Navigation as Practice

Are you supposed to find your purpose in your job?
I don’t know. I think you can, but I don’t think you have to.

I think the more important thing is to keep yourself in the right energy spaces. It sounds woo. I don’t give a fuck. I’m tired of the things that speak to our energy and health and compassion and empathy and mental sanity being labeled weak or woo.

When you are strong, we are strong.
So let’s be strong.
Because holy hell, we are in it.

It’s stunning how little the powers that be give a shit about the people and world around them. And the proverbial salt in the wound? How this grotesque, extractive power is on full-throated, small-hands, filler-faced display. These powers — whether it’s the regime, the tech overlords and/or their *really amazing* sycophants and friends — are barely masking their rapacious intentions anymore.

There goes that environmental protection.
Bye bye rule of law.
Citizens shot in the street.
Election integrity is crumbling.
Let’s bomb the fuck out of more places.
Jesus Christ no one protected those girls.
Yet another climate change induced super storm.
Yet another system faltering.
And AI is going to make us super productive and war game us into oblivion.

Cool.

Like many of us, I’ve been thinking about how you live in this context. Because one of their strategies towards power is to overwhelm us, to make us feel that they are inevitable and that nothing we do matters. And the absolute worst: to dim, or even extinguish, hope.

So I grind hard on the following questions these days:
How do you thrive?
How does life feel good?
And how do you navigate forward?

Navigation. I think about navigation a lot. It probably stems from the fact that 16 years ago I stepped out of the system of my industry and had to learn how to navigate differently, fast.

At first, I was disoriented. Without a system to follow or the glow of its validation, there were many times I found myself feeling scared, adrift, lonely, full of doubt and fragile. I think subconsciously I was waiting for something, someone to tell me what was next and that I was doing a good job.

And then it hit me: no one’s showing up.

So I had a choice — go back into systems that I didn’t want to be in anymore or actively create my path (and validation). And to do that, it became glaringly obvious to me that navigating a path doesn’t just happen, it’s a practice. A practice that when done intentionally, can lead a more soulful, fulfilling, true and resilient life and career.

Here’s the thing: when I stepped out of my industry system, that was my choice.

But this world we’re living in now, where systems are creaking, radically shifting, even collapsing and the powers that be are exploiting that to their benefit, many, if not most of us, aren’t going to have the luxury of making the choice — instead, we’re going to be forced into an “out of system” existence.

We’re going to be forced to fend for ourselves more, chart our own paths, figure out how this whole life and career thing works because there are no 30 year employee appreciation statue thingies anymore.

We’ll have to navigate.

And the practice of navigation has two pillars:
Make the Space and Craft the Path.

Make the Space
Put. The Fucking. Phone. Down.

If smart phones had been around during Moses’ day, that would have been the 11th Commandment.

You can’t navigate if you don’t have the spaces to tap into your instinct. And those spaces are about connecting to the primal, fundamental us where, instead of riding the dopamine scroll pony, we’re letting the brain and soul breathe.

For me, I make those spaces by running, hiking, walking, motorcycling, journaling, meditation — almost always sans phone, sans playlists, sans podcasts, sans apps. You’ll have your own way of making those spaces but a few tips:

• It’s good to have many options to vibe with your life, your mood, your energy

• Look for activities where you get into flow and time flies past

The point of doing these things is to just do these things. Because in doing these things, the subconscious and the nervous system has time to process, deal with shit and let the right things surface. So don’t try to force understanding, much less some sort of enlightenment; just let yourself be.

Craft the Path
Once you’ve created some space and fed your dang powerful unconscious, then you can meaningfully craft the path. Here’s a grid that I have used over and over again in path crafting:

You can use the grid for many different applications from things to people to environments to activities to living situations to work configurations… the domains are endless. So let’s talk about what each of these categories are first, as each category is a prompt to examine your energy space, emotions and even physical reaction around a domain:

• Love - Lights you up, you’re in flow, makes you feel more energized

• Good - Totally fine emotionally, content, don’t love love it, but certainly don’t hate it

• Bleh - Energy gets sapped, brain gets cranky, emotions run thin, little motivation

• Curious - Interested, but not experienced; think it might be cool, but not sure yet

So I’ve done this around the practice of my work and here’s what it starts to look like:

I’ve done this for how I like to work:

I’ve done this for how I want to configure my life:

You can pretty much use it for any domain. And once you have your grid filled out, then use it to help navigate:

• Love - what you try to build your career, your brand, your life around.

• Good - totally fine to live here, but be careful of getting stuck here. Sometimes we need to sacrifice good to taste some love.

• Bleh - if you’re doing it to learn something, cool, but get out of there as soon as you can. A few notes on this - when I was starting my career, I spent a decent amount of time in Bleh as I was tapping into the Curious bucket and figuring out who I was as a professional. I’m glad I did. Strategy is a such a vast field where we need to define our own place in it - pursuing the Curiosity bucket helped me define my Blehs and find my Loves. I’m not mad that I spent time in Bleh, it helped me figure out who I was and learn some really important skills - sometime you need to spend some time in Bleh to make you better at what you do holistically. Bleh isn’t about avoiding this thing at all costs; it’s about not ultimately getting stuck doing something that drains you. Another note: solopreneurs can get stuck here because they think they have to do everything in their business (they don’t) or you have to take on any project that comes in because if you say no, no one will ever call you ever again (they will). No is often more powerful than yes. If it’s not right, say no.

• Curious - always have a few things in your curious bucket and then experiment in these spaces. For young career navigators, it will help you find your next move and learning moment. For us older folks, staying curious keeps us alive.

I’m not going to pretend this framework is going to fix the world. But I know what happens when I operate from my Love column versus when I let myself get stuck in Bleh. The work is sharper. The decisions are clearer. I sleep better. I feel my swagger and my resolve is stronger. And, very importantly, I’m a hell of a lot less useful to the people trying to make me feel powerless.

Individual people tapping into and building paths around the things that make them feel deeply good and deeply strong might not change the entire world, but it changes the atmosphere around each of us, and that atmospheric shift can ripple into others’ worlds and into the future in the most powerful way.

And I’m guessing the world needs a future where your truth and power is a part of it.