Do You Have to Leap...Or Can You Grow?

Every few months I have an intense, wide-ranging phone conversation with my friend Robert Bengston.  This week one of the many topics we talked about was how you move from one stage of your life to the next.  And the way we framed the issue was: Do you have to take a leap, or can you grow there?

I've taken several big professional leaps in my life.  When I decided to leave journalism so that I could work directly to help people who were homeless instead of just writing about their plight, I sold my car to finance a job search in the nonprofit sector.  Seven years later, when I was ready to move on from social services in order to focus on how technology could transform nonprofit management, I quit my job and trained my replacement while I was waiting to learn if I would be accepted into business school.  And seven years after that--apparently I run on seven-year cycles--I resigned another leadership position to launch my executive coaching and consulting practice.

In each of these cases I felt that I had to take a leap in order to get where I wanted to be.  I'd climbed a ladder with some success and had done some very rewarding work along the way, but that ladder was no longer headed in the direction I wanted to travel.  And so I just...jumped off.

I had support from plenty of sources--most of all from a wife who believed in me--and I'm well aware of the many advantages I enjoy that allowed me to leap knowing that even a crash-landing would be somewhat cushioned.  But I was still scared, and I still lost sleep wondering if I'd made a rash decision.

And yet in every case the leap paid off.  After selling my car I landed a job working for a woman who would be the best mentor I ever had.  After leaving social services I was accepted into Stanford (and although I explored a lot of different career paths during my two years there, after graduation I became the first Executive Director of the Nonprofit Technology Network, a job that could have been scripted from one of my b-school admission essays.)  And after leaving management to launch my coaching practice, I had the opportunity to return to Stanford as a Leadership Coach, and the past three years there have been the most gratifying experience in my professional life.

But despite these positive outcomes, I've also realized (with Robert's help) that I'm done leaping.  I've found my calling--my vocation--in coaching over these last three years, and with that knowledge has come a sense that I'm no longer climbing a ladder; instead, I'm growing.  I'm certainly not free from status anxiety, but I know that there's no relief to be found on a higher rung--or on another ladder, for that matter.  Wherever my life is headed over the long run, I now feel that I can grow there.

For me that means: 1) people who come into my life on a regular basis--weekly, at times--who share my values and my passions and who expand my professional universe; 2) the knowledge that every day I'm doing work that brings out my best self--not every minute of the day, by any means, but enough that I'm wondering if 10,000 hours is within reach; and 3) the awareness that my personal and professional development are intertwined--to develop as a coach, I have to continue to develop as a person.

So where are you going?  And do you have to leap...or can you grow?

Photo of Martin Puryear's "Ladder for Booker T." by p a h.  Photo of dahlias by zedzap.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Comments

[John]

Great post Ed...your transparency regarding your life journey is refreshing and I'm sure will be an encouragement to many.

[edbatista]

Thanks, John--I appreciate the kind words. I love the phrase "transparency about my life journey"--it perfectly captures what I'm striving for in my writing and in my coaching.

Ed

[Rodney Johnson]

Ed, I've experienced a similar evolutionary path. About every seven years I've jumped. Part out of desire, part out of need. Just the same, I jumped. Out of this process, I know how to jump with some degree of confidence and certainty. Most times, I jumped higher, not across. Thank goodness, I know how to jump. At the same time, I feel sorry for those being challenged, know they need to jump, but they don't know how. Yes, it is a good thing to at least intuitively know how to jump.

[Brendan]

Next mini jump: going to Bschool, Oxford, focusing on social entrepreneurship.

My transitions seem like leaps (engineer - development worker - masters student - NGO Country Director - MBA student), but viewed from higher altitude they fit into a broader transition. Maybe yours do too.

Good thoughts.
Brendan

[Wendy Mason]

I'm looking for great blogs to possibly emulate and this is just brilliant - now I'm realising just how far I have to go!

By the way for me learning to write blogs is yet another transition at a very, very late stage in my life

[Ed Batista]

Thanks, Rodney--I believe that people who feel a need to take a leap but find themselves unable to do it are constrained less by a lack of knowledge than by an inability to grant themselves permission.

Thanks, Brendan--I do see my own leaps fitting into a larger pattern. It's not as though I was following a clearly defined plan, but it's interesting to look back and see how my choices opened certain options and closed others.

Thanks, Wendy--I appreciate the kind words. And I'm glad you're finding your voice in this new medium--I hope you're having fun with it!

[Yuri Weinstein]

Good points, Ed and very interesting to correlate with personal experience, and yes the "leap" concept makes a lot of sense.