2023 marks my 10-year anniversary as a consultant. My hope is that these career reflections will be helpful to the so.many.people who are in transition in this bold, bright year called 2023. I hope these resonate with how you may be feeling—because there is nothing more deafening than silence and the unknown of what the coming weeks will or will not bring.
The Body Knows What’s Right, Even if the Brain Resists
🪄 I do believe there are magic ingredients. I’m more skeptical that there is a magic recipe! Look critically at how you frame and talk about your journey to yourself. What self-criticisms are fair and what’s out of bounds and should be released? Accept failure. Get patient, really patient. Give things a chance to take shape and understand that sometimes you’re wasting your time (could be months or years!) but take those experiences with you. Make sure your hopes and expectations are reasonable. Care for yourself; create the psychic space to listen to what activities fire you up, give you goosebumps or strong feelings in your guts. NEVER ignore your bodily responses!
🎬 More than 10 years later, I’m returning more deeply to human centered design which started the community management chapter of my career working with SaaS product customer communities. This grew into the powers we all hold: the choice to act constructively or destructively—or both. I’m loving what the LUMA Institute methodology offers and am excited to be incorporating this into my services helping organizations find, recognize, foster and integrate creativity into their employee experience.
Personal Growth Always Seeps into the Professional
🧠 People are fascinating. In this past decade, I’ve waded into conflict resolution, non-violent communication, organizational development, change management, and human-centered design. I’ve gotten certifications in some of those areas to enrich all the ways I can help with any organization’s most precious and complex resource: its people.
❤️🔥 In my private life, I’ve been a dancer and a singer for a long time. The ability to create a sound frequency helped me while in a hospital after being hit by a car. My logical brain confirmed the injury but moved past the event much more quickly than my body. Months later, it was singing that escorted me from walker to cane to standing unaided to sing at a microphone (thank you California Jazz Conservatory Adult Ensemble Program for providing the stage) What you love will take care of you!
🫶 As part of the time for yourself, keep a “non-work” passion alive and name it as integral to your career. You have to have a balance of interests. Having the ability to give something to others, whether in a personal or professional context, is one of the greatest blessings of life.