The Zeal For the Job

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But for more and more Americans, career change isn't an ending--it's a lifestyle, a pathway to fulfillment that could take them anywhere, like career bees going from flower to flower. Robert Norton, 37, has always buzzed from job to job to make a living. His father, a Marine helicopter pilot, died in Vietnam months before Norton's birth to a Japanese mother, who passed away when he was 19. It took him eight years to work his way through college. He has guided Japanese tourists in Hawaii, sold chocolate in Jamaica, exported sea urchins from Maine, managed real estate in New York City and translated for the Mets and the Yankees. His nose for opportunity led him to law school. "I figured there was a market for Japanese-speaking lawyers," he says. There was. Since 2002 he has practiced intellectual-property law at New York's Day Pitney, from which he may someday segue into baseball agenting. Eventually, "I'd like to find a fishing boat and be a fisherman," says Norton. "Until then, my work is interesting enough to keep me motivated--for at least another five years."