The Only Constant is Change

The only constant is change.

It's 11:48 pm and I can't sleep. Anyone that knows me it is very (!) past my bedtime. This quote has defined my life over the past couple of months. Maybe it’s the meds wearing off from the emergency dental surgery I had today, or the surprise basal cell cut from my neck at the dermatologist two days ago, or the fact I quit my job in pursuit of a passion to solve hard problems in climate and two months in, even with considerable progress, I'm starting to realize that this journey will take time.

I'm out daily trying to get comfortable with being uncomfortable by putting myself out there doing interviews, deep dives on wide ranging topics, writing cover letters and tweaking resumes, building a climate network, and chatting with other climate job seekers who have been at it for months or some over a year. Of course, this is on a good day. Life doesn't stop to focus on a career pivot. My packed schedule and job-seeking momentum have gotten derailed multiple times by weeklong daycare borne illnesses or worse closed daycare during Snowmageddon, amplifying that nagging feeling that you're missing opportunities. Then there are the daily struggles with imposter syndrome, trying to pull me back into my comfort zone or, worse, into depression. Or the sudden change from having my identity tied to a job or career to figuring out who I am in its absence. These are undoubtedly privileged, self-inflicted, first-world problems, but let me vent damnit.

The only constant is change. And evolution is hard.

I’m forcing myself to evolve – as a person, parent, partner, and professional. Most days, it feels like the movie 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'. What sucks is there’s no shortcut. It really is as simply as setting overwhelming seeming goals, breaking them down into daily actions that compound in pursuit of that goal. Then measuring and truly holding myself accountable.?

One thing I tend to suck at, writing things down. I’m just someone that goes full speed meeting people, making connections, finding ways I can support people, learning a ton of new amazing things, synthesizing big macro themes quickly…. Mostly In my head or scribbled down on legal pads.?

Going through the job hunting process I’m honestly very proud of the interest I’ve been getting. Particularly getting to a number of late and final round interviews pretty quickly in the search. But the feedback so far has been "tie goes to the experience". Which I totally understand and expected. Classic chicken and the egg problem! So how do you solve for experience without being able to start somewhere???

One muscle that has gotten much stronger over the years for me is the power of the “no”. Getting a “no” (with feedback) is the biggest accelerator of personal growth if you can learn to not be offended or pissed off by it. It forces you to rethink and refine your pipeline, process, target customer, and quite frankly move you forward much quicker. Time to evolve.

The only constant is change. Evolution is hard. And the climate problem is the perfect example of this conflict.

So I’m going to start writing down what I’ve been learning for the past couple of months. The stuff I’m finding interesting. The areas of interest for my job search. I hope it will help amplify and promote the message to others that are climate curious or just want to understand some of the trends and risks both valid and intentionally overblown. Selfishly, I’m doing it for me, as a way to hold myself accountable, summarize my learnings to lean on during interviews and the very real evolution needed to build a #personalbrand #online. This is uncomfortable for me as I'd much rather fly under the radar in one on one meetings than try to stand out virtually. But the problem with that is I think I have a lot to offer. Time to sell myself a bit too.?

I don’t know who’s even going to read any of this but my goal is to meet as many people who share my passion. And I want to meet people that disagree! I’m finding there are very real criticisms and growing pains in the Wild West that is climate industry.

Out of the gate some of the topics and areas of focus:

• Carbon Accounting and Management
• Transferable Tax Credit Markets and Climate Finance
• Volunteer Carbon Credit Markets?
• Renewables - Solar/Wind
• Corporate Sustainability and Greenwashing
• EVs and Charging Infrastructure
• Direct Air Capture and Carbon Dioxide Removal

Going to set my KPI on one deep dive post every other week and see where it goes. I need to build this muscle and not rely so heavily on my networking comfort zone.

Lastly I want to start a meetup for folks working in or that care about the climate in and around Nashville. Please ping me if interested. Most opportunities I'm finding are on the coasts and while we deal a Tennessee political environment generally hostile to the climate space, we are ironically one of the biggest beneficiaries of the jobs and economic benefits that the IRA and transition to a cleaner future will bring. We don't want to leave Nashville so maybe we can work on building something here. This is an economic development issue and a public health issue. In the same way that "every job became a tech job" in the last decade where technology is ubiquitous in almost every role, in the next decade every job will be a climate job as we have to rethink everything we do on this planet.

The only constant is change. Lean into it.