You Make the Path by Walking
“Pathmaker, there is no path, you make the path by walking.” ~ Antonio Machado (1875-1939)
I have always been someone who had a difficult time answering that age old question- “What do you want to be when you grow up?.” It seemed I had broad strokes of an idea, but the details were always a little fuzzy. As an example, I knew that coming out of highschool, where I had focused on Math and Sciences, I wanted to study Arts at University. I found myself pouring over the university calendar, reading it cover to cover (back when it was only found in print!) trying to build a list of courses I wanted to take. I didn’t declare a major until my final year- not sure of what I wanted to do next, but taking all the prerequisites for further studies in Education in case I wanted to return sometime later to become a teacher.
After spending a few years as an administrator in a small software engineering firm, I did return to school to complete my education degree. Fast forward a decade-- 10 years of rich teaching experiences, 2 kids, and one divorce later-- my changing life circumstances found me heading into career number two.
My brother-in-law and I were sitting together at a conference, one afternoon in 2011, and heard Verne Harnish- entrepreneur and founder of the Growth Institute and Scaling Up- say, “Your best HR leader is a former kindergarten teacher.”
Hearing this, my brother-in-law turned his head in my direction and cocked an eyebrow as if to say, “Are you ready?”
At the time, he was in need of an HR manager to support the growth and development of his businesses and I needed a schedule that could be more flexible than a classroom teacher’s to support my needs as a single co-parent to my young boys. I took my brother-in-law up on his challenge and made the switch. I brought my passion and experience for supporting human development, honed over years spent in the classroom, and my job knowledge of business administration to my new career in human resources and loved the new challenge I had found.
5 years later, with kids growing up and heading into middleschool, I found myself yearning for the opportunity to continue to expand my professional world. I missed regularly being in front of groups and out from behind a computer, so I crafted a plan to backfill my HR role at a few of the companies I supported, creating the space for me to return to teaching part-time. This move definitely earned me a few raised eyebrows, puzzled looks and questions that resembled, “But what are you going to be when you grow up?”.
From the outside, those around me couldn’t see what I had most recently discovered on the inside. I had heard of this thing called coaching, had met a few individuals I admired who I later learned were coaches and had begun devouring every free or fairly cheap coaching resource I could find as a test to see if this was something I could really do.
I couldn’t ignore my intense curiosity and suspicion that supporting individuals and teams with realising their fullest potential- whether in the office, in the classroom or at home- is what I loved the most about every role I had taken on. I also couldn’t ignore my burgeoning realisation that coaching was the way to being able to do more of what I loved everyday. So in 2018, I again returned to university to officially begin my 3rd career. This time, supporting leaders and teams as a coaching practitioner.
It has been a process-- of following my instincts, inspirations, interests, working within the limitations of my circumstances and being blessed with opportunities-- to carve my personal, curvy and sometimes meandering path. Only after I spent time walking did I truly understand Machado’s adage, ‘Pathmaker there is no path, you make the path by walking.’
It is a joy to bring my personal and professional experience to the foundations of the career coaching program at Inspired Results Group and accompany others for a brief period, walking alongside, as they carve the path that’s right for them. For more information about our career coaching programs, or to book a discovery call with me, please use this link. I welcome an opportunity to connect!
By Adele Fraser, BA BED CPHR PCC IRG Associate Coach