I was 14 when I got my first real paycheck. I'd been cutting lawns in the neighborhood since I was 11, but this was the first time anyone paid me by the hour. It was $3.35 an hour at a family-owned ice cream store in Western New York. That was a few years ago. Okay, quite a few.
After undergrad, I went to work for a nonprofit and found a lot of meaning and energy there. A couple of years in, I moved to a larger nonprofit doing significant work, and for a stretch of my life it had me living all over the world. When I think about scooping ice cream at 14 and then helping provide resources for orphaned children in India, the difference in how I felt about my work is easy to see. I was helping change the lives of some dear young people. That kind of work stays with you.
In my early 30s, I helped start a nonprofit with a few other families, and I loved that too. At the same time, I was starting my own for-profit companies. The two worlds are very different from each other, and I learned a great deal in both. A few years ago I stepped away from the nonprofit space and now work only in for-profit, though I still sit on a nonprofit board and enjoy it.
Looking back, I've left a number of places, and I want to be clear about why. The people weren't bad. The work wasn't unimportant. It came down to alignment. Here's how I think about it. Alignment is two paths running side by side. When they start to pull apart, you're out of alignment. Every time I moved on, I had been feeling that pull for a while before I was ready to admit it. Nobody was right or wrong. I was just in a different place than the organization was.
The older I get, the less room I have for people or organizations I don't line up with. I hope that doesn't sound like I think I'm smarter or better than anyone. I don't. I just don't find energy in what they're doing, and I've learned to be honest about that. Earlier in life, I didn't always have the luxury of walking away. Sometimes I needed the income. Sometimes I liked being connected to a name people respected. Well, I still have to manage my ego. It's in a very different place than it was earlier on in my career. Now I'm much more willing to say no, even to meaningful opportunities, when I'm not aligned with the people or the organization behind them.
I think this is mostly a second half of life thing. My ego is still very real, but it doesn't drive the way it used to. Back then, my ego wanted safety and security. It cared what other people thought, how a company made me feel, how an organization would look on my resume. These days, I like the idea that less is more.
I'm also a lot less interested in being noticed. In my 20s and 30s, I think I wanted that. Now I'm in my 50s, and I find myself trying to stay out of the spotlight. I hardly post on social media. This blog is about the only place I share much of anything.
What gives me energy now is helping people and being a small part of what they're doing to change the world. I have a friend in India I've known for almost 40 years. We check in every month and talk about work we might do together someday. It excites me, because I get to take a lifetime of learning, and plenty of mistakes, and hopefully use them to help someone else.
So if there's one thing I'd pass along, it's this. Every so often, look at the people walking beside you and ask whether you're still headed in the same direction. If you are, stay and give it everything you've got. If you're not, you're allowed to say thank you and go your own way. Nobody has to be wrong for that to be true.
Alignment is like a compass. When you feel unaligned, then it's possible you're heading the wrong direction. That might be the time to change course.
