The way we live, consume and do business is changing rapidly. This may be why many executives expressed that being adaptable in your career is important.
Stephanie Sharlow, chief editor for DesignRush, experienced this first-hand. She was once a journalist and intern at "The Today Show," and she also wrote for several publications. As her career developed, however, she saw that she needed to adapt.
"I quickly realized that the way in which people were consuming content was changing quickly and drastically," Sharlow said. "Although I was still in content-specific positions, they were increasingly marketing focused, not editorial."
Sharlow said she learned new concepts from every experience she had on the way starting as the first employee of DesignRush. Her resultant advice is simple: "The moment you pigeonhole yourself is the moment you become stagnant. Instead, be open to new experiences and what they can teach you."
Adam Gorode, cofounder and CEO of AGW Group, also told a story of adaptation and reinvention in tracing his career trajectory. Gorode started out as a classically trained musician in high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts, but intrigued by the music business, he pivoted to get his Bachelor's Degree in Music Business at Syracuse University:
"As a student, I'd booked over 40 concerts, hustled my way into internships at Columbia Records, Epic Records, and the Fader, teeing me up for the music industry just as it began to collapse," he said.
Gorode then needed a subsequent pivot. He learned the digital advertising industry from scratch and pitched and produced an award-winning campaign for the Showtime Network. He later went on to launch his own cultural marketing agency with AGW Group.