Chris Flink
IDEO
Palo Alto, CA USA
"You have to find something that allows some piece of your soul-the part that you're passionate about-to participate. If you turn your back on that, you're setting yourself up for misery."
Career Roadmap
Chris's work combines: Design, Engineering, and Being Creative
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Industrial and Product Design
Stanford University
Graduate Degree
Business Administration and Management, General
Stanford University
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life has been direct
1.
Says, "there's a lot of room between being completely unrealistic and thinking you're gonna be a rockstar and totally selling out."
2.
Don't turn your back on your talents, the parts of your soul that allow you to "participate" in the world.
3.
Went to Stanford University, says he struggled to make choices about his career path.
4.
Ended up in product design to kill time, procrastinate until he found something else.
5.
One of his professors started IDEO, told Chris he should get serious about product design, that he had a talent there.
6.
Moved to New York to hone his skills before returning to San Francisco to work for that very same professor at IDEO.
7.
Says he "spent all of my time and energy compelling others that I was good at what I was doing," realized he had to prove it to himself.
