Chris McManus is wise beyond his years.
At 28 years old, McManus announced that he was leaving his sports talk gig at ESPN Radio Syracuse. He told Syracuse.com that he hoped to find a job that allows for a greater balance between his professional and personal life.
“When I was just coming out of school, I thought that if you loved your job, nothing else really mattered,” McManus told the website. “But in the radio industry you often have to move all over the country, and you might not have a permanent home until your 30s or 40s. When I was coming out of school, that sounded OK. At 28, you start to evaluate some of those things.”
Finding where to draw the line between personal and professional fulfillment is a challenge that eventually confronts most sportscasters. Not only is the line in a different place for each individual, but it usually moves as we get older. Things that were important to us when we were younger can become less so as we enter new stages of life, like marriage and family.
One thing that sometimes makes locating the line easier is maturity. Ego often minimizes with age. When ego gets small enough, it makes it easier to find fulfillment, even if our careers aren’t unfolding as we once imagined they would.
The choice Chris McManus made wouldn’t be right for everyone, but it was right for him. Huge props to Chris for having the wisdom to figure out where to draw his line.
If you have found where your line is, what helped you figure it out? If you are looking for your line, where are you getting stuck? I would love your input in the comments below or on Twitter.
