Being faced with what to do with your next professional chapter is daunting. I’d spent 23 years at an agency where I formed great relationships with clients and teammates. I enjoyed the diversity of work, guiding my team, tackling client challenges. Yes, there were aspects that became redundant, some that were merely tolerable.
So I had to ask myself the tough questions – what do I like to do, what are my goals, what do I like to do that will fit into my life as a parent to two high school daughters. These weren’t easy questions to answer.
I’ve always been one who focuses on the job at hand and gets it done. I learned this mentality growing up on a northern Wisconsin dairy farm. Yes, I’d set goals, but goals as a teenager seemed a lot easier than goals as an adult with a career. They were more concrete and tangible – running a certain time, executing the right plays on the court, training cattle for the fair.
As an adult, I wanted to do something I enjoyed. I wasn’t focused on titles and timelines. Perhaps naively I believed as long as I was doing a good job – delivering for clients, helping my team develop their skill sets – I’d earn what I deserved. And for the most part I did.
So when the day came that forced me to face “what’s next,” I knew I needed time to reflect and decompress. And I guess it was a blessing in disguise from a timing perspective … our school system was transitioning from hybrid to full-time in-person as the first year of the pandemic seemed to be subsiding so I was able to do school pick-up and drop-off without feeling stressed about work schedules. Springtime was upon us so I was able to enjoy time outdoors … tackling projects around the yard that I’d not had time for, and some new ones that having the freedom of time helped me create.
Our dog, Foxy, reaped the benefits, too … we went on long walks nearly every day. Some days we decided to go for a run on the trails behind our house. This time with Foxy in nature is typically where the magic happens. Those who have worked with me know this well … I do some of my best thinking walking with her. It was on one early morning walk where I noticed the spider webs on the grasses and cattails as we meandered on the trails.
I’d already been thinking of forming my own company and brainstorming potential names, even soliciting ideas from my girls. But that particular morning was dewy, and there’s something magical about dew glistening in the sunlight. Everything seems to sparkle and exude a different feeling.
I began noticing strands across grasses. More focused, I felt a sense of awe and wonder as I saw more strands and webs and how different they were … different designs, shapes, structures. Circular weaves many of us might picture in our minds. Some that reminded me of hammocks, maybe somewhere Tinker Bell and her Neverland fairy friends might take a nap.
My mind started to wander … how could I use this as fuel for my company brainstorming. And it percolated in the back of my mind.
Around this time, I ran across a post on Facebook in which my brother and another farmer had engaged in a dialogue about large vs. small farmers. As I read my brother’s comments about how farmers face enough criticism from outside ag and that small farmers need large farmers and large farmers need small farmers, the sentiments collided in my head. It was a feel-good jumble about to erupt … optimism for a better world, webs connecting grasses, can’t we all get along, differences yet similarities …
And Common Thread was born.
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