The Summer of Mirsad (Career Break Update)

Jerry: So, has the summer of George already started, or are you still decomposing?

George: Decompressing.

One of the most iconic episodes of the famed sitcom Seinfeld is “The Summer of George”. It follows George Costanza’s attempt to live an exciting summer after being let go by the New York Yankees. Natural to George’s instincts his summer quickly devolves into him spending most of his time in a newly purchased recliner with a built-in mini-fridge. In true Seinfeld fashion, it ends with George in the hospital after a wedding invitation-related accident (and, for Seinfeld/Susan fans, retribution) with extensive trauma to the legs which was brought on by a state of advanced atrophy due to a period of extreme inactivity.

Needless to say, I did not want my first summer off since I was fourteen to fall into the trappings of George.

When I last left you we were nearing the end of Spring and much of my time was filled with reconnecting with friends, writing, reading, and spending time with the family.

I’m pleased to say that the bulk of my time was focused on continuing to make the most of my time with my family by taking a few weekend trips to local destinations, day trips to the beach and park, and odd-end projects around the house.

The reconnecting with old colleagues and friends also continued, which outside of spending time with the family, is truly one of my favorite aspects of having some time back to myself.

At the tail end of spring, I met with Larry Koffler. Larry was a highly respected partner during my time collaborating with Edelman. Larry is in the early stages of transitioning from his three decades at two top global agencies to a ‘choosing my own adventure’ focusing on advisory for organizations. It was great to connect and share notes and ambitions for our breaks / transitions.

In the midst of summer, I had an opportunity to reconnect with Matt Huang who is currently a Director of EMEA Leadership Communications at Salesforce. Matt was a close colleague and confidant since my earliest days on Citi’s Public Affairs team. Matt’s intellect is only surpassed by his humor, which is narrowly edged out by his humility. Matt shared his own journey of sabbatical with me and offered key insights on how he remained productive and focused on his time off.

These moments to reconnect have been filled with inspiration and I look forward to continuing to reconnect with friends, former colleagues, and partners.

So, you must be thinking, “Your summer was all just beach and parks with a sprinkle of Zoom chats?”

Well, not quite..

As you’re probably pretty aware, my career break comes after 17 years at Citi. It’s the only organization I worked for after graduating from college. As I’ve alluded to, I gained a tremendous amount of valuable experience working at one of the largest, global financial institutions in the world. It’s an organization that allowed me to work across different businesses and functions, work with colleagues in nearly 100 countries, and try my hand at different roles (infrastructure, software development, risk, cash management, marketing, and communications).

I became so good at working at Citi that there was no challenge I did not know who to speak with to alleviate said challenge. At some point, despite my years of experience in marketing, communications, and digital, my most valuable contribution to the team was how to make things work at Citi. This was incredibly valuable while working at Citi, but what if I wasn’t at Citi? Is this skill transferable?

During my reconnecting, I met with a former colleague who is now the Head of Marketing at a Fortune 500 insurance company. During our conversation, she asked if I would be interested in a part-time, short-term consulting opportunity to help assess their public website ecosystem and pull together a go-forward strategy to evolve that ecosystem into a customer-centric, value-add tool for the organization.

Truth be told, the opportunity was equal parts exciting and nerve-racking. I was confident I could perform the work for this project, but could I successfully accomplish it THERE?

So, I did the thing I often coach my oldest daughter on, “If it scares you and it won’t hurt you, do it.”

What I quickly found is that my ability to navigate an organization is incredibly transferable. Thanks to some initial conversations with my former colleague (now boss/client) and her team, I was easily able to get up to speed on the organization, which allowed me to thoughtfully connect with folks to discuss challenges and opportunities for their public ecosystem.

The experience has been profoundly rewarding. I flexed some muscles that were a bit dormant since my career break started, I learned an enormous amount about a different industry, gained depth in digital marketing areas, and realized a new level of confidence in my own abilities.

Lightning Round

A few quick hits:

• Our (now) 6-year-old is taking on gymnastics and theater, which is definitely furthering her range (blog post on this coming up soon) and bringing her out of her shell. Our 2.5-year-old just started a pre-school program and took up gymnastics (after seeing their big sister going to her first class).
• I was honored to be asked by Nancy Goebel, the incoming CEO of Digital Workplace Group, to participate in a podcast where we spoke about my career break and how/why enterprise search experiences often miss their mark: https://bit.ly/3xVDsb4
• I wrapped up Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David J. Epstein which is a phenomenal book for those who debate whether they should specialize or pursue a broad spectrum of experiences. I recommend it as a read — a solid 8.5 out of 10.
• I refinished our girl's swing-set after our oldest caught a glimpse of an all-white swing set with green accents.
• We took our youngest to her first Yankee game (our oldest second Yankee game). Amazing win by the Yankees and a great experience for the girls!
• I am wrapping up my blog post on all things search. By hook or by crook I will release it this month.

Some photos since the last update:

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. Stay tuned for (hopefully, more frequent) more adventures on how I use this break.

Other recent Medium posts:

• Time, Connections, and Fit (Career Break Update)
• How to turn 30 seconds into 30 years
• Why doesn’t it work? (aka Netflix isn’t working)
• The One Where I Take A Break

Pieces of me can be found here, if interested: Twitter, LinkedIn, or Quora.