A Place to Call My Own

These days I’m more of an improv kind of person and less of scripted one.

People around me want to nail down specifics. They want plans and knowing what’s going to happen.

At work: What’s the roadmap? What’s the sequencing? How much impact will this have?

At home: What are we going to do today? What’s the plan for the living room?

While other people want plans and answers and knowing what’s going to happen, I want a vague vision and the freedom to figure it out as I go along. I struggle sometimes to square my style with the reality that other people crave spreadsheets and timelines and certainty.

Don’t get me wrong: I firmly believe that different people with different perspectives and different ways of moving through the world makes us all better. I love when everyone leverages their unique gifts, allowing us to create something greater than the sum of our parts. I love building people up, I love building teams. I love collaboration. When I’m dead, my kids will put on my gravestone: “Teamwork makes the dream work.”

But I can’t tell you how excited I am for this place to call my own. A place that doesn’t require me to get stakeholder buy-in to make a decision about what to do next. A place where I have full license to listen to my own creative whims, to see where they carry me without plotting it all out ahead of time.

I don’t know where I’m going, but it feels damn good to be on my way.