What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I was a child, I am positive my answer to ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ was either a princess or an actress. I’m 100% sure my response would not have been ‘I want to be a Principal Solution Architect’. I don’t think the industry (Risk Management Information Systems) even existed at the time. And for a child, your knowledge of career choices are decidedly limited. The next time you get asked that question is your senior year in high school and your senior year in college. After that, you are in work mode, and while you may ask yourself that question in private, it is rare that you can act upon it because of your responsibilities (or because you’re too scared to change careers/start over – life is about risk management).

My first job out of college was as a claims adjuster in Richardson Texas. Claims adjusting is a great first job. As a claims adjuster I learned how to estimate the value of a claim. I learned how to talk to people from all walks of life. I learned how to negotiate. And I concluded it after a few years that it was not the job for me as I found myself becoming very very cynical. I did build off this foundation and ultimately landed in the RMIS space. But was it what I wanted to be when I grow up? Maybe?

Fast forward to several conversations I’ve had with friends and family members since my last day at Origami. The conversations are all variations of ‘now that you’re retired you can do what you want’ – which is what this entire blog is about — figuring out what I want to be/do now that I’m grown up. Do I want to work some more or move into volunteer work or learn how to play pickle ball? Inquiring minds want to know!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

It seems like a simple question, but if it had a simple answer you wouldn’t see so many life coaches floating around on LinkedIn and so many books on Amazon offering help to answer the question. Which also tells you that LOTS of people continue to ask themselves this question throughout their career and/or at retirement or when the current job isn’t panning out as expected. I personally have bought a few of these books and have hired a life coach too…but found with the books that I was rarely able to make it past the first few chapters. And with the life coach, I was entirely too cheap to continue to pay someone to ask me variations of that question over and over again.

The cynical side of me whispers ‘do you really think anyone wants to grow up to be a janitor?’. Sometimes work is work. Works is a means to an end. But here I am asking myself the question.

So I’ve started to break things down into likes and dislikes to see if something pops out.

…based on those lists, I created my own consulting company to do what I like to do, but as I my own boss. And maybe slow down and smell some roses instead of being chained to my laptop all. day. long.

I’d still like to find a way to give back to the community. Perhaps my next post will be about volunteering.

Thanks for listening…and any advice is greatly appreciated!