What Do You REALLY Want to Do When You Grow Up?

This question is often much more difficult than it sounds.

I struggled with this for a long time. I started my career with a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue. I worked as a project engineer for Frito-Lay, and I really enjoyed it. I was handed a list of projects and asked to pick the ones that interested me. Then, it was up to me to figure it out. I had to figure out the plan, the budget, the equipment, the contractors, and the details to make it happen. And I was very good at it.

I went on to have multiple career iterations. This included starting two of my own companies. I thought "being the boss" was what I REALLY wanted. One company was a VC-backed environmental inspection firm that continues to operate throughout the United States. The second was a software company. We started from zero, built a SaaS platform and marketplace for real estate inspectors, and it also continues to operate nationally.

As I worked to finalize the sale of the second company, I tried to figure out, "What do I want to do next?" "What do I really love doing?" I have so many different things I'm good at: leadership, software development, capital raising, etc.

I listened to online influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk, Justin Welsh, and others who are all about building a social media audience and selling products like online courses. For a while, I thought being a "solopreneur" would be cool. I could create automated courses teaching people how to build software products, how to raise capital, how to structure their startup, or anything else that I'm good at. I could sit on a beach and the money would roll in. It sounds great—for a while. Eventually, it would be lonely and boring. It would be a grind.

Then I saw a video clip from Sam Altman. He said he had the same problem. He was bored with investing in startups through Y-Combinator. He had a list a mile long of things that he thought he SHOULD do and would be good at. And he had zero enthusiasm for them. He realized there are two things that help you become excited for your work:

1. a project that you're excited to work on; and

2. a team that you're excited to work with.

That's it. Period.

It's not the money. It's not the title or prestige. It's not "being the boss." It's not the ability to automate everything to a point where you can sit on a beach all day.

For him, that was Open AI. He quit Y-Combinator and jumped in with both feet.

This really helped me clarify my personal career mission statement:

"I love leading teams that find, learn, build, and implement new technology."

I need to be excited about the products I'm building and excited about the team I work with. Period.

It's pretty simple, and it's something I can do the rest of my life. There will always be organizations who need great leaders, great teams, and great technology products.

If you need great leadership in your company to build great technology products, hit me up.

#productmanagement #innovation #technology #leadership