To Find Your Career Sweet Spot, Ask: What Can't You Help But Do?
A few weekends ago, I facilitated a staff retreat for a team of scientists and engineers from an innovative medical device startup. As we got to know each other over dinner, the CEO asked me: "So Carole Ann, how did you come to coaching?"
The answer is simple: It all started with a red chair.
Rewind to my mid-twenties, when I was feeling lost and directionless, without a career path. Compared to my peers, I felt behind, and I was struggling. A wise mentor/friend pressed a copy of Parker Palmer's book, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation into my hands.
Palmer writes: “Vocation at its deepest level is, 'This is something I can't not do, for reasons I'm unable to explain to anyone else and don't fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling.'"
Following Palmer's guidance, I asked myself: What is it that I can't help but do? At the time, I supervised a team of 15 AmeriCorps members in a year of national service at a museum.
Next to my desk, there was an empty red chair. The team members would plop down in this chair and talk with me throughout the day. Sometimes they'd cry and ask for advice, sometimes they'd tell me a funny story about an interaction with the kids out in the exhibits, and sometimes they'd want a thought partner to think through a problem.
Even though this chair/these chats were nowhere in my job description, they were my favorite part of the job. They were something I couldn't help but do.
I got curious and broke down what was actually happening when team members sat in the chair:
I created a safe space and the trust/rapport to figure things out
one on one conversations
grappling with questions
mentoring
personal and professional growth
reflection
These were all clues that eventually led me to a profession that brings that red chair to the center: coaching.
Just last week, a new client told me about her stalled path in nonprofit fundraising—the last two jobs were definitely not her thing. "I just have no idea what I'm meant to do," she told me.
Together, we started to zero in on the things that she can't help but do: organize and host a 50's themed Valentine's Day brunch for her friends, decorate her home on a budget, design and print beautiful invitations for fundraising events. A theme emerged: Aesthetics. As it turned out, she DID have an idea of what her thing is—the clues were there along. Now we're following this thread to explore all kinds of professional opportunities that are truly exciting for her (and she has incredible talents for!).
If you're longing to find your sweet spot—to discover your thing, take a step back and ask yourself: What can't I help but do? Where are the red chairs in my life?
