“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.” – Jim Morrison

Wow! It has been a while. I have been busy as a bee, interviewing for jobs daily, sometimes up to 8 people in one day. I was also doing some teaching and consulting part-time, so there was not a boring moment. But, I’m happy to say I’ll be starting at a new job on Monday!

The whole process made me reflect on a lot of things, and a few things in particular stand out and I wanted to share my thoughts with you.

Searching for a job sort of feels like the dating process. We meet with new people, we put on our best selves, and hope we make a good impression. Through it all we get rejected along the way, or we are offered things that aren’t really in line with what we want to do. Some people would settle, and some would wait until they got what they truly wanted.

Along the way I met an amazing and inspiring woman, only on the phone, but we had a good chat about finding people who speak our language. I was struggling through some moments where I’d meet with people or companies that I knew I didn’t fit in, or the values didn’t line up with what I believed in. She made me think about the fact that if we stay true to ourselves, we will eventually find the right people who speak our language. And I never swayed from that. In the end, I ended up with an opportunity that is with wonderful people who understood the value of the people side of business.

It’s so easy to get caught up in trying to be someone we’re not, just so we can fit into a certain mould and be accepted by others. But you know what, a new friend said to me,

Everyone is going to judge you anyway, so just be yourself!

And I want to emphasize that with every ounce of my being. There is no point in trying to fake it and be someone who is any other version of you than you. I promise, you will find someone who speaks your own language, life’s too short to live it any other way.

Please leave a comment below or send me an email at lessoftheexcess at gmail dot com if you have any other thoughts or experiences you’d like to share.

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