Passion is a Journey

I read an article on the Passion Economy shared by @RayLuther earlier this evening. It reminded me that passion is something that we learn, strengthen, and evolve with experiences over time, it doesn't just appear.

Thus, I thought I'd be vulnerable and share a bit of my journey over the past few years as I've discovered, evolved, and rediscovered my passion.

It's been nearly two years since I left IBM. At the time, I wasn't entirely clear on what to do next.

So I traveled, tinkered, and toiled to come up with new ideas and directions for the next chapter.

A few months into this "transition period", I was struggling tremendously with my identity and direction.

On one hand, I had done the entrepreneur thing, starting, growing, turning-around, and selling a few small businesses. And, along the way I'd helped others do the same. On the other hand though, I had just spent the 6 years in the trenches in corporate driving cultural transformation in sales and product development. I had also consulted and advised with leaders in Fortune 500s on how to identify and solve their most pressing and complex business challenges to creative massive value with emerging technologies like AI. And at some-point, I'd even gotten into turning around underperforming digital transformation projects in emerging markets- something I loved!

While the ride to this point had been fun, adventurous, and jam packed full of wild successes, spectacular failures, and many lessons learned, it made picking the next chapter and positioning myself for it, even more challenging.

In late 2018, while struggling to write a resume, I was introduced to a career coach (Nancy Brower). Nancy challenged me to stop writing my resume and instead, define my brand.

And let me tell you, when you're stuck in the details trying to figure out who you are and what you do, this is easier said than done. To help, she challenged me to come up with a couple of questions and then interview people who know me well about my strengths and unique value.

I picked people with similar values and with whom I'd worked closely with over the previous 2 years. I then setup 1:1 interviews via phone and video chat and asked the following. Based on our work together:

1.) What do you feel are my strengths?

2.) How would you describe my unique value? 

3.) If you were to pitch me to someone who doesn't know me, what would you say. 

I asked them to share a specific example of each from our work together and recorded their answers verbatim. I then worked with trusted advisors to review and summarize the responses to uncover trends and patterns. I even worked with a friend in branding to help me solidify the language a bit (as you can probably tell, I'm a bit verbose).

The results were eye opening. The consistent message was that:

• I'm a chaos wrangler, truth seeker, innovator, and bridge builder.
• I get people, teams, projects and businesses unstuck, fast. I do this by taking the really complex stuff at the intersection of business, technology, people, ideas and get it out on the table, untangle it, sequence it, and communicate it so that everyone understands it. I quickly get to the heart of high priority problems so that the right strategies, plans, and solutions can be identified and developed.
• I use adaptive thinking, curiosity, and resourcefulness to find patterns, opportunities, and problems that others miss.
• I cast compelling visions which align, motivate, and inspire others to massive action.
• I make strategic and mutually beneficial connections between people that span industries, markets, and boarders which that accelerate value creation.
• And I make work approachable and fun!

I took this feedback and merged it together with what I thought my passion, brand, and unique value were. And guess what? I got it wrong.

As they say, you can lead the donkey to water.....

So, I spent the better part of a year (2019) doing consulting with companies on AI strategy. While I'm good at this, enjoy it, and have a background to support it, it was missing something; connection to entrepreneurs and leaders who were building businesses about more than profit. They wanted to make a positive impact in the lives of others. And, it was because of the AI consulting work that I got introduced to a handful of entrepreneurs and business owners who were building those types of businesses I enjoyed working with most.

So last year, I ended up also coaching and consulting with startups and small businesses to help them overcome persistent challenges, cast compelling visions, develop pragmatic strategies and plans to pivot business models and build bridges to consistently profitable growth and impact. And, the icing on the cake? People are paying me to do this!

It finally feels like I'm doing what I was made for. And I fully expect this "passion" will continue to evolve and morph as I do. Have I got it all figured out? No. Next challenge is figuring out how to drive a more consistent and sustainable income from doing this work. I think I'm close, but still have work to do in this area.

If you're on the path to discovering your passion and struggling with your direction, then I'd encourage you to use the 3 questions above.

I've shared them with several others who have gained similar perspective and clarity to follow their passions. They are now leveraging their unique strength and value to begin their next chapter.

Good luck and enjoy the journey!