Monster

Ever since I started off to become an entrepreneur, I never quite had a clear idea of the direction my career would take me. Rather than follow one set path or mission, I developed a habit of exploring each opportunity as it came, while learning the skill sets and disciplines required to excel in the given realm. This led to me having a very wide-breadth of experiences and learned skills along the way, which have compounded into a valuable occupation that pays my bills.

In some careers, people perform manual labor to earn a paycheck. At the end of the day, their body is exhausted from the work. In other occupations, such as mine, people exert their minds in just as strenuous of a fashion. While my body isn’t physically aching and tired at the end of a work sprint, my mind is.

Last week, I dealt with the most intense situation of my entire ‘career’, which resulted in a large number of hours coordinating with a client, their parent company, incident response teams and cybersecurity professionals – all working together to solve a problem. It’s a rare thing for me to be on a meeting with more than 2-3 people; however, during this crisis, I spent a great deal of time with 10 or more people on 1-3 hour-long calls that felt like marathons.

When it was all said and done, the root of the issue was found, problem solved and met with solutions, and a great sigh of relief was breathed by everybody involved – except for me, as I was uncertain if they were going to cut my contract as a result of the incident. It seemed very likely that in a circumstance like this, the parent company would simply take the services I provided and have their ‘in-house’ team manage them. Having a 4-5 year working realtionship with this client, I was on pins and needles.

See, after 4-5 years of working with a team of people, you do more than have a working relationship; you grow together as a team with shared values, vision and goals for the endeavor(s) you’re tasked with working on. People on this team have watched me grow into fatherhood, and I’ve watched their own team become parents during our time working together. To me, it’s not just a contract – it’s a relationship.

Today, I received the email…which started with “In light of recent events” – at which point, I felt a tightening in my gut. Was this it? I read the email three times before I was able to process it fully. It wasn’t a cut. Rather, it was a move-forward email, as well as marching orders for the client to provide me with a company email to enhance security protocols, with reassurance that our working relationship will not change.

I felt a million fireworks go off in my mind after I got that email. My first thought was “I need to take Atlas out to celebrate.”

Before picking him up, I did a final check-up on the 944. Ever since getting her in November, I’ve had an issue with exhaust fumes coming into the car when the windows are down; the car creates a suction from the difference in pressure, pulling in the exhaust into the cabin. As a result, I’ve had to drive with the windows up, to maintain cabin air pressure.

Over the weekend, my trustworthy mechanic came to install a new fuel pump in the 944. While installing it, he pointed to a few holes in the wheel-well of the car, used for drainage. “I think that’s where your exhaust smell is coming from” he said.

Using tape to patch the holes, I also installed some weather stripping around the edge of the rear hatch to tighten the seal, hoping to elilminate the smell once and for all.

Due to the nature of the client incident, I wasn’t in the mind-space to take the 944 out over the weekend and perform the ‘windows down’ test. Why? Because I didn’t have any room left in me for something else ‘not working’ after being so bogged down with the client ‘fire’.

As I got ready to get Atlas, I decided that it was finally time to face the inevitable and see if the car could be driven with the windows down. After getting it up to speed on the local roads, I nervously cracked the windows – while positioning a carbon monoxide detector on the passnger seat.

No fumes.

I rolled them down all the way…to my delight, not a fume could be smelled. For a few brief minutes in time, I felt the wind blowing through my hair as I eagerly raced to pick up Atlas and celebrate the ‘good news’ Dad got today.

It was a moment I won’t forget for a long time. I’ve spent long hours working on the car, as well as mitigating the situation with the client, and it felt like a well-deserved victory lap.

When I first started my career, I had no idea what my ‘why’ or ‘what’ was. Today, I had a beautiful reminder of why I do what I do, as well as the joy in being able to share the fruits of my labors with the people I love the most as I drove Atlas to a local ice cream parlor to get whatever he wanted – he picked out a ‘blue monster’.

While I’m certain that there will be more storms in my life, I’m thankful to see one pass with such a clear indication that it is, in fact, over.

Tomorrow, I have the opportunity to speak on a panel with a large group of up-and-coming marketers, sharing career insights and life lessons to the next generation of professionals in my field. I used to be on the other side of the proverbial screen. However, I’m thankful to have earned my stripes, healed from battle wounds and carry the satisfaction that comes from a job well done.

Ice cream has never tasted so good.