Your gifts - don't overthink it

Last week I was shopping for one, final last-minute gift for my son. I had already chosen what I believed to be a thoughtful and perfect gift, but I still felt as though it wasn’t enough — and so I rushed back into the toy store, searching for one last gift that would make me feel like I had fulfilled my goal as the ultimate gift giver. I was in search of the “perfect” gift to give him, but I didn’t stop to consider that perhaps the gift I had already carefully chosen was the perfect gift. In my last-minute rush to prepare for the holiday, I was overthinking it.

I believe that most of do this, in work and in life. We overthink our gifts. I’m not talking about the physical, packaged gifts that we carefully wrap with shiny paper and ribbon. I mean the gifts that are unique to only you, the gifts that make you who you are. So often, we’re too busy looking for the perfect job, building a network or searching for what we believe might be our passion, that we overthink, and overlook, the gifts we have to offer the world.

This sometimes makes us stumble a bit because we tend to think that gifts must be some kind of rare and extraordinary talent — the ability to speak multiple languages fluently, possessing an extraordinary falsetto or an incredible ability to do mental math. But your gifts are not just your talents. A talent has to be practiced and honed. You don’t have to dig to deeply to determine your gifts, because a gift comes naturally to you. This is why we overthink them.

Maybe your gift is bringing people together to build effective teams. Maybe you have a knack for making complex topics easy to understand. Perhaps you effortlessly bring a glass-is-half-full, can-do attitude to everything you do. The key is to put your gifts to work for you. We can do this by recognizing our gifts and then asking ourselves, “How can I contribute them?” When you look at your work from a perspective of giving back and contributing your gifts, it shifts the ground beneath you a bit. It will not only help you identify what differentiates you from everyone else, it will help you establish yourself as someone who brings unique knowledge or talent to the table. Focusing on serving, giving — and ultimately sharing your gifts — is what propels you forward, in work and in life.

As 2018 comes to a close, I hope you’ll set a goal with me for the New Year to stop overthinking it. This is the year to recognize your gifts and contribute them to the world.

How I shifted from making decisions out of fear to one of possibilities!

Like most of you, I sat around our Thanksgiving table last week feeling grateful for what I often take for granted on a daily basis — my work, my family and of course the food. As I toasted the company of my loved ones, it occurred to me that exactly five years ago, this month, I was in a very different place.

I was seven months pregnant with my second child, and I received the phone call that no entrepreneur wants to hear. The parent company of the direct-to-public car-buying model I had developed from a seedling of an idea into a national operation purchasing thousands of cars per month no longer wanted to invest. I was given the directive to wind down the business. On the day I received the call, I was in San Francisco attending a technology conference, listening to Sheryl Sandberg deliver a keynote address about how to “Lean in,” when I received instructions to “Get out.”

On the night I received the news about having to close my company, an automotive executive that I had admired for many years invited me to attend a dinner. Reminder: I was seven months pregnant and I had just been told to close my business. It was the last thing I wanted to do that night. But I dragged myself to dinner and found myself being asked the question, “What do you want to do next?”

That morning I had been in meetings, making plans to expand our operating system. Now I had to determine how to return to my company, liquidate assets, take care of our strategic partners and most important, care for our employees. I left San Francisco the next morning with no idea about what I wanted to do next, or how to move forward. On the flight home, the stress and anxiety made me feel like I was having a heart attack.

Despite having to close my business, I was still receiving invitations from various companies to discuss my goals and interests, post-maternity leave. At this point, I was nine months pregnant, driving and flying around the country to have these conversations. If I’m being totally honest, I was fearful of lacking relevancy when I returned from leave, so I kept pushing. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that if I was being asked to meet for future job opportunities while nine months pregnant and closing a business, that I would probably be okay if I didn’t have something lined up upon my return.

When I finally paused to consider my options, I realized that my compass for decision-making was malfunctioning. I was emotionally and physically exhausted, but I wanted to keep pressing forward even though I couldn’t discern what I was pressing toward. It was at this point that I discovered time-lining, and I began to recalibrate my personal compass for making decisions.

Time-lining helped me learn to stop making decisions out of fear — something many of us do that often leads us down paths that just don’t fit. I wanted broaden my experience within alternate channels in auto, and over the next six months I consulted and pushed myself to accept projects that were unfamiliar. I knew that I wanted to explore the intersection of tech and automotive and my consulting work appeared to be a way to gain more experience in this space. Consulting took me out of my comfort zone, but was one of the best non-fear-based decisions I’ve ever made.

In the months that followed, I accepted more consulting work that took me around the world. I reconnected with industry relationships, and in one year, I went from being pregnant and closing a business to being tapped by brilliant entrepreneurs to embark on a journey in automotive tech. The business we founded was DRIVIN, a revolutionary automotive offering that was completely technology-centric. DRIVIN not only transformed the automotive industry, but it also launched my career into a new and exciting trajectory.

This brings me to present-day November 2018. As I think back to myself at Thanksgiving five years ago, I was overwhelmed. Did I make some poor decisions at this time? Probably. But did I make some good ones? You bet I did. But that’s the benefit of time and distance; it offers a glimpse of how much you have grown. If you’re in a tough spot, it’s like staring directly at a stunning canvas close-up. Your perspective is askew and it’s hard to discern the whole picture. But if you step back to look at it from a distance, you gain perspective and can see how the big picture comes together. I’m grateful for this perspective. But I know I wouldn’t have it today if I had not said, “yes” to opportunities that felt unfamiliar and somewhat scary. I’m eager to know your stories too. When did you decide to say “yes” and figure it out as you went along?

Your problem is not a lack of ideas, it’s acting on them!

How many of you have been doing something routine — commuting to the office, going for a run or maybe walking the dog — and an idea comes to you? It’s a great idea, and the more you think about it, the bigger it gets and the faster your heart beats because there is something about this this idea that not only sounds right, but feels right too. The idea is like a shiny red balloon that you keep filling up with great big, creative air — and the more you focus on your idea, the bigger your shiny red balloon becomes.

“I should write this down,” you think. “I should really do something with this.”

But you don’t. Instead, you move onto the next routine action in your day — and that shiny red balloon slowly deflates and withers away into some universe of spontaneous creativity where it started.

Imagine, for a moment, if some of our greatest inventors had let their balloon deflate. What if Alexander Graham Bell decided that the idea of transmitting sound via electricity wasn’t an idea worth pursuing? What if Alexander Fleming didn’t make the effort to grow some extra mold in his laboratory in 1928?

Thanks to Fleming, we have antibiotics that successfully combat infectious diseases across the globe. And 131 years after Bell’s invention of the telephone, Steve Jobs brought his vision for a touchscreen smartphone to life, and introduced the iPhone to the world.

Every invention, innovation and movement that changes the world starts with one thing: an idea. And here’s the best part about that one idea: it doesn’t have to be fully baked for you to get started. Maybe your idea isn’t clearly defined. That’s okay. Keep putting pen to paper until it starts to look like something that is. Maybe your idea is a side gig. That’s okay too, as long as it’s a side gig that reinvigorates your creativity and dares you to stop running on autopilot.

See what I’m getting at here? For most of us, our problem is not a lack of ideas, it’s acting on those ideas. Big ideas often have small beginnings. You simply have to begin! It’s blowing up your balloon and then letting it go out into the world to see what’s possible. What about you? What’s your shiny, red balloon? What first step could you take now to make your idea come to life?