What did you want to be when you were a kid? an astronaut? a doctor? professional athlete? I only ever had two dreams; from the age of 7 through to 12 I wanted to be an inventor, which in my mind looked like a modern day Thomas Edison working on the cutting edge of science and technology to build things that would make the world a better place.
When I entered my teen years I recognised that was probably not a realistic career so I turned my attention to hospitality. I decided that I would create a chain of cafe’s that would have a really specific culture and atmosphere. I was not sure why that was so important to me, but it was.
Then I worked in one…
I hated it. I dreaded every shift.
The business had just been sold, triggering half of the staff to quit, the old owners were gone and the new ones had not arrived and the couple of staff who were still there were stressed out of their minds.
It was into this powder-keg of emotions that I arrived, striding through the palpable fog of cortisol as a somewhat clumsy but friendly 15 year old lad eager to please his new (but absent) boss.
I lasted weeks. Not months. Weeks.
That experience shattered my life goals and I had no idea what i wanted to do professionally. For a couple of years I worked in retail and did some study while I tried to find something to get excited about.
I eventually tinkered with enough websites and image editors to land my first official paid gig as a freelance web designer. It took be about 3 months and I only charged $400 😂😂😂
But it was a start.
I’ll tell the whole story another time but suffice to say I spent the next 17 years in that industry before taking the leap from solo consultant to building a business.
Montage loading…
I am now just over 2 years into this journey and am more inspired and professionally fulfilled that I have been at any point of my life. This is not merely career, it’s my calling.
That brings me to the point of this post;
Someone recently asked me “What did you want to be when you were a kid”
When I recounted my two childhood dream careers, I realised for the first time that I actually landed where I planned to from the very start.
The Analysis
In hindsight I can see the reason the cafe idea was so alluring to me was not because of an infatuation with hospitality, it was because owning my own cafe would allow me to create my own ecosystem with its own culture and rules that would give others a context in which to thrive.
Becoming Thomas Edison 2.0 was rooted in the idea of creating things and having constant variety and novelty.
Both of those core truths are now evident in my business. At one level we use technology to solve complex problems for Adventist organisations. but at the higher level we are building a family of companies, an ecosystem if you will. Now every time I welcome another person into the ecosystem my happy-meter is peaking like a terrier that has been released into a tennis ball factory.
The real point here is that, I had to grieve those lost dreams, but I didn’t realise that what I REALLY wanted was still coming. The dreams weren’t lost, the road just had more bends than anticipated.
If your life isn’t matching up to your original ambition don’t give up. Just recognise that maybe the road isn’t as straight as you hoped.
You’ve got this!
