Finding your thing in the sweet spot

When I took the leap and left my corporate career, I told people I needed time to figure out “what I want to be when I grow up.”  What I really meant was that I was tired of settling.  I had a feeling life was supposed to feel like living (yeah, I’m kinda slow), and I was ready to discover how to make that happen.  

I was also all kinds of stressed and burned out, and more than a little bitter.  Pretty attractive, really.

We worked long, hard hours at my firm, like lots of people do.  Wah. When I left, I kept telling people that I’m willing to work hard, I want to work hard, I just want it to matter.  I said that I was ready to pour myself into something that felt personally meaningful and worthy of my energy.

I have to confess, at the time, I didn’t really believe it.  Shhhh.  I was just so tired, I was pretty sure all I wanted was to lay on a beach. Like, forevermore.  Fortunately I was wrong and now that I’m working at things I love, it’s actually work to stop working.

But back to that statement about figuring out what to do “when I grow up.” I don’t really like it, and I’m removing it from my vocabulary.  To me it sounds a little precious, and it also doesn’t really make any sense.  I am grown up.  Sort of.  When I’m not throwing a tantrum or waking up all groggy from a nap or eating graham crackers with milk.  What is grown up anyway?

This lie about figuring it all out when you grow up also puts weird and unhelpful pressure on making one final determination, like some guidance counselor pressuring you to choose a major.  And for heaven’s sake, choose wisely.  Because you know, you only get one shot.  

Please.  That is simply not true.  Some of us are not meant to do only one thing from here on out.  Some of us are not meant to do only one thing at a time.  We change and grow and our work can flow with us.

Of course, if you feel stuck doing something you hate, and you feel utterly lost in your search for That One Thing, I know how painful that place can be.  I have been there and it sucks.  Oh, how it sucks.

Pam Slim introduced me to a theory of Jim Collins’, and since then I’ve been hearing and reading about it everywhere. The idea is that we can go from “good to great,” in our work by finding and residing in the sweet spot where three key concepts overlap creating fertile ground for our inner hedgehog.  (Did she just call me a hedgehog?  No, no, no, you are certainly not a hog, hedge or otherwise.)  

He’s referring to the story of the fox and the hedgehog and the gist is that the fox is all agile and good at many things while the hedgehog is driven by That One Thing.  And that’s what I was searching for: that thing that would give me meaning and a hedgehog-esque focus.  

So the sweet spot overlap includes:

• our experience, qualifications, i.e. marketable skills (blech, I know)
• our passion (yum)
• our genetic proclivities, natural talents

I’ve been thinking about these ideas a lot, both in fitting my own answers into what I do, and in wanting to help other people figure out what their thing is.

I think the key is to get pretty fresh and creative with our narrative for each of these concepts.  Otherwise it’s easy to get discouraged.  Imagine being me and taking the first term literally.  Well, my options include scooping ice cream, folding t-shirts at the Gap, or reviewing tax returns and financial statements.  Are my tears running down your screen?

Seems like a raw deal.  I plan to use the next couple of posts to talk about just how creatively I’m incorporating these ideas into my own dreams, with the hope that you’ll find ways to do the same.