When I was in college, I volunteered as a reading tutor for elementary school kids in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Central Virginia. Having experienced poverty myself as a child, I felt a special kinship with my students as we worked through the reading lessons each week. Soon, I found out that the people who ran the tutoring programs weren’t actually volunteers themselves – it was their JOB to find tutors to help these kids and they took home a steady paycheck for doing this work.
That’s pretty much the moment everything changed for me in my professional life.
I realized that you could get paid for doing good work. You could actually make a living by helping people. And ever since then, that’s been my ultimate goal for my career. To be able to share my unique gifts with the world and help others in their leadership journeys.
No matter what industry you may be in, most of us have some type of story about how we got into our current career field. Most of us can remember that moment or period in our professional lives when everything changed in our understanding of what we were good at or passionate about. Some people even recall being “called” to their professions, citing a compelling spiritual or emotional power that led them into their current work. You may be thinking now of that lightbulb that went off in your head at some point and made you realize that XYZ is truly what you want to do.
What was that moment like for you?
As for me, my volunteer tutoring experiences started me on a path to paid work in the nonprofit sector – research and communications for a new youth program, grant proposals for community development agencies, technical assistance for small nonprofits, fundraising for a membership association, leadership development for future CEOs and now consulting. I’ve dipped my toe in many different organizational missions and areas of expertise, but my overall goal has always stayed the same. It’s always been in line with the spirit of that moment in my professional life when it became clear to me that I wanted my work to help people in some way.
Why the trip down memory lane? Well, I’ve found that what’s great about reminiscing about what brought you here in the first place (wherever the “here” is for you) is that it can provide affirmation that you are, in fact, doing the right work. It can also bring clarity for where you want to go next and how you might get there.
So tell me, what was the moment when everything changed for you in your professional life? Or are you still waiting for it?
