Commitment at the Crossroads

Last week, I started a new job with a small software company in a niche market - Gazelle.??When I say small, I mean that I am now a part of a team of four humble but mighty staff, and when I say niche, I mean serving small business owners and technicians who tune and maintain pianos.??

You’re probably wondering how I got here.?

I have been working part time with the company for the last four years as a business coach for their customers, and Gazelle had been pursuing me off and on to join them full time since the very beginning. I had been content in keeping the job as a side gig.??Their latest offer came at just the right moment and met some personal and professional needs even I didn’t understand I had.?I was at a crossroads and it was time to make a new commitment.

In my museum career, I’ve leaned into a process of recommitting to the work on a project by project basis. Maybe this is a vestigial practice left over from my days in theater, committing to each opportunity on a show-by-show basis. The result is that I don’t see myself as running a marathon in my career, but sprinting from the beginning to the end of projects before committing to the next one.??This has served me well, keeping me from feeling trapped in a job or a role and allowing myself space to take a breathe and recharge as I considered recommitment.?

I faced a moment like this in 2016 when I came to an employment fork in the road. I had an opportunity to stay in museums but change my role and location or recommit to my then employer Minnetrista to work on what seemed to me a promising idea of developing an exhibit around the story of Bob Ross and the filming of the Joy of Painting on the site. I made the choice to stay, and it was the right one.??I had the opportunity to work on a great project in the Bob Ross Experience and help guide the organization through the reality of the pandemic in the process.??The wins there were great, but that doesn’t change the fact that as we brought the project to a close in October 2021, I knew I was at another recommitment point and had begun to explore if it was time for needed change. Just over two months later, Minnetrista’s CEO announced she was retiring.?

Again, I was at a career crossroads and made a short term commitment to see the transition process through, both by applying for the role, and preparing my team and our projects for a new CEO, whomever it turned out to be.?Coincidentally, clarity came in the form of two calls on the same day: a literal one door closing and another opening.??Gazelle had put together an offer, and it became obvious I needed to take this opportunity seriously.??

So I start 2023 in my new role as Director of Customer Success. I’ll be coaching hundreds of small business owners in how to get over that plateau and continue to build their company.??The model for Gazelle is revenue based on use, so as our customers grow, we do to.??I see real value in helping each of these business owners develop their offerings, not because it makes them rich, but because their lives and the lives of those they support will be improved because of the work I do. My job truly is customer success. I can commit to that project.??

More importantly, I’ll be able to spend more time with my own family, which is baked into the fabric of Gazelle’s company values. Working remotely was not a thought in my mind before the pandemic, but now I am excited to use my home office in new ways.??I have ample PTO with sick, holiday, and personal time including flex time for time spent away from home traveling…. and I’ll be traveling, as much as 30 days of international travel in the year, seeing parts of the world I never dreamed I would have had the chance to see in my lifetime.??Of course, a shift to a salary that removes the need to have an additional part time job to support my family and… the decision makes itself.??

Reality is, I have a major project I am committing to working on right now, and this opportunity makes that possible.??My daughter leaves for college in two years.??Our family is at a crossroads. There are only a few more years before these kids begin taking the exit ramps and start their own careers. We have games to play, songs to hear, trips to take, and memories to make.?I have about two more seasons of The Muppet Show to watch, and less than a thousand bedtime stories to tell with a full audience. (Yes, bedtime stories are an event in our house.)

I don’t know if someday my career path will take me back to museums and theater, or deeper into the software and experience design world, but today I’m committing to the project of building the relationships in my own house or at least doing so intentionally for the next two years. That could have as much or more impact or longevity as any program or exhibit I could ever design or build.?