On the search for answers to an inconvenient question: “What do you want to do?”
Meeting a lot of people is very inspiring. You hear many new ideas, listen to exciting stories, and very experienced “business people” share their opinions on various topics. You get to know insider stories, and a few people also share their fears and personal secrets.
As much as it is inspiring, the more people you meet, the more confusion is created in your head.
It is a two-sided sword.
On the one hand, you need external inspiration to get to new ideas. What can you learn from this story? How could I interpret this learning? Could I adapt this process to something else?
It is a true gift that you have time to do all that.
But at the same time, you get insecure. Wow, this is so great. Why did I not come up with this? Phew, this guy was so bright. How can I keep up with her or him?
And suddenly, there are too many ideas and options. What shall I focus on? How do I start to decide what I want to do, and in which direction should I head?
At the same time, you realize that no one can answer the most crucial question for you: what do you want to do?
Basically, everyone asked me this question during the meetings. And the more you hear it, the more you think about it. This keeps your head spinning.
And there comes the point where you are forced to answer a few inconvenient questions:
/ What am I good at?
/ What do I want to do?
/ What challenges can I solve?
/ Who is willed to pay for my service?
All this helps find an answer to the “what do you want to do?” question.
There are certain things you know pretty quick in such a process. Some general principles that help you to move ahead.
For me, they were straightforward:
/ I want to work with friendly people
/ I want to work with people who would like to change something
/ I want to work with people who dare to question themselves and their decisions
/ I don’t care about company size or fancy brand names
/ I want to create new things
/ I want to do several things at the same time and don’t want to be stuck “to one thing.”
/ I want to meet new people
/ I want to learn new things
/ I want to connect people in my network so that new things can emerge.
I think that’s it — quite a long list. But still, not an answer on “but what do you offer?”. Probably the most important question.
I will try to come up with a few good answers to it for the next edition of this newsletter 😎.
Thanks for reading
Jürgen
PS: you have an idea what my offer could be? Just drop me a line: j@alker.io.
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