last I mean, in my heart believed Magic was going to be a game that lasted a long time. But I didn't definitively know that. And so, you know, leaving what I had planned for, what I had studied for, what I had gone to school to learn about

and say, you know what, I'm just going to do something different. You know, instead of being a writer, or ironically, I did a lot of writing in this new job, but instead of, you know, being a writer, I'm going to be a game designer. And even then, when I took the job, by the way, I wasn't hired as a game designer. I was hired, as discussed in lesson six. So lesson six is, a dream job is the end goal, not the immediate one. I was not hired as a designer. When Mike Davis hired me, I was hired as a developer. And the reason was, is they had a designer.

They had Richard Garfield. They didn't need a designer. They had someone who was designing. But I was interested in design, and I said that to Mike. I said, you know what? I really think I'm more of a designer than a developer. And Mike said, well, I don't have an opening for a designer. I have an opening for a developer. And so I took it.

And the reason I took it is, that wasn't, that job was not the job I wanted, but I knew it could lead to the job I did. I knew I wanted to design magic. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a game designer. And my first opportunity wasn't for game design, but it was in R&D. It was working with the people that would direct, I mean, I knew that I would be doing development, and then what happened was, in development, I would design cards, and whenever there were holes, I would fill them. So I would start designing cards where I could. And eventually, what I found out was, you know, I became friends

with Richard Garfield. He expressed interest in that he hadn't done any magic designs since Arabian Nights. He did Alpha, he did the first expansion, Arabian Nights, and he had gone on to do other things. And he missed magic. He wanted to work on a magic set. And so I went to the head designer at the time, a guy named Joel Mick, and said to him, you know, I would like to design a set.

I have some ideas. And Richard Garfield said he would be on the design team with me. And they didn't have anybody to lead the set at the time. And I was brash. And I'd been doing a lot of hole-filling, and I'd worked really hard. I'd been a damn fine developer, even though that wasn't the job that I ultimately wanted.

I said, you know what? I'm going to do my all. Part of what I say, take advantage of every break, is you have to work at every job as if it's the job you want because the only way you're going to work toward what you want is people being impressed and happy with what you're doing. And so part of getting to the dream job, it doesn't happen automatically. Yeah, I wanted to be head designer for magic. That didn't happen automatically. In fact, at first, I just wanted to design for magic. And once I started designing for magic, I've lost your goals. I want to be the head designer. And I worked there,

and I got it. And I've had that job now for for 13 years and I have no desire to go anywhere else. I love this job. This is my dream job. So once you get your dream job, this is in the article, but once you get your dream job, hold on to it. Don't be lured away from your dream job.

That's higher level. That's like once you had the dream job. But no, the real lesson of today's story and sort of talking about my own thing is if you want a dream job you have to take steps to get there you have to figure out what you enjoy you have to figure out you have to get better at that thing that you enjoy you have to work toward it you know you have to you have to sort of learn the things that you like get good in the things you like and then understand what

of those things that you've worked upon can be a job. And part of that, by the way, is you can educate yourself about what jobs exist before you do all your training. It's not like do all the training after the fact. But the point is, you need to figure out the things you like in life. You need to figure out and get good at things.

And then you need to figure out what the jobs are that can use the skills you have. And if you need to, maybe push toward other skills that help you. Like if you want to do a job and the thing you love is thing X, but you need to do thing Y with thing X to get the job you need, well then learn thing Y. And then once you see opportunities, once you see the pathway, like the good example for me is my road to my job is I liked magic. So I found a way to get involved in magic. Took the initiative,

wrote to them, came up with an idea. I said, magic doesn't have enough advanced content. Made advanced content that I liked, that I thought was good,

that was unique and different, send it to them. My initiative, send it to them. Then I said, you know what? I'm enjoying this. I want to take it to the next level.

I flew myself to Gen Con. I took the initiative, found the editor, pitched myself. You know, I'd already done a good job. Everything I'd done, I'd done well. She said, okay, let's do some, give me some story ideas. On the spot, that thing, I did it. I wrote two articles

at Gen Con, and then I turned them in. I came up with good ideas. I executed on them well. I turned them in on time, and then I established myself as being someone trustworthy. So I was able to go to her and pitch articles and I would turn in the articles I pitched and I was good. I turned fine quality. I was always on deadline. And from that, that led me to her recommending me for other jobs. I had done quality work. Now other people in the company came to me for writing. And then all of a sudden I'm working with all these different

sections of the company. And I said yes to all those. Do you want to do this? Yes, I do. Do you want to do this? Yes. I wasn't working for seven sections because I said no. I was doing it because I said yes.

And that got me flown up to Wizards. That got me to meet everybody. Because I was working on all these projects, they would fly me up. And I got to meet Peter Atkinson, the president of the company. I got to meet R&D. I got to meet all these people

that I would later be working with. So that when I wanted to pitch myself, I was a known quantity. And then I'm the one that said, you know what, maybe this could be my job. Maybe the thing I plan to do isn't what I'm going to do. I took the initiative to say, hey, I'd be willing to move here. And when they said, okay, I moved there. And I didn't move for the job that's going to be my ultimate job. I moved for a job that I knew would get me on the path of where I wanted to go. I accepted a job as a developer, even though that wasn't what I fundamentally wanted to do long run.

And I did an awesome job as a developer. I was a very good developer because I did what I needed to do to prove to them that I was talented. And I worked long hours. I mean, a lot of my early hours, you know, one of the jokes my mom loves to tell is early at Wizards when I was there, there was a big c, one of the jokes my mom loves to tell

is, earlier at Wizards when I was there, there was a big culling of the office that they, Wizards had gotten rid of,

we used to do role playing, I mean, we got back into it when we bought TSR and got Dungeon Dragons, but at one point, the role playing

wasn't doing real well and they had to get cut from Wizards. It's called Black Wednesday. It was a very sad time, a lot of people got let go, and my mom to get cut from Wizards. It's called Black Wednesday. It was a very sad time. A lot of people got let go. And my mom was up visiting me or something, not too

long after that happened, and she saw Peter Atkinson and said to him, you know, thank you very much. I know you guys let some people go, but thanks for not letting Mark go. And Peter's response to my mom is, let Mark go. He works like two people, you know. And I worked really hard. I worked crazy hours. I mean, I have a family now. My hours are a little more, a little more, you know, subdued. I mean, I do, I work very hard. I do a lot

as evidenced by my doing a podcast, my drive to work, but I, at every level, I worked hard in every level. I was the one that pushed for advancement, that I pushed to try to do better and try to do the best I can, and I did a lot of things at Wizards where I took the initiative, where I said, hey, here's a cool thing we could do. Or when I was given an assignment, I did everything within my power to do that assignment as well as I could. I was given a set that had borders that meant it couldn't be played in tournaments. I came up with the idea of the unsets.

I was given the website. I crafted the modern website that people know today with article structures and stuff. I gave jobs and I executed on them. And a lot of my advancement, I got head designer because I was given designs and I did a good job on them.

And I worked really hard on every design I did. But that is the key. That's my lesson today is if you want to have a dream job, it is within your power to get a dream job. But there's things you have to do. A dream job will not fall in your lap.

A dream job will happen because you work really, really hard for it. And part of that is understanding what it is you want, what you enjoy, getting good at the things you need to get good at, understanding the job market to know who will pay you for the things you are good at,

and then finding the avenue, knowing where you need to work, where does that job exist, and then finding the path to work your way toward that job. That is how you get a dream job. And anybody I believe is capable of a dream job, but you have to take the steps to get there. A dream job doesn't just happen. I'm not head designer magic because I just sat around saying, I hope someday someone makes me head designer. At every level, at every stage, I worked my ass off and I took the initiative

and I did what I could to advance where I could. That's what you need to do if you want a dream job. And as I said to the kids when I talked to them, every one of you has the potential

and the capability to get a dream job. But it requires focus and energy and purpose and you have to take the steps now. And it requires focus, and energy, and purpose, and you have to take the steps now. And that's what I said to the kids is, even right now, you're in middle school,

figure out what you like, start getting good at it, start understanding the job market. You can do all those things right now, even if you're in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade. So anyway, that, my friends, is my podcast, all about a dream job. So I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I truly do believe that there's nothing, I mean, there's many things in life that I enjoy quite a bit.

But one of the things that's very fulfilling to me is I love the fact that I wake up, get in my car, do a podcast, and drive to work every day and do something that I love every day for work, that I do something. It's hard. It's a challenge. I'm not saying it's not something that makes me tired at the end of the day. But that's not a bad thing. But it's something I truly, truly enjoy. Something that fulfills me emotionally.

Something that fulfills me on every level. And that it just makes me a happier person. Because I'm doing something. I'm earning my living doing something that I feel passionate about. And that is a great feeling and I recommend that to anybody. If you can pursue that and find that, a dream job is an awesome thing.

But anyway, I'm not in my parking space. We all know what that means. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. An awesome job. So I'll see you guys next time.