匪夷所思：他们当上CEO之前是干这些的…

    有些成功人士总是知道自己想做什么，并制定了相应的计划。从年轻时起，他们就系统地谋划好了通往人生巅峰的每一步。回顾他们的职业道路时，你会发现，他们从头至尾走的每一步都相当高明。

    但也有一些获得巨大成功的人士，最初从事的工作却是旁人料想不到的，甚至可以用怪异来形容，最终跌跌撞撞，才有了今天的辉煌。抑或，他们一直都怀抱激情，只不过一开始就采取了一种“非主流”的追梦方式罢了。

    以乔纳森·戈德史密斯为例（曾在多瑟瑰啤酒广告中饰演“世界上最有趣的男人”一角），他在接受国家公共广播采访时透露，刚搬到洛杉矶时，他只是一个开垃圾车的环卫工人。有一次，他向一个西部片剧组谎称自己会骑马，从而赢得了在剧中出演恶棍的机会，尽管他最大的梦想是演喜剧。在开始演艺生涯几十年后，他终于通过在一支广告试镜中模仿费尔南多·拉玛斯咸鱼翻身。

    回忆自己的成功史，戈德史密斯说：“只花了50年，简直是一夜成名。”

    就连一些政商巨子也从事过非常规的首份工作。13岁时，卡耐基曾在一家纺织厂当童工，这是他的第一份工作；约翰·洛克菲勒曾经当过会计；美国在线CEO蒂姆·阿姆斯特朗曾当过老师。

    所以说，如果你（或者你的孩子）是刚刚迈出大学校园，对未来感到彷徨无计的数百万毕业生中的一员，一定要振作起来。条条大路通罗马。以下这些政商名人从事的首份工作更加“非主流”，但最终仍然抵达名誉和财富的巅峰。

    Some successful people always knew what they wanted to do and had a plan. From a young age, they methodically plotted their way up the ladder. You look at their career path, and where they started — and where they ended — makes total sense.

    There are many people who have become wildly successful whose careers had unexpected, even weird starts. They may have stumbled onto their vocations. Or they always had a passion — but found a very unorthodox way of finding their routes to achieving their dreams.

    Take Jonathan Goldsmith, the actor who plays the “Most Interesting Man in the World” character in commercials for Dos Equis. After first moving to Los Angeles, he worked on a garbage truck, according to an NPR interview. He lied his way into westerns, pretending to know how to ride a horse, and eventually played villains, even though he had always wanted to do comedy. He finally got a chance, decades after starting acting and while trying to refresh his movie career by auditioning for a commercial by imitating his sailing buddy, Fernando Lamas.

    “It only took 50 years,” Goldsmith said. “An overnight success.”

    Even CEOs and power brokers have had unconventional starts. Andrew Carnegie’s first job was as a 13-year-old textile worker. John D. Rockefeller was an accountant. Tim Armstrong, AOL’s CEO before the acquisition by Verizon, was a teacher.

    So, if you’re one of the millions of newly-minted college graduates not sure of what’s next– or the parent of one — take heart. There are many paths to business in success. Here are some of the more unusual stories of people who started in non-traditional beginnings and yet rose to high-profile positions that brought them wealth and fame.

    凯特·科尔

    职务：Cinnabon公司CEO

    职业起点：猫头鹰餐厅女招待

    十几岁时，科尔的理想是成为一名公司律师，因此需要攒钱上大学。17岁那年，她成为当地一家猫头鹰餐厅的女招待，18岁又做了店里的服务员。不过由于工作十分出色，到了19岁那年，公司已经开始让她出差到其他国家，协助开辟国外市场。

    23岁时，她已经是全球员工和经理培训工作的负责人了。她从来没有完成本科学业，不过最终还是读了一个MBA。她表示：“幸运的是，猫头鹰餐厅不是一家特别高端的公司，否则像我当时那个年龄，根本就不可能获得那样的机会。那时，常青藤名校的高材生也不会挤破脑袋想在猫头鹰餐厅获得一份工作。”

    Kat Cole

    Position: CEO of Cinnabon

    Unusual start: Hooters girl

    As a teenager, she wanted to be a corporate lawyer and needed to save for college. So, at age 17, she became a hostess at a local Hooters and then, when she turned 18, a waitress -- a Hooters girl. But she was a go-getter and by 19 was asked by the company to travel to different countries to help open foreign markets.

    At 23, she was in charge of global training for employees and managers. She never finished the bachelor's degree, although eventually she got her MBA. "I was lucky that Hooters wasn’t a more sophisticated company, because there’s no way someone my age would have had those chances," she said. "It wasn’t like people graduating from Ivy League schools were dying to get a corporate job at Hooters."