Don't give up on that childhood career dream! From The (Toronto) Globe and Mail: From the time he watched a Boeing 747 fly overhead when he was 10, Robert Milton knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. "Not be a cowboy or a fireman, not an astronaut or an athlete . . . it was the idea of running an airline that appealed to me," the current chairman and former chief executive officer and president of Air Canada says in his autobiography, Straight from the Top.

Clearly, Mr. Milton is one executive who saw his dream job come true. But that makes him a rare bird, a survey of 2,160 senior executives worldwide has found.

The majority of those polled said they regretted abandoning their childhood dreams of becoming astronauts, pro athletes, or film stars to become executives.

And they would choose a different career if they knew then what they know now, according to the survey by Korn/Ferry International, which included 100 executives in Canada.

In fact, just 18 percent of the senior executives said they aspired as children to become business leaders. Among the other 82 percent, 15 percent dreamed of being professional athletes and 11 percent had their hearts set on becoming astronauts. Another 10 percent wanted to be doctors or nurses.

Law, police, firefighting, the military and teaching were each the childhood aspirations of about 5 percent of the executives polled. And 4 percent each dreamed of careers in music, acting or politics. No one, it seems, yearned to be an actuary or a tax auditor, and no other profession got more than 1 percent of votes.

For a majority of the executives polled, abandoning their dream has created lasting regrets. A full 51 percent said that, if they could start their career over again, they would most likely do something completely different that more closely matched their long-held aspirations. And career pros say there is more opportunity than ever to do just that.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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