Seahawks head coach turned down a job provide at KPMG for a soccer internship—12 years later, he simply gained the Tremendous Bowl at 38 | Fortune – Company Technique & Outlook

Macdonald had graduated from the College of Georgia with a grasp’s diploma in sports activities administration, and he was at a crossroads. His four-year stint working for the school’s soccer staff, the Bulldogs, was coming to an in depth. Regardless of loving soccer (and like many graduates earlier than him), he chased a secure profession and landed a job provide at Large 4 world accounting agency KPMG on the finish of 2013.

“It felt prefer it was time, that there wasn’t something that was going to come back up,” Macdonald instructed The Athletic in 2022. “So I used to be form of like, ‘OK, I suppose I’ll go make some cash.’ I signed a contract and every part.”

However then one telephone name modified every part.

The previous particular groups coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens, Jerry Rosburg, gave Macdonald a hoop and provided him a training internship forward of the upcoming 2014 soccer season. Macdonald stated he was conflicted over taking a shot at his dream profession or pursuing a snug company profession with a gradual ladder; in spite of everything, entry-level KPMG jobs pays as much as $97,000, whereas an NFL intern solely makes as much as round $61,000.

The KPMG recruiter warned he’d by no means be welcomed again as an worker if he declined the job provide. Even his dad instructed him to remain in finance. 

“I toiled over it for a bit of bit,” Macdonald stated in a Baltimore Ravens cowl story. “However I ended up simply being like, ‘What are you doing? That is the place your coronary heart is at. If you happen to’re 40 years previous and also you didn’t give it a shot, you’re not going to have the ability to dwell with your self.’” And now, his determination is paying off in entrance of tens of millions of followers.

Macdonald’s 12-year rise to his Tremendous Bowl victory

Macdonald spent most of his 20s and early 30s on the Baltimore Ravens; stepping in as an intern in 2014, he shortly labored his manner as much as defensive assistant coach lower than one yr later, and educated the Maryland staff’s defensive backs and linebackers. 

After breaking away for one yr to guide the College of Michigan’s protection, he returned in 2022 and have become the Ravens’ defensive coordinator at simply 34 years previous—the youngest within the sport. 

“To me, age is only a quantity,” Macdonald instructed The Athletic in 2022, proper after assuming the position. “I don’t care if it’s a low quantity or a excessive quantity. It’s a quantity. It’s what you carry and what you contribute and the way you do the job.”

After eight years with the Ravens, Macdonald lastly scored the highest job—however this time, for a brand new staff on the opposite aspect of the nation. Uprooting his life from Maryland, he headed to Washington state to grow to be the pinnacle coach of the Seattle Seahawks. 

And his strategic chops clearly helped pull the staff’s latest Tremendous Bowl victory; in a formidable defensive gameplay, the Seahawks reigned supreme. 

In solely two seasons of main the staff, and at solely 38 years previous, Macdonald proved he was meant for soccer as a substitute of finance. 

Profitable individuals who ditched secure careers

It’s not simply Mcdonald who sacrificed a high-paying profession to search out achievement.  

Mette Lykke, the CEO of Too Good To Go, began her profession as a McKinsey marketing consultant, however couldn’t ignore the pull in direction of entrepreneurship. Fortunately, she wasn’t the one one feeling stressed; she and two of her Large 4 colleagues all give up on the identical day, and banded collectively to launch their first enterprise, a health neighborhood app referred to as Endomondo. She ultimately bought the enterprise to Below Armour for $85 million in 2015.

“A whole lot of aspiring entrepreneurs are simply sitting there of their company jobs ready for that lightning second after they have the nice concept,” Lykke instructed Fortune in 2023. Then she provides a warning: “It’s not going to land in your lap, you simply determine to go for it otherwise you don’t. When you determine to go for it, you’ll give you one thing as a result of it’s important to.”

Alexis Ohanian, the cofounder of Reddit, additionally ditched a secure profession to pursue his true calling. 

As a 19-year-old scholar on the College of Virginia in 2005, he already had his profession sketched out: Ohanian would take the legislation faculty admission take a look at (LSAT), spend one other three years at school, and land a high-paying authorized job. However simply 20 minutes into taking the LSAT, he had a revelation.

“So I’d walked out of the LSAT. I had studied for it, I used to be preparing for it,” Ohanian revealed on Wired’s Uncanny Valley podcast final yr. “After which 20 minutes into it, I walked out. I went to a Waffle Home and determined I used to be simply gonna invent a profession and be an entrepreneur.”

20 years later, Reddit has over 100 million every day lively customers, and boasts a market cap of $28 billion.