Coffee with Colleagues: hard conversations

Purpose

Icebreakers, ugh! I always hated them. I wanted to get right to the point of whatever the icebreakers were supposed to lead to. I wanted depth. However, there was always one icebreaker that got me. Describe yourself, who are you? It usually came with the follow-up of, Describe YOU, not your responsibilities, not your titles, YOU. And without hesitation my answer was always the same: I am a writer. What that means to me is I see things, I digest them and truly contemplate their impact and I share that with anyone who wants to listen. I feeeeel things. More than I'd like to sometimes, but nonetheless, I feel.

All growing up, while my friends dreamed about future husbands and weddings and babies and careers, I dreamed about writing a book one day. I dirtied up countless notebooks and sketchbooks and scrap papers with thoughts about anything and everything you- and I- could imagine. Real stories, fake stories, poems, even a rap song or two (iykyk). Now, as I sit in retrospect and analyze my life and career that lay bare in front of me, I am finally giving in to the urge that has remained in the corners of every version of me. I am not sure where it will take me, but I am sure where it will start...

hard conversations.

I am a big advocate of knowing and understanding that life comes in seasons. For sake of symbolism, I would say my winter is finally coming to an end. I just left a job that I thought would serve me for years and years to come. I took a pay cut just to get out of the situation I felt myself succumbing to. And as I look back at that season that really morphed me and my new desires for my life and career, I can't help but repeat one thing. I wish I could have a few conversations. Not the shallow conversations around the water cooler, or at the bathroom sink. The conversations on the way home from work. The conversations behind closed doors.

The ones you have to go get coffee for.

Thus, here we are. My longwinded introduction to a new blog and podcast that I hope can serve many others who have walked this path or who have the capabilities to pave a new path. I want to provide a space for all of us navigating our professional development and dreams to have hard conversations, I know if I had the space to have done that, things would look differently for me. But conversations take two (or more) and oftentimes each participants' own insecurities, anxieties, and interests can cloud the room. So, for now, I'll be the only one in the room, having hard conversations about hard topics that made my life hard when so many things went unsaid. And you'll be in your room. And we will have coffee with colleagues all over the place.