finding your path and growing your career. . . .with a comic book!

Many people have faced a lack of clarity about their career path and goals. This uncertainty can happen at any point in your career journey — whether you are just starting out with your first career or considering changing careers after investing years. If you are not sure where to start with determining your next step, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, which is a graphic novel, is a fantastic resource to assist you in your journey and is presented in a very refreshing format.

The premise of The Adventures of Johnny Bunko is summed up into six lessons about work, careers and achieving personal success. Despite being released 14 years ago, it is still a fantastic and appealing delivery of some basic, but essential, career guidance and can serve as a great jumping off point in determining your path. In fact, the very first chapter discusses making plans and the degree to which you should let those plans affect your path.

There is No Plan

Most people make sure that they have a career plan and a list of goals in order to achieve their dream career. However, these plans are never foolproof, and sticking to them too much can blind you to other potential paths and choices. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko does not state that these plans are pointless, but rather it suggests that plans should have flexibility and choices can be valuable to your journey in more ways than one. One way that a choice can be helpful is that it can highlight your strengths and talents, and that is valuable information to obtain in your career journey.

Focus on Strengths Not Weaknesses

It is very common that people end up in jobs that may not suit their strengths but in fact rely on their weaknesses. While weaknesses may be improved through practice and training, it would be much more beneficial to instead work on those tasks that rely on your strengths. The Adventures of Jonny Bunko goes into further detail about how to determine what your strengths are and how to apply those to your career choice. Applying your strengths to your job will give you a sense of satisfaction not just in your career path but in your personal life through helping others.

It is Not About You

It is important for our careers to bring us some sense of happiness and satisfaction; however, we should also remember that doing our jobs help others in some shape or fashion. This is true whether you work a customer- or patron-facing job or in a corporate office. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko discusses how to take your strengths in the job and use them to help people and improve the lives of others. It is essential to remember that in order to improve the lives of others, we need to improve our own skills and talent.

Persistence Trumps Talent

When we think about athletes and musicians and other talented people, we also have to consider the time and effort they have put into their skills. While there may be many talented people in a given field, it is only the truly diligent ones that achieve incredibly high levels of success. So The Adventures of Johnny Bunko makes the point that even if you are working in a job that suits your strengths and talents, you must also work on improving your skills and applying them. A great way to improve your skills is through making excellent mistakes and learning from them.

Make Excellent Mistakes

It is so terrifying making mistakes that most of us try to avoid making any in our careers and our personal lives. Mistakes, however, are essential to improving our knowledge and giving us the opportunity to move forward and on to better things. Mistakes are a part of our lives, and we are always learning from them, so it is important to make mistakes in our careers from time to time. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko details the kinds of mistakes that you can learn from and how to make sure that you make excellent mistakes. Most importantly, mistakes can lead to truly impactful discoveries and make a change somewhere and for someone.

Leave an Imprint

When a person reaches a certain age, they look back on their lives, and at that point, how they feel about their choices will affect how they approach the remainder of their lives. So, it can be important for a person to feel that they have made an impact at some point in their life, no matter how small or big. A great way to make a mark is through your career, especially when your career is something where you are able to apply your strengths, help others, and achieve great levels of success. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko will ask you to consider this question: What kind of a mark do you want to make, and how will you make it?

final thoughts

I hope that the message of this book speaks to you, and if you want to know more about each of these lessons and how they can affect your career search and exploration, then please feel free borrow this novel from the Career Center in the Main Library on Goodwood! This book is just one of many fantastic career guidance books we have in our catalog. If you want some additional help in determining your career, we provide career coaching as well. Just call 225-231-3733 to set up an appointment and we would be happy to be a part of your career journey!

Written by Kathryn Cusimano