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About
Me
Unlike the hungry masses eager to break
into the business today by way of portfolio schools, advertising
degrees and MBA programs, I
didn’t
seek out advertising. Like many of
my contemporaries, I kind of stumbled into it by chance.
For as long as I can remember, whenever the subject of professions
came up in our household, my dad had the habit of gently encouraging
me to consider the benefits of becoming a doctor.
Mostly I think to live vicariously through me because he was forced
into the military
and had to abandon his own dreams of a career in medicine.
I had no such lofty aspirations. This
became apparent, when at the age of 12, my father casually expounded
the many virtues of a life
spent healing my fellow man, and I simply told him outright that I
didn’t want that kind of responsibility.
He never mentioned it again.
After all, from the time I was three years old, the sea beckoned
me. The moment I caught my very first fish
in the palm of my hands in the warm waters off the coast of Panama,
though the tiny creature in my
grasp was not, I was hooked. I knew right then and there it was my
life’s destiny to follow in the flipper steps of my idol and
hero, Jacques Cousteau. That is, until I discovered how much
math would be involved to make my dreams
of watery fame and fortune come to fruition. My fate was sealed when
I asked my college advisor if there was any
way around that particular requirement and she replied, “Of course.
Change your major.”
So I did. Choosing instead a
mass communications major with a minor in journalism. Then,
when it came time for my internship, I informed the chairman of the
department I
had no desire whatsoever to intern
at a newspaper, TV station, or radio station. Somehow resisting the
urge to slap some sense into my head, she instead suggested I might
like to do my internship at an ad agency and try my hand at something
called “copywriting”.
“Copywriting”, I
said to myself
not knowing what the hell she was talking about. “Sure
sounds less
stressful
than medical school.” [next] |
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