Have You Found Your Area of Destiny?
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I attended Epicor Insights earlier this year and was given a free copy of Jack and Suzi Welch's The Real-Life MBA. In the book, the last section is about where your career is headed. They talk about finding your AOD (Area of Destiny).
The AOD is defined as the intersection of an area in which you are highly skilled (as in a very specific area in which you excel more than most other humans) and something you love to do (the kind of love for your work that trumps money, something in which you exhibit passion, something that brings you intrinsic value). The AOD is supposedly the specific area in which you should build your career.
They gave some examples in the book about different people. One such person was Griff Long, an executive a Hertz who eventually ended up in charge of Hertz Connect. He loved running, swimming, and all things athletic. He finally left Hertz to take a job at Equinox, an upscale fitness lifestyle brand. Now he's in charge of opening new club locations, meeting with Equinox managers and top trainers, and talking about ways to encourage more people to exercise more often. He dropped concerns of salary advancement and moved his family 1500 miles away. All of them became happier, and he now no longer feels like he's working.
My question for you is...have you taken the time to find your AOD? According to this book, it may be extremely difficult to identify it. Do you feel like you have reached your AOD? Is it IT, a specific area of IT, or maybe a completely different field?
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Yup, that sounds a lot like where I am these days.
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@scottalanmiller
At what point in your career were you able to identify your AOD? -
For me, I haven't found my area of destiny.
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No idea what my AOD would lead me. Maybe off a cliff.
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I am still looking for this in my life. I have some ideas/feelings that my current path leads in the right direction.
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@NetworkNerd said:
@scottalanmiller
At what point in your career were you able to identify your AOD?That's hard to say. But it took me a long time. Maybe I'm not 100% there yet, but I am close. I had more traditional jobs that I really loved, but it wasn't my AoD, it was just a great job. It took me taking horrible jobs that were really far from being the right fit for me to kind of have an awakening and begin a search for me AoD. It wasn't until I was senior enough to know what mattered and senior enough to have the opportunity to make my AoD happen that I was able to move in that direction.
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I am still "tuning" my life a lot. A LOT. But figuring out that I need to live abroad, travel, be home with the kids, focus on writing and research, have an open schedule, etc.
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I don't believe in AOD. I pursued a career in IT partly because it paid well and partly through luck. I'm happy because I have decent income, decent job security, a nice office and nice colleagues. But I would probably have been just as happy if I'd followed alternative careers as an economist or an accountant.
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...or a lion tamer.
