It all started when I came back from my New Year’s eve visit to Berlin…

Amid the smoldering Roman candles that lit up the Berliner night sky ushering in the New Year of 2014, I felt a sudden clarity about the future.

While I had my head down and all my energies hell bent on driving a business model, finding and pleasing customers and employees… and making payroll… and turning a profit, the outside world had moved on without me.

I needed to make a change. And so it went. I left the company which I helped build over the past 7 years, and started over. There are some eye-opening lessons I’ve learned in this short period already— here are some of them…

Technology, led by the inquisitive demands of a new demographic, has created a new world of inter-connected communities online that has made the world smaller and yet more interesting.

I have discovered how easy it is to meet interesting and motivated people with stimulating and relevant ideas and thoughts about things that interest me, without any obligations or commitments on my part other than to listen.

For this reason, since being out on my own I have re-engaged at full speed. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels have been my new allies, with the smooth assist of email, SMS, Bluetooth, Skype, Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee.

I can read or ignore, engage or not engage, but these channels are there for me. Looking for business prospects, a job, a resource, a subject expert, a deep thinker, a sounding board, whatever — they are out there willing and able to share.

Sure there is clutter to sort through, but the good stuff stands out, and the process can be as enjoyable as you make it. I have been able to join groups and forums on 5 continents, and create dialogue with people I will likely never meet, but will learn from nevertheless.

The last time I was actually out looking for a new job was more than 9 years ago. There was no LinkedIn, and there were a limited number of online resources available for job seekers and networkers.

Today, through social media and web resources, it’s only your imagination that limits you from finding valuable contacts and opportunities and presenting your personal brand.

As an example, yesterday I Skype’d with a mobile techie from Bombay, who I met for the first time on LinkedIn and followed on Twitter, and who is flying into the Bay Area and will text me when he is ready for a meeting over drinks at SFO, while changing planes, to discuss areas of common interest. That is the world of engagement we live in today.

As faculty members at leading universities used to be told to “publish or perish”, we now live in the world of “engage or be irrelevant”, where the world moves on without you.

And so, back to Berlin.

While I may have had my head buried in the sand for the past seven years, in the final analysis, it was in the frigid cold of a startlingly beautiful Berlin night that it all hit me about how I really felt about my professional work.

For too long I had measured my success and daily fulfillment based on reports and business plans created, monthly financials closed, and contracts reviewed and signed. Not on the satisfaction that comes from making a difference in the lives of employees, customers, and business partners by doing what I enjoy doing well — engaging, nurturing, and developing meaningful relationships with people. My sentiments can be summed up in an anecdote a close friend of mine shared that inspires me each and every day—to do what I love:

“While I knew what I was doing every day, I also realized how much I missed the fun of actually knowing why I was doing it.”

Its time to start over again and engage with the world I used to know.