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Work, life and things in between – Day 81 – Hard to stand out!

Work, life and things in between – Day 81 – Hard to stand out!

OK.  Time’s up! It will be 4 months tomorrow that I am on sabbatical.  Time to start making a living and earning an income again!

Kind of.

Making plans, thinking big, seeing opportunities, this is all the easy stuff.  Standing out of the crowd, being special and different than anyone else, that is the real challenge.

With that in mind, the first thing I got that morning was an e-mail from another Executive search firm . This one in Vancouver this time. They were asking me if I was interested to pursue an Executive HR opportunity.

Rats! Did I need to be challenged that way on day one of my new mind set? Come on!

I wanted an Executive HR position like a drug addict wants a fix.  Did I miss the deadlines, the pressure, the commuting, the lack of time, the over powering agenda and workload, the endless crisis, the quarterly pressure of the earnings per share performance? Hell no!

Did I miss the strategic thinking? The visionary discussions?  The conflict resolution, the “let’s get our heads together and solve this”, the “can you help me work this through”?  The “where do we want to be 5 years from now?”  Oh Yeah!

Did I make a commitment to myself to find time to write, to focus on areas of my job I loved more than others and excelled at? Yep!

Did I decide to try to establish myself in both Vancouver and Montreal so that I could keep alive the 2 loves of my life, namely; my loved ones (Tem, family and friends) and the city I live in? Yep again!

So, on that basis, an HR Executive position that will tie me to a desk 60 hours a week in a single location matched my need just about as well as a square peg fits in a round hole I figured.

Why I needed to run through that list to remind myself of it all? I am not sure.  Lack of conviction perhaps? The fear that what I wanted was unreasonable (whoever ruled on what is and what is not I am not sure..!) the guilt around wanting to have my cake and eat it too?  Damn right!

I still did not answer the e-mail right away….I chose to hold on to it for a little bit longer.  Somehow, the devil you know always looks much better than the one you don’t.

Not answering right away allowed me the luxury to pretend a little longer…as if I would not have to rule on this in the end somehow! To day 82.