When I Grow Up

20-something’s career thoughts inspired by Love it or List it

When I was 6 I was anti-cartoons. You could not sit me down to watch anything on Nickelodeon. I would immediately dial channel 27, W-network, where I’d sit and watch Love it or List It.

I was always on team Love it (team Hilary), aka, renovating houses. Nothing was more magical than seeing a team of construction workers abolish asbestos and turn a 3 bedroom home into a 5 bedroom one.

As I’ve grown older I’ve moved further and further away from conventional career paths (sorry dad! I know you want a Dr. Grandić!). It brings me comfort to think of the little girl who was glued to reality TV on property renovation.

To some extent, the root of my fascination has not changed. I still love thinking about transformation. For a few years I explored biotech, public health and e-commerce, and among all of those deep-dives, I was always on team Love It: how can we improve the opportunities right in front of us?

In Cellular Agriculture I became interested in Fetal Bovine Serum, a high-burden material that, if renovated, could enable cultured meat production at a more economically viable rate. When I was working in Maternal Mortality, misoprostol caught my eye for it was an effective, low-cost intervention that had the potential to save thousands of lives each year… it just needed some implementation renovation.

I am an opportunity-spotter. I think this comes from my deep optimism that we can transform places, like houses, and make them truly wonderful without building from scratch.

Love it or Career it

As any great contrarian child, I was also anti-regular career. I never had an astronaut phase because that was too widespread. I didn’t want to be a teacher because that was too predictable. I never really had a career or degree I latched onto.

Of course, when you’re like 8, everyone’s always asking you what you want to be when you grow up. The only thing that was remotely interesting to me was being Hilary from Love it or List it.

I am 19 turning 20 next month and while I have a few more examples of interesting people I could learn from, my sentiment on careers is still pretty anti-path.

I want to do something different. I want to see a house that everyone ignores and then to turn it into something…