I was very lucky recently. A conversation from a man that I respect deeply, has grown into a business relationship that spanned the gap of my professional career, as well as my personal development and ventures. It’s helped build something special. It’s also allowed a dream that a certain individual had to become a reality. Let me talk about full circle though. Listen, I work in the corporate world, many of us do. We work the job, or the job works us, day in, day out. Eight to five, seven to five, six to six, putting in 40, 50, 60 hours weeks, working professionally for our careers and our families.
If you are like me, working on creating a legacy for ourselves and our children, with personal passion projects and ventures as well. I am one such man. As a professional for the last almost 30 years working in the corporate world, I found it to be both exhilarating and exhausting. Day in day out, working the monotony, unsure of my own path. I began the entrepreneurial one about two years ago. Blogging, podcasting, coaching, really taking the experience that I had and leveraging that to help others that were in a similar situation. That uncertainty led me to that path. Being within the corporate blinders, I really hadn’t seen things that were on the fringes.
Such as, the ability for people to create that lives and create their own messages and brands. Starting that entrepreneurial journey put me in touch with speakers, website developers, authors, you name it. It was very interesting, over the last year, the CEO of the organization that I work for had an idea to write a book about his father, and how he created a legacy for his sons and a brand that made a difference in the lives of others. I respect that man deeply, and his father. On a winter’s night driving out of Manhattan, as we were coming from an acquisition meeting, he mentioned this thought or idea to me of a book.
I reached out to some of the contacts, because he needed assistance with making this come to light. I was able to connect those two worlds together. A relationship formed, started, and continues. Today, I was actually part of that relationship. There was a filament that took place for me, seeing that relationship come to light. I think that’s really the crux of what I’m trying to get across here. Is that, we tend to go down these paths that we think are singular in nature, but it’s not, it’s circular. We repeat patterns, we repeat histories, continuously.
The circle here, going from my corporate world into my entrepreneurial one and back into my corporate world again, I was scared to see those two worlds touch and collide, initially. As time has gone on, I have no fear … Because I see the joy, excitement, and possibilities that exist with merging those two worlds. Harry Chapin wrote a song called “Circle”. One of the lyrics is, “All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown. The moon rolls to the nighttime, till the daybreak comes around.” Let’s think of ourselves in that circular motion. Constantly moving forward, yet, maintaining the relationships and the formative ideals that began us.
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Photo: Getty Images
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