When asked what advice you have for current and incoming Patterson students, Ice offered two important pieces of advice:
- When you are at the Patterson stage it is important to be very mindful of casting a wide net. What I mean by that is, you are at a stage where you should be learning and actively searching for anything and everything that you can, exposure to as many different things as you can. The only danger is if you start to think you are only going to be a success if you get to such and such job in agency X, or that you are only going to be a success if you get to go do a particular job. The real secret to happiness and success is keeping an open mind about what opportunities come and what opportunities you seek. It is okay to have your focus (what you want to do that you are shooting for), but don’t become so focused that you shut yourself off to the world of opportunity that is out there; be open to those possibilities.
- Do the job that is in front of you. If the job that comes up for you is job C, rather than job A, it is not the end of the world. It is only the end of the world if you make it. My advice is, do the job that is presented, that’s in front of you. Be the very best that you can because what will happen is, your success in that will put you closer to where you want to be. Whereas if you shut down, you are no closer to where you wanted to be and you probably even put yourself further from where you wanted to be. Do the job infant of you, maybe it’s not exactly what you wanted to do or what you were shooting for but doing it and doing it very well, it will lead you to places you never thought you would go, or lead you to happiness that you never thought you would have. It will set you up for that next best thing that you are doing. Whereas going into the job that you didn’t want, with negativity, will shut all that down. I’ve seen it happen for people and it is a real tragedy.