Last week I publicly announced I was quitting my job as Digital Marketing Evangelist at Marketo … without a new job lined up … and without an idea of what I wanted to do next. I needed to rediscover my passion.
Moments after sharing the news with the world, my life changed. My inbox, phone, IM, and every social media channel absolutely blew up. I could not keep up with people contacting me offering me a job. It was Out. Of. Control.
Or not.
Sure, I received lots of encouraging comments on my Facebook post when I announced. And yeah, a boatload of “likes” from yesterday’s “Officially unemployed. Time to rediscover my PASSION.” update. But I have not been inundated with people reaching out to me.
And that’s a good thing. A very very good thing.
As I mentioned in the May 29 post,
I need some time to clear my head. I need some time to really think. I need some time to re-discover my passion, re-discover what I really love work-wise and where I want my career to go. I need some time to exercise, to cook, and to spend quality time with my family. I need time to figure out what’s next.
8 days after making my news public, I’m ready to rediscover my PASSION. Today is Day 1.
I’m not the kind of person who sits around doing nothing. I tackle life with 100% of my energy. Day 1 of #RediscoverMyPassion is no different. (Yes, I just hashtagged that. Yes, I love hashtags. Yes, I know it’s a bit odd. No, I will not apologize for it. Ha!). I woke up at 5:45 this morning. I was wide awake (Ok. To be fair, our dog woke me up). Either way, I was up. I had breakfast. I played with my kids. I had a real conversation with my wife. I then dropped my kids off at school at 7:45 – the earliest time in months – and rushed back to the house.
It’s time to rediscover my passion and I can’t wait to get started.
So What Happens Now?
I started today with getting back to the one thing I know I love – recording episodes of The Work Talk Show with my buddy Nick Westergaard. We chatted it up with Beverly Flaxington and Simon T. Bailey. I have a prep call for a conference I’m speaking at in San Diego in a few weeks. Then, I’m going to go on a run. I mean, it’s never too late to train for this race, right?
Then, it’s time to tackle the items on my list. Yeah, I’m a list guy. I started a “Finding My Passion” Evernote list about a week ago.
The categories are as follows:
- Non-Work Things To Do – A big list which includes things like going to a weekday A’s game with my 4-year old, running, helping our contractor demo our downstairs bathroom, and brewing beer. Basically, all of the things I have wanted to do but keep making excuses not to. No more excuses!
- People To Meet With / Call – I have 2 G+ chats, 3 Skype video calls, an 4 in-person meetings set up for next week already. No job interviews. Just … conversations.
- Ideas To Explore – This list is a bit shorter, but has “big rock” items on it including … wait for it … writing a book, filming a documentary, starting a video site, and more. Scary, yet exciting stuff!
- Next Job Ideas – This is my “brainstorm” list of things I *think* I want my next job to include. Still very much a work in progress.
- Companies – Nothing concrete here AT ALL. Merely a short list of companies who have caught my eye for some reason or another.
- Articles to Read / Videos to Watch – This list includes anything from Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech to an Atlantic article on teaching kids to daydream.
My goals over the next few weeks/months? Have fun. Open my mind. Rediscover my passion. And keep working at it until I’m happy.
Thank for reading. Thanks for following along. Thanks for believing in me.
More … soon.
[…] If you’re interested in a bit of the backstory on how this podcast came to be, check out why I quit my job in early June 2014 as well as how I’ve been going about rediscovering my passion. […]