Shelved

Podcasting.

Interviewing.

Typing.

These are skills with a clear objective. Learn them and move on. The objective is even in the name.

Then there are the skills that can’t be described with this level of simplicity.

This amalgamation of skills is harder to articulate. Because of this, it’s harder to signal to others that we have these skills. If only there were job descriptions for each one. There aren’t any, so we need to write them ourselves.

The Amalgamation

Multiple roles without a job description for any of them.

“Have you considered opening a bookstore?” someone once asked me.

I hadn’t until that moment. What a great idea. It could serve as a vehicle for so many things!

This exciting all-in-one solution required me to have multiple identities at the same time - business person, event planner, media contact, experience designer, book buyer, bookkeeper, gift wrapper, and postal person. I learned how to be a bookstore by being a bookstore. 

When I moved away from the store and my previous endeavor, I drifted away from the amalgamated state I had been living in. On my new path, I once again began learning skills with clear objectives (e.g., podcasting).

Right now, I’m sliding toward another amalgamated state. It’s different this time. Before I was, as author Scott Perry says, becoming the thing by doing the thing.

This time, the skills I need are already on the shelf waiting to be used. And ready to be used differently.

While I might not have the language yet for what’s next, there is a language for this moment.

This is where I am.

What about you?

How do you make your experience visible to clients, collaborators, and the field itself?

What of your hard-earned experience and knowledge can you use differently moving forward, especially as the field changes?