Careers are built over generations

Here’s a thought that’s been rearranging my brain lately: careers aren’t built over one person’s lifespan. They’re built over generations.

The more I go through life, the clearer it gets that there are SO many underlying factors behind the people in crazy positions — factors that middle-class people like me were never even shown. It’s not one person grinding harder than everyone else. It’s one person who has a kid, who has a kid, who has a kid — and somewhere along the way the family lands in the zip code with the schools that feed the schools that feed Harvard. Then generations of accumulated wills and effort and money get channeled into one person, and that person gets the position that makes everyone go “wow, how did they do it?”

They did do it. But they started the race a few generations in.

And most of it is unspoken. Nobody’s resume says “third-generation beneficiary of a good zip code.” The machinery is invisible by design — from the outside you just see an impressive individual, because the individual is the only part of the pipeline that’s visible. The tutoring, the network that was simply there, the safety net that made the risky career move not actually risky — none of that makes the highlight reel.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and honestly it changed how I grade myself. Comparing your chapter one to someone else’s chapter four is just bad math. Some people are the beneficiary generation. Some of us are the channeling generation — the ones doing the compounding that pays off downstream. That’s not a consolation prize; that’s literally how every “overnight” story you admire actually started.

So don’t hold yourself to such a high standard that it ignores how many unspoken things went into the people you’re measuring against. Run your leg of the race well. The generations thing works in both directions — someone downstream of you is going to start a few steps ahead because of what you’re building right now.