Ambition and the (bullshit) notion of career

Can I be both wildly ambitious and soft?

I walk into the living room of a woman I met on the internet a week ago. It's the middle of a work-day and more unknown women are lounging on couches and pillows on the floor when I enter. Women from a facebook group that I'm meeting in real life for the first time. A situation that in my world qualifies as "way out of comfort zone" and surely would have had my pre-softness heart racing in my chest.

I settle on a pillow on the floor, breathe and flash my best extrovert smile. We have tea, homemade cake, and fall into easy conversation. Conversation quickly turns deeper and I hear myself sharing with these complete strangers my desire to be more vulnerable, my struggles around health and work addiction, my awkwardness around meeting new women.

When I get home that afternoon, I realize that I have absolutely no idea what any of these women do for a living, and it seemingly never occured to one of us to ask.

Usually when we meet new people we’re tempted to say: ‘What do you do?’ We’re buying into the idea that people's identities are very linked to their daily tasks, and it somehow helps to categorize new acquaintances into neat little boxes in our brains. I have to admit, I did catch myself observing the women's clothing style for a hint of possible categorization. I couldn't care less about fancy clothing brands but my brain apparently needed something to hold onto, and I blushed when I noticed.

It made me wonder, what would I have replied if these woman had asked me 'what I do for a living'?

It would go something like this: "I help impact founders with their finance and strategy and I write occasional funding proposals, but mostly I sit on my favorite chair in my new garden with a homemade chai (and the sweet nostalgia of my previous company Frank about tea) and I think about things, a lot of things.

I think about how I show up as a woman in the world, I think about the serious damage I inflicted on my relationship with my addiction to the startup hustle, I think about how to sustain myself financially to continue to sit on mentioned garden chair and figure out this new favorite pastime called writing.

But I suppose no one is really waiting for such an answer to a rather simple question..

We're conditioned to be smart, clear and efficient about the choices we make in our professional lives, in order to build a so-called career. Recently I find myself wondering what 'a career' even means to me? I wonder if my ambitions have changed, and whether it is possible to still be wildly ambitious and move more into my softness?

For unknown reasons or perhaps genius foresight, I was pretty anti-career right out of university and deliberately made choices that were certainly not linear (from working in media sales to moving to Ghana for cacao research), did not fit within one industry, and did not pay me well (well that one I do regret). I wish I could say an early insight that fulfilment would not come from my job title or bank account drove me, but that would be a lie. I was driven mostly by fear.

The fear to be considered an average and reasonable young woman. Complacency was my worst nightmare...

My identity became one of 'anti-'; anti-corporate, anti-money, anti-settling. Trying to convince myself that following a non-conventional path alone would be enough to self-actualize and find eternal happiness. Completely ignoring that the need to prove myself to others was at the driver's seat of my life, not authenticity.

What is driving my 'career' choices today? What happens when I let softness be my guide? So far I've noticed this.

I've started chasing freedom above anything else.

Work for me has become closely intertwined with the choice for a way of life that doesn't include going to an office or having set working hours. In order to make that possible, I am forced to look at my ambitions with a lot more softness. This has meant disentangling myself from job titles and external validation, yet being crystal clear about what it is that truly drives me and keeping my compass pointing North.

View from my laptop

Some days I wonder whether or not I'm taking a huge risk by leaving the traditional 'work scene' behind and moving into nature. As my professional progress becomes less measurable by lack of titles, payslips or comparison to colleagues, I’m forced to rely on parameters like intuition. No longer sitting behind my laptop 8 hours a day requires me to trust that I'm 'doing' enough and that there is such a thing as the universe supporting me behind the scenes.

Softness asks me to believe that things are always in motion, whether or not I'm in the 'doing'.

The 'doing' of ambition is what I'm used to. If I want x, I go after x by doing whatever it takes and pushing through. This has often resulted in staying with things, projects, people long past their expiry date.

I wonder if qualities like resilience and perseverance don't perhaps bring us further away from the things that are truly meant for us, that we're ready for in a particular season of our life. Pushing through the resistance might bring us closer to pre-set goals, but for all one knows further away from our true ambitions.

When I think of ‘career’, I think about how much time we spend working and when I think about how I want to spend my time in this life, I inevitably think about arriving at my death bed at some point. And without getting too morbid on you, the question arises: Is how I spend my time motivated by what I expect people will say at my funeral, or by what I would like them to say at the end of my brief human existence?

I know for a fact what I don't want people to say, and it goes something like this:

"Valerie dedicated her life to [x-corporation] as CEO, increased shareholder value and drove the organization to profitability; a remarkable achievement (for a woman). Of course that meant she didn't have time for long daily walks in nature, lazy morning teas in the garden with her man and playdates with her two children. But her kids did grow up to be strong and successful thanks to the example of a hardworking resilient mother that battled the masculine powers in the boardroom every single day, proving to the world that she could". 🙃

In the end, I don't believe it's about making a particular career choice (corporate or not), it's about questioning and reexamining the choices we do make in the name of our 'career'. Is my choice driven by conditioning, or is it authentic to me? I've felt this examination to be a lot easier from a place of calm and softness..

I admit I am still hesitant telling my social networks that I'm not busy busy anymore and yes I still get occasional workaholic withdrawal symptoms when I look at all the free space in my calendar these days.

Does this mean I'm less ambitious?

The answer inside of me is clearly NO. I'm perhaps more ambitious and clear headed than ever.

My newfound ambition roots itself in authenticity, and yes that sounds great in theory but admittedly harder in practice. Ambition goes on to become more intangible, slower, softer. It's harder to give it a label, fit into a neat box, and post about on Linkedin. Authentic ambition asks us to let go of traditional notions of career, and to rely on intuition instead of what makes sense to the outside world. Yes, that feels uncomfortable at times.. but also oh so right and exciting!

To be soft is to be strong (and ambitious) 🤘🏽

Love, Valerie

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My favorite quote this month (an oldie but relevant as ever)

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." – Albert Einstein

My favorite book this month

None, because I spent most of my time unpacking boxes...

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