Go slow to go fast
Quiet, listen, and create your life
About two months ago I quit my job. I struggled with the decision to leave for a long time. I was a Senior Manager in an Operations Strategy role at a multi-billion dollar consumer products company leading an international eight person team. We created and rolled out a lot of cool and innovative programs in areas that I care about — Organizational and Leadership Development, Supply Chain Sustainability, Supplier Relationship Management, etc. I was offered a promotion to Director and would have been one of the youngest at the company. But staying meant relocating somewhere I really did not want to live. It meant making a huge personal sacrifice that just didn’t feel right. And so I left without knowing exactly what I was going to do next.
Google “Should you quit a job before having a new one?” and you’ll find some differing perspectives. Some will tell you it should be avoided at all costs. Unemployment looks suspect to recruiters and the longer you’re on the job market, the more deeply you’ll spiral into the inevitable dark hole of the unemployable. Others will say, it’s better to leave a job you hate than be miserable, and that it’s much more culturally acceptable today to job-hop, detour, and pause than it was back in the days of “The Organization Man”. Few talk about how taking time off or slowing down between big ventures can actually be a formula for success.
I have lots of really smart, capable friends and former colleagues that wouldn’t dare leave a job before lining up a new one even though they’d probably be swiftly swept off the job market. I respect them and they may think I’m crazy. I’m not really advocating for one versus the other. There are obviously serious financial and personal considerations to being unemployed and while I’m by no means wealthy I do have a safety net to fall back on if disaster struck. But I will say, that for me, slowing down and not racing onto the next job, has been a way to find work that’s more fulfilling. It helps me create the life I want instead of just living the life I have.
Before graduating from Washington University in 2004, I had accepted a job at a consulting company. The summer before my Senior year, my dad decided to light a fire under my bum and asked how I was planning to support myself when I graduated. He lovingly declared that he and my mother would no longer be financing my life. “You’re on your own baby.” This little motivational speech worked. How was I going to support myself? I was terrified. And so I kicked the job search into high gear and succeeded.
By 22 I was wearing suits in business class and coaching executives that had been working for longer than I’d been alive. It was a great job for me in many ways, but because I had sped into it with such abandon, I hadn’t taken the time to reflect on and explore what I really wanted to do. Was this my calling? What about my desire to “make a difference in the world”? Was I really only going to have three weeks vacation for the rest of my life? I felt pressure to make money but called to adventure and exploration. This is when I first experimented with the unconventional career journey. I saved my money, left my job, moved to Peru and spent about a year helping a group of women in an urban slum start a handicrafts cooperative.
While being off the reservation was energizing and in many ways fulfilling, it was also terrifying. Although I wanted my story to be of a young, fearless woman that goes off to South America and turns a dirt-floor manufacturing operation into a wildly successful multi-million dollar brand, I still longed for a sense of structure and direction. I missed my friends and family. And so while I was in Peru, I applied to business school and was accepted. Creaciones Nortenas, the cooperative we started, exported products to the US for a couple years and altered the course of a few women’s lives, but it never became a multi-million dollar venture. It was still a great chapter in my life adventure.
For any of you who have been to a top business school, you know that while it’s super stimulating, it’s a really hard place to reflect and gain deep insight on your calling or the direction you really want to take your life. There’s too many opportunities to take advantage of, too many interesting classes to take, too many ambitious people to meet, too many parties, and too much pressure to recruit for a job in Consulting or Finance or Brand Management. Coming from Peru, I was interested in Supply Chain Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing. I was interested in doing the work but also fascinated by what was required to lead change in organizations. While at MIT, I studied under Peter Senge and Ott Sharmer, two organizational and leadership gurus with deep commitments to improving the world through individual and organizational change. Although I was tempted by the structure and financial predictability of consulting and marketing, I resisted the lure of recruiting and found my way through some hard work, serendipity, and a really great mentor to the fantastic job that I just left, leading sustainability and organizational change initiatives at a major CPG.
In hindsight it looks obvious that things work out but when you’re amassing nearly $100,00 in loans and your friends are landing high paying jobs with a clear career trajectory, it’s not so obvious that listening to your inner wisdom, taking your time and following your interests is a smart strategy. I now find myself once again in that uncertain place. I have a feeling that things will work out, each time I’ve listened and leapt, it has. I’m building a consulting and coaching business in organizational and leadership development. I work with amazing people who are out to change themselves, their organizations, and the world. I feel lucky to being doing work I love and venturing into the unknown. I am also scared because I don’t have hindsight yet to reassure me. What I do have, though, is a sense of fulfillment and pride; I am courageous enough to dare to create my life.
