A Creative Engineer = A Community Manager for Communities that Do

Figuring out what I do do has consumed the last, roughly, 15-ish years of my life.  In high school I took biology. I loved it. Then I spent the summer chasing salamanders, avoiding snakes and analyzing streams benthic macroinvertabrates to see how construction around the streams impacted water quality and from that knew I was definitely going to be an environmental biologist. That was until my mom had to schedule my classes because I was busy and I ended up in an advanced physics class. Math and science together – Yes! Yes! But what about biology? How could I do all of it? I was going to be a biophysicist. I went to college – I was accepted into two schools, but for ‘paperwork’, I was lumped into the engineers. I did the engineering curriculum and I struggled – I applied engineering logic to literature and women’s studies and I thrived. Little did I know that would be one of my strengths learning and reapplying frameworks in other scenarios. I went to graduate school, but with my eclectic skill set, I had no idea what I was going to be when I grew up much less how I’d explain it to people.

About the time that I was getting to that ‘oh shit what am I going to do with my life’ point, maybe two years ago?, I started following along with Michelle Ward, the When I Grow Up coach. I identified with Michelle because she made a big life decision to stop pursuing acting (her 20 year dream) and change course. When I found her she was already well on her way to building her biz as the When I Grow Up coach and I was in the process of changing course on a dream – leaving the idea of a Ph.D. and tenure track. Just reading Michelle’s blog, allowed me to have enough perspective on what was important in a career for me and it was reading her writing that I realized I am creative.  This led me to job opportunities and ultimately a day job that I love. Even with this, I still didn’t have a great answer to what is it I do.

The entire time I’ve known Michelle, I’ve wanted to work with her. It wasn’t until the end of this past summer that it actually worked out that I had the resources and time for one-on-one coaching. Going in: I knew I wanted to create a professional space on the internet for myself to record the things I’m learning and I knew I had a day job that supported a lot of my passions and strengths, but I knew I could do more. I didn’t think I was a typical client for Michelle, my craft is a little technical, but it turns out the creative medium doesn’t matter. Over the last twelve weeks, I have begun to create this corner of the internet that is mine. Posting on the blog 2x a week is a goal I set and have kept for four months. I have identified the initial set of services that I want to offer and right before my last official session with Michelle I posted them. I have developed systems that I implemented for ESIP and am better at my day job. The most exciting change is that I now have an answer for what it is I do that doesn’t include pauses and uhmms and topic changes. I support communities that do things with tools and methods both on the web and in person. I can deliver that line in 15 seconds on a subway train or in 15 hours during a three day workshop. I did all of this work myself, but I have to say Michelle Ward was the accountability partner, the sounding board, the coach and the reason that I didn’t stall out or let this dream go.