A Birthday Reflection

The other day I was on the train platform heading into the city, and I found myself fixated on something I've seen thousands of times: a key card.

Granted, I probably looked like a weirdo staring at it, but nonetheless…

It was clipped to one of those retractable lanyards, hanging off his belt on the right hip.

That was the exact spot I used to wear mine, back when I had a key card. Back when I worked for someone else.

Seeing it on this stranger shot me into a time warp, in the way a song from your youth transports you back to when you listened to it as a kid.

What came back to me wasn't the warm fuzzies. It was a gigantic ball of stress.

For the last four or five years of my time working in television, I was not-so-quietly miserable.

While there were many day-to-day headaches that came with the paycheck, it wasn't those hoops I had to jump through that made me feel that way.

I just knew, deep down, that I was pouring my time, effort and creativity into the wrong thing. There was something else underneath, something more aligned with how I wanted to spend my time on the planet, and I didn't know what it was.

So, I did the responsible thing and kept showing up for work.

Standing on that platform, I remembered exactly how that felt. The what's next for me question running in my mind day after day, as the burnout compounded.

Here's the thing I didn't understand back then. The answer was already showing up. I just thought it was a hobby.

During the downtime on the show, I'd pull up YouTube and teach myself photography.

And then on the weekends, I would shoot people and places for fun. It was just a creative outlet that allowed me to go in any direction I pleased without someone telling me what to do.

It was quite liberating… and that passion for this creative hobby morphed into something more.

Eventually I quit and announced to myself that I was going to be a professional photographer… with absolutely no idea what that actually meant.

I just jumped out the window and was building the parachute as I was nosediving to the ground.

And I hit that pavement hard.

For the first five years on my own, I flailed like a fish out of water, trying everything to find my way in this new world.

But somewhere in the flailing, the shape finally came into focus, and I found the work I do now, helping experts be seen for who they actually are.

So I'm standing on this platform, staring at this damn key card, feeling all the feelings come back.

And then it hits me that I'm standing at the edge of the same feeling again.

Because now, I'm at another tipping point. The shape of what comes next for my life and business, I genuinely don't know.

On one hand, the not knowing scares the shit out of me. On the other, it's exactly where I want to be. Both, at the same time. That's the part nobody warns you about. The fear and the thrill are relatives, not rivals. They show up together, and you learn to dance with both of them at the same time.

But the key card reminded me of something I'd lost track of. I've done this before.

I stood at this exact edge once, with no map and no clue what the thing even was, and I found my way to it anyway. The not-knowing didn't take me out. It was the cost of admission to a life where I get to do my thing in the way I want to do it.

So, if there's one thing I've actually learned in 48 years, it's this:

I will never have it all figured out. The goalposts move as time marches on.

And I've made a strange kind of peace with that. The figuring-it-out isn't a one-and-done phase you complete. It evolves as you do.

The difference this time is that I'm not doing it alone.

This time I'm surrounded by colleagues and friends who are generous with their time, who keep showing me the things I can't see for myself, and who catch me when the frustration and confusion get to be too much.

That's what I'm most grateful for on my birthday: the people helping me discover and shape the next version of myself, even though I can't quite see it clearly yet.

If you're one of them, thank you. You have no idea how much your support means to me.

48 years old, with no detailed gameplan but surrounded by good people?

Who's better than me right now :)