“I believe people should do what they loved to do when they were ten—the age before you start caring what others think.” –Joy Behar

The summer I turned ten, I decided I wanted to be a teacher who wrote books on summer vacation. By this ripe age, I had already setup a classroom, assigned seats, created roll and grade books, and annually promoted several of my over-achieving stuffed animal “students” to the next grade level. I had also written two very long stories about my cat Morris and the adventures of rural life. I knew that I was going to be a great teacher and author, and I spent that ten-year-old summer reading books, perfecting my novel, and helping my stuffed animal “students” prepare for their fifth-grade year. Then, school began. I hated my fifth grade school year. Over the course of that school year, my teacher systematically extinguished any desires I had to be a teacher or a writer—I simply wanted to escape her class.

With a broken vocational compass and an exceptionally inquisitive mind, I was in perpetual motion to find my perfect fit—in the perfect environment. I was seeking a soul-feeding place of inspiration—a place of beauty where I would feel like I was making a difference—and could utilize all of my strengths and talents. In other words, I was a career idealist—a high achiever who didn’t want to settle or waste time, someone who was straining to hear my soft intrinsic voice over the stadium roar of others.

To find perfection, I rushed through some industries at breakneck speed: retail, hospitality, banking, emergency services, horticulture, a government agency, and higher education. While with others, I took my time: human resources, consulting, mediation, and legal services. I took on academic pursuits in much the same way, resulting in transcripts littered with courses to fulfill a variety of possible majors: social work, sociology, and psychology. Then, I developed a vocational crush on legal services and I felt like I did when I was ten. I was sure I wanted to be a paralegal, help people find justice—and peace. It took a while to realize, but my vocational crush was not to be my great vocational love. In this field, I became a young woman who was floundering in legal jobs that didn’t fit. Unlike my younger self, I no longer quit when I knew it was not a fit; I stayed, but I was restless and hungry.  I was still a career idealist.

Then—my calling happened. After the birth of my son, I left the legal industry to work for a management consulting practice because it allowed me to stay at home with him for the first year of his life. The management consulting firm was not my calling, and neither were the human resources and the legal work I eventually went back to. My calling was what was happening when I was not at my 9-to-5. It began as my son’s diagnosis of sensory processing disorder, which did not fit into an overburdened, stressed out, inflexible system which had no answers but plenty of punishment, shame, and drugs. It began over nine years ago, when I started educational advocacy work for a twice-exceptional child in the public school system—with no help. It began in the child study, response to intervention (RTI), individualized education plan (IEP), and educational evaluation processes. It began with not accepting the standard, when my gut told me there was something better. It began with spending copious amounts of time researching, reading, and working with teachers, aides, administrators, and most importantly my son, to actually resolve issues.  My passion for answers drove me; the idea of his success kept me going. In short, having my son changed me.

It’s not until you intimately know your inner self, rely on your strengths, your intuition, and instincts—gather up all of that experience, inventory it, take the best the lessons—toss out the parts that don’t fit—that you find your true North, your calling, your great vocational love. So, after 15 years I’m trading the courtroom for a classroom with vigor and fear, but this….this is what the second half of my life will hold for me.

Here’s to loving what you do like you did when you were 10!!