Cycle UP

We think of career transitions as linear, but I’m starting to believe they’re mostly cyclical.

In sports, there’s a common enough idea of a player going on to become a coach. It makes total sense. Experience, lessons, etc., these stack up, I get the through line.

Plus, there’s the age/physical abilities limitation.

But if we start to pull the same logic out of sports and apply it elsewhere, especially to careers, a whole other path emerges. And, that path is way more common than the old “climb the ladder” and “never go back down it” ideas corporations and colleges too often teach us.

We think about how a great athlete might go on to coach - but do we ever think about how a great student could become a great teacher and then become a great student again?

Which is the real insight here - there’s a relationship between learning and (re)cycling.

There’s an opportunity to repurpose. There’s an opportunity to compound. There’s an opportunity to take what you’ve learned, apply it from a different direction, and then apply it again in a whole new field.

Think of it as meta-learning AND meta-teaching.

It’s a meta skill because learning and teaching become learning to learn and learning to teach better. As we repeat and reapply lessons, we’ll find measurable improvements. On top of that, when you add in confidence, humility, and respect for the breadth of a field, it can become a superpower.

A student, becomes a teacher, and then can go be a student again.

There’s no reason to stop.

I meet people on this journey all of the time, but we don’t point out a metaphor like this often enough.

Student > Teacher > repeat.

Player > Coach > repeat.

Thinker > Creator > repeat.

And, most importantly, regarding the repeat, you’re only repeating the role. You’re not repeating it entirely as a do-over, but you are repeating it as a start-over from a new vantage point.

You have to evolve, or at least, that’s the entire opportunity you have afforded to you, if you swear to just not get stuck.

The game ain’t over until you stop playing it.

And, the games (plural!) ain’t over until you stop looking for them.

Cycle UP.