Be a Fledgling

It’s near two months to the day that I decided to leave my previous role at TalkTalk, a place which had just given me a positive change in job title and an awesome work-life balance.

It also gave me some of the best people and stakeholders I’ve ever worked with, some of which I now class as good friends personally.

Why leave

Well the reason was simple, I was offered and accepted my dream job, a place where I had always wanted to work and with some of the sharpest minds in L&D (excluding my TalkTalk and O2 folks), this was all agreed before any changes had come about at TT and I was already committed to joining my dream job remember!!!

The Dream Job

Fast forward a week in my new dream job and there I was resigning. Now before you jump down my throat about the whole it takes 90 days to settle in etc. I am a firm believer in gut feelings and well sometimes we have to drink our own kool-aid right?

It just wasn’t for me, now before you ask if I was in the moment blah blah… I wasn’t, I tend to journal my thoughts and feeling every day of a new job and use this as the steer to stop my emotional side get the better of me.

I find it also allows me to look at the bigger picture, so using my journal I decided to resign with nowhere to go and a whole load of conversations to have back home eeekkk.

However, I did come away knowing exactly what I do want from a role, the opportunity allowed me to refresh and realign my values and some things I had forgotten.

• Adventure & experience - If I didn't take the leap to see what my dream job was then I wouldn't be here now knowing it wasn't my dream job. The 8 weeks out of work have been a fantastic adventure, yep it had its ups and downs but every adventure does and I wouldn't change it.
• Creativity - I need a role that will stimulate my creative flow, I need an idea, goal, challenge and then a blank sheet of paper to start creating my masterpiece or doodles
• Curiosity - I need to geek out with new ideas and tech once I understand them using (Amy Burvall term), I need to then remix them to other areas of my life professional or personal.
• Recognition - Is massive for me, I like to be told when I've done a good job and when I've not done so well. Recognizing that we have achieved a team goal due to mine and others hard work, well there is no better feeling.
• Relationships - are vital to me. I want to grow and help others grow too, be it their ideas or to break my ideas for greatness to happen I need good strong relationships, this will allow me to be vulnerable and honest, this will create an opportunity for growth

Cue eight weeks of great conversations with various people, some job related and some just want to have a chat about learning in general (which was awesome). Anyway getting to the point, in the end, I was super lucky to have four brilliant job offers with companies who completely get modern learning.

(Note: The job market for someone with a modern look at learning and development is so outdated, I was shocked to see so many big brand names are still wanting old school ways of doing things… that could be a post all on its own).

Right ok, Danny get to the good bit about blackbirds…

The Blackbirds

Around the same time I was going through my situation of being “in-between roles” some blackbirds had decided to nest in our garden, over the coming weeks I watched these two blackbirds build a lovely nest and lay three eggs.

All which hatched into three very hungry and loud nestlings, I watched in admiration how hard mum and dad continued to fly in and out of the nest doing perimeter checks and bring in the food like clockwork to the hungry nestlings (Parents I salute you).

A week or so later, I am up making a morning coffee only to look out my kitchen window see three little fluffy fledging hopping around my garden.

So what is the first thing I did…? (3 points)

Yep that's right I started to Google what I should do, how do I protect them, do I even need to protect them.

After a few cups of tea and an hour Googling, all while keeping an eye on these little fur balls, it turns out this is all normal and I shouldn’t get involved unless for a few extreme circumstances

(Note: I know they are called fledglings thanks to Google)

As it turns out these little fledglings found their way on to my garden by one or two ways.

They were either pushed out the nest which is usually done by the mum, knowing her fledglings have got far too comfy in the safety of the nest or the fledglings have taken it upon themselves to take a leap of faith.

Once on the ground, these fledglings need to learn, not only how to fly but survive day to day life.

(Note: mum is still keeping an eye on them from a distance offering support bit like a good network you know who you are).

It was amazing to watch these little birds react, adapt and grow into their surrounding and eventually learn to fly, and fly they did, this is called their fledge. (I now too understand how Tony Soprano felt when the ducks left his pool)

Right, Danny so what this all got to do with your new role… great question!

Be like a fledgling

I decided to approach my predicament of what next and which role to go with using a fledgling mindset aka a Growth Mindset and knowing what my true values are. I wanted to learn something that would be complementary to my love for learning and development but would also scare and excite me.

It needed to be in line with my end goals but also have a huge learning curve…I was about to make my own leap of faith.

If I can offer any advice for what it is worth I would say this:

• Never be scared to listen to your gut, people will respect you for trying.
• Have a great network who will offer up words of support and be only a phone call away (you know who you are).
• Take the leap of faith now while you still can it’s better to try and fail than never try at all, I know on my death bed I will have failed more times than I will succeed but that's something we should all be proud of, without failure there would be no growth.

So where is it I am going to, well I am sure you will find out sooner or later but let’s just say it is a completely different avenue and I wouldn't have got there without the timeout, two little blackbirds, and a few fledglings!

"I will have failed more times than I will succeed but that's something we should all be proud of, without failure there would be no growth."