Photo by Carson Arias on Unsplash
I’m not sure what to write right now. I’m sitting on an airplane at Logan international airport, waiting for my plane to depart. It’ll be a quick flight back to New Jersey and I cannot wait to get back home. That’s such a funny thing about traveling, isn’t it? I can enjoy being away, seeing new cities and meeting new people all while simultaneously missing everything back home.
I love trying new places. I also love going to the same coffee shop every day.
I love getting to speak on stage. I also love not speaking to anyone.
I love getting to have interesting conversations with new people. I also love getting to build meaningful relationships with people I already know.
I think it’s good that all of these things can be true. It’s also good that I don’t have to choose.
At the conference I was speaking at this week I met a lot of great people who asked me what I do, which is a surprisingly hard question for me to answer because I’ve always been told I have to pick one thing. The general advice for speakers and networking is that I needed a niche, one sentence that was crystal clear: hi I'm Kristen, and I do X.
The thing is, much like how I feel about traveling and being at home, I don’t want to have to choose. I want to be able to help organizations adopt technology and I want to be able to do leadership development. I want to have my personal growth blog, and my professional development blog, and maybe I’ll throw a technology blog into the mix. I want to pursue more opportunities in the Microsoft space while also working on other technology and tools.
Research on multiple workplace identities suggests that having more than one professional identity is not inherently a disadvantage; what matters is whether we experience those identities as being in conflict or as enhancing one another.
My time alone gives me the energy for my time on stage.
My time away from home makes me appreciate my home that much more.
My work with training, change management and technology gives me more experience that shapes the leadership training I deliver.
If you’ve ever, like me, struggled to pinpoint who you want to be in this world, here’s a little encouragement to stop trying and to start embracing every last piece of who you are.
