Gabrielle Turmelle Gabrielle Turmelle

If you could have anything

Today’s email is a short one. It’s a question that I’ve asked every single job seeker that I’ve ever worked with:

If you could have anything at all - and if there were zero consequences attached to having it - what would you like to have?

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The internal demons we battle

To help me write this email, I’ve opened up the history page on my appointment scheduler, showing the different coaching sessions that I’ve done over the past two years.

Each person on this list came to me for a specific purpose - to talk about a new career goal, job-specific pursuit, etc.

But instead of covering these topics on the call, we would let ourselves go a step deeper.

”I’m trying to become a physician assistant,” would become, “I want to make my parents proud.”

”I’m looking to transition into a director-level role,” would shift into, “I just don’t want to embarrass myself.”

”I want to be a software engineer for Google,” became, “I need to make the ‘right’ next move in my career.”

I titled this email, “The internal demons we battle,” because it’s rarely ever about the goal. At the heart of the problem, we’re trying to solve an internal struggle with what it is we truly want.

And maybe achieving the goal will calm that struggle. Maybe getting the job will be what solves the overarching problems of our life.

But the takeaway is that the goal we’ve set for ourselves usually sits at the surface of something bigger.

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“My goal is to…”

I can’t remember when I started doing this. But at some point, I created a note on my computer, and I began to paste the messages that people would send me whenever they wanted to schedule a career coaching session.

  • I would like to open my vision to where I can step ahead and explore the opportunities that I’m probably not seeing around me. Building a network also would help me.

  • My goal is to find a Data Analyst position

  • My goal is to pursue my passion for research and find my dream job, where there is opportunity for advancement.

  • My goal is to transition from teaching to a field more suited to using my bachelor’s degree in physics. I also need to relocate near my family/ in-laws. I will stay in education if it is an opportunity better than where I currently am.

  • looking to effectively market myself, looking for a new job

  • My goal is to eventually transition from a UX management role to director or lead position by learning the right skills, strategy and tactics.

  • I am pursuing an MBA with a major in Finance graduating in May 2021. I am also pursuing CPA. I need a coach as I am looking for a new job in the field of accounting.

  • Am looking for a career change, need help in preparing for interview. the role which am planning to take on is Sr. Tech program manager. any advice on how to prepare my profile, interview etc.

  • I'm working on completing my EdD in STEM technology education. I need to explore what my options might be in the corporate world.

I’ve always found the patterns in these messages to be fascinating.

There’s an endless list of reasons why we get to a point where we want to have a conversation about our careers. Sometimes, it does start with our goals or desired pursuits.

But I’ve come to find that there’s usually a second, much more personal reason for seeking career coaching.

I’ll talk about the internal demons we battle in the next email.

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A private conversation

It starts with a soft ding! notification on my phone. I open up the LinkedIn app, click on the icon to access the private messages, and I see the beginnings of a note.

It usually follows a certain pattern:

Hey, Gabby. I hope this message finds you well. I’ve been following your posts for some time now. I read your most recent post, and I see that you’re offering free career coaching this month. I’d love to take you up on your offer if it’s still available.

I respond by sending over a link to my calendar, and I wait to see which time slots the person ends up picking.

If they choose a slot within the week, I can often predict the tone and flow that our conversation will take. The person will usually have very little reservation in sharing what’s going on. We plot and scheme and brainstorm to our heart’s content. The person usually walks away with several pathways mapped out that they can then explore.

If they choose a slot much later in the month, that’s when things take on a slightly different character. The person will be glad to join me in the Zoom session, but there’s a subtle, almost protective aura present. The person wants to take this step, but they’re a bit unsure of what it is they want to say.

It’s a brave and difficult thing, talking about our career journeys.

My job is to create a space that’s safe, private, and free from any form of judgment. It’s also my task to make sure that the person sees the session as an event with zero consequences. They can say whatever it is that they need to say. They can express themselves however they like. I will never force them to make a decision, and I will never set any expectations for them to follow-through on.

I bring just one goal with me to the session - that they will be fully comfortable being themselves. I ask questions that will stretch their thinking. I give them things to contemplate. When the call is complete, I invite the person to come back whenever they like.

I don’t think of these sessions as career coaching. Rather, I see these as a private conversation between two people, where we can say what we’ve been wanting to say for years.

I believe that we live in a kind world and that much of this kindness is visible through the actions we take for each other. But there’s kindness in listening, and kindness in creating welcoming spaces, where we can do a much better job in placing our efforts.

In the next email, I’m going to sift through the reasons why we get to a point where we want to have a conversation about our careers. It’s a long list - but a few themes stick out that I believe are worth the time to explore.

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Making bread

I just finished mixing ingredients for an overnight “sourdough-esque” bread. Tomorrow, I’ll form a few loaves and bake some beautiful, fragrant bread.

I was worried for a moment that I’d made a terrible mistake, cutting off two income streams and deleting most of the pages on my website. But today, I had three resume clients approach me for work at the end of February and early in March. The proposals are all solidly written, and there’s one, in particular, that’s highly unique and really interesting.

I think that I’m going to be just fine.

My next set of emails will be going down a new road. I’m going to be talking about career coaching - the experience of joining me on a Zoom call to chat about what’s going on in your career. I have a rough outline prepared for what I want to cover in the next five emails. I’m surprisingly excited to write these up.

Are there any career-related topics that you’d like for me to cover in the next couple of weeks? I always welcome your input - just hit reply.

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I broke my business

Well… I’ve gone and done it now. ;)

Just kidding. I didn’t break my business so much as I’ve temporarily taken down web pages and removed sections in my LinkedIn profile.

I’m getting ready to make a pretty significant shift in the way that I do my work. I’ve been planning this for some time now, but I just couldn’t find the stomach to take the plunge.

My business is working. My clients are happy. I’m making enough to pay all the bills.

But at the end of the day, I’ve built something that won’t take me where I want to go. :)

So! Where does all of this leave you guys?

The Resume Writing Package and LinkedIn Mastery Program are both still here. If you want to take advantage of either of them, all you’ll need to do is send me a message.

Eventually, the day will come when I’ll only be taking on new resume clients through the Fiverr Pro platform. LinkedIn Mastery will become an 8-week interactive workshop instead of a 1:1 intensive program.

I’m planning to evolve into an independent researcher on the career progression landscape that will emerge out of this pandemic. I’m already seeing a number of things happening, and I want to be there in real-time as they happen.

I want my clients to win. I want them to succeed at whatever goal they place in front of them. And I hope that you’ll believe me when I tell you how incredibly hard it is to make these changes, and how much love I have for all of you.

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Impact of remote work

Today’s email is pretty short. I have a link to a quick video from the WSJ: “How Tech Companies Are Revamping the Remote-Work Experience.” It’s an interesting piece on the impact remote work can have on innovation and productivity. The ways that the companies in the video are tackling these challenges are pretty creative and (I think) worth exploring deeper.

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Thrill without setting expectations

Aha! is a company that’s been entirely distributed since at least 2014. Outside of their service offerings, they seem to position themselves as a thought leader in the remote leadership space. I’ve spent a lot of time within their blog this past month.

They came out with an article a few days ago on how to thrill people/clients/colleagues without setting any expectations at the onset of an engagement. I smiled at the word “thrill” when I read it.

I’ve been digging into the idea of creating an “experience” of us as remote professionals for our colleagues, supervisors, and senior leaders to encounter and appreciate. The ultimate goal would be to maneuver us for a promotion, cultivating a reputation for the skills and values that management wants in their remote leaders.

What’s fun about the Aha! article is that it feels more like a lesson in effective communication than in being thrilling… but I understand what they’re going for. Delighting a customer by making them feel heard and understood is the key here. If we set expectations for them at the onset of a meeting, we can dampen the “experience” (my word) by putting restrictions and barriers around what a customer should think, feel, or expect from us.

The more I read The Experience Economy, the more examples I see in everyday life of this concept. But I also recognize how easily a book can influence a person - especially with one as engaging (and validating) at The Experience Economy.

And so, dear reader, this leaves me with a question for you.

What are your thoughts on all of this?

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Progress

At the beginning of this project, I took advice from an amazing and incredibly thoughtful person who’s in a TEI cohort ahead of me. I created a centralized place for all of my raw notes as I research promotions in the age of COVID-19 and #WFH. I promised that I would maintain it and contribute to the notes in real-time as I worked.

Today, I found a paragraph that I typed roughly a month ago. It was just a blurb that I had floating around in my brain.

Landing promotions within our newly-remote companies could necessitate a change in the way we present ourselves virtually and the “reputation” we cultivate within our remote teams.

As I read The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, and as I look through the notes, articles, and interview answers I’ve compiled, it’s amazing how many dotted lines seem to be appearing for this idea.

”A change in the way we present ourselves virtually”: seems to go perfectly with evolving our leadership style for our new remote work environments.

”A reputation we cultivate within our teams”: this is the “experience” of us that we want our colleagues, supervisors, and senior leaders to encounter and appreciate.

I want to test this somehow. It’s one thing to dig at this idea and write about it. But I want to see if there’s actual substance to it.

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Safe enough to be vulnerable

One of my connections kindly shared an article on the leadership traits prevalent in successful remote leaders. It’s been sitting in my pile of raw notes, and I finally found the time to take it out and give it a thorough reading.

Valentina also left me an insightful comment on the topic.

Summarized, the traits that make a leader effective in a remote position are:

  • Connected — coordinates and directs people, helps work together

  • Aware — keeps the pulse of work progress, monitoring

  • Organizer — sets, prioritizes, manages tasks

  • Productive — applied intelligence, gets things done, goal-reaching

  • Good writer — good written skills, detailed, sophisticated

It all comes down to conscious and visible communication both around keeping people together as well as ensuring that things get done. Where in-person charisma and being able to talk to people is more important, in a remote setting it's all about open communication - open as in where it happens and how it happens. It's a much more risky proposal since writing down an opinion feels more final than "just" talking it through and adjust as you see others react to it. There's no "I didn't say it" when you wrote it down. ;)

Open communication is a tough and weighty thing. I think of it as a skill that can be practiced and cultivated.

I also believe that open communication is a heck of a thing to ask of another human being.

Open communication requires vulnerability - the kind of vulnerability that allows a person to speak their mind, share their opinions, and express themselves as they see fit for the situation.

We can’t be vulnerable if we don’t feel safe. And I wonder if our remote working environments are places that feel safe enough for us to tap into our vulnerable sides.

This is a big question to ask, but do you feel safe enough in your remote work environment to speak your mind? Share an opinion? Express yourself as you see fit for a given situation?

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Experiencing “you” in a remote setting

Here’s the scenario I’m working on:

I can’t experience everything that you are, and everything that you bring, in our office. As a company, we’re either transitioning to becoming fully remote, or we have a hybrid setup in place. You, being out of sight as you do your work successfully and without problems, become “out of mind.” You may have become the best performer on the team, but I won’t think of you when it’s time to look at performance-based promotions.

So, what do we do to remedy this?

Well… I’m working on an idea.

Open communication and “writing as a leader” are two skills that we seem to be asking of our remote teams today, based on everything I’m seeing.

But what if there’s another skill that we can lean on: creating an engaging experience through our remote work environment?

Or, going one step deeper, what if we’re already creating an experience for our teams as remote leaders?

What if we just haven’t put that name on what it is we’re doing, when we become open communicators or when we write effectively?

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The Experience Economy

I wrote an email to Jonathan Stark, asking if he had any resources handy on the topic of selling transformation. He generously responded by sending me two podcast links - I’ll include them both here if you’re interested in listening. (Podcast Episode Uno and Podcast Episode Dos)

I’d heard of Joseph Pine’s The Experience Economy as a student, but I didn’t know what it was about. I’m looking at the book again right now, and I’m almost jumping out of my chair with excitement. I’ve felt this way about the idea of intentionally creating experiences for years and years. You even saw me write about it a few days ago.

Look at the subtitle they used for the 1999 edition of this book: “Work is a Theatre & Every Business a Stage.” So wild.

I just bought the Kindle version. The last time I was this excited to read a book was when I was recommended So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport. (This is among my top 5 favorite reads of all time.)

I’ll finish tonight’s email by saying that I am wicked, wicked happy by what feels like a beautifully timed resource. Will keep you up to speed on what I learn.

What are your all-time favorite reads? I always love and welcome book recommendations.

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Slowly letting go

I’m in the process of slowly letting go of an identity that I’ve held for several years.

Back in 2014, frustrated by the pharmaceutical playing field, I decided that I was going to try and obtain some control over my career. I didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a scientist. I didn’t want to be someone trapped at the lab bench. So, taking some perfectly timed advice from a wonderful colleague, I dove into networking.

From networking, I learned how to write a resume that managers wanted to read. From there, I learned how to interview. I found that I was pretty damn good at negotiating the salary that I wanted. ;)

I job-hopped quite a bit at the beginning, and it gave me plenty of room to practice at what would eventually become my craft. I helped my colleagues land the jobs that they wanted. From there, I slowly started building a list of references for “career services” - and then, the day came when I sold my first resume package.

And now, here I am, sitting at the dining room table, typing an email to my list, and thinking about what the next step in the journey is going to look like.

I think that I’m so protective of my “story” because, for years, I didn’t have support for anything that I’m doing today. I kept the resume writing a secret for two years. (I might talk about this in a future email.) When I finally started sharing what I was doing with my colleagues and family, it wasn’t pretty. The stare that a person gives you when they think you’re doing something outrageous doesn’t leave the mind easy.

But, I think that I’m finally ready to let this story go. I want to do something new, and I really like the idea of leaning into transformation work for clients.

I still don’t know what that looks like for me yet, but I think I’m on a healthy path to figuring it out.

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The desire to have an experience

I read a small paragraph from one of Farnam Street’s latest emails that I really enjoyed. It’s a quote from a “fireside” chat that Jeff Bezos participated in back in 2012. The question asked was, “What’s going to change in the next 10 years?”

What I really liked was how Bezos flips the question around and instead talks about what’s not going to change 10 years from now, and why it’s the more important question we should be asking ourselves.

In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that's going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It's impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, “Jeff, I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher.”

When I sit down to start working on a client’s LinkedIn profile, I want to know a few key things about the audience that’s going to be visiting the page.

Are we writing the page for recruiters? For a person’s established network? For members of a new industry or niche that we want to get in front of?

Then, keeping in mind my client’s overarching career goals, I think about the goals of the audience who’s going to be visiting the page.

Are they looking for something in particular on your page - a specific experience or accomplishment? Are they checking to make sure that you’re bringing the “right” professional presence online? Are they curious to learn more about you, and they want to see what you’re about?

No matter what the answers look like to any of these questions, there’s one thing about my process for building a LinkedIn profile that’s never going to change.

If I want my client to be memorable to their target audience, I need to make sure that the audience walks away having had an experience worth remembering.

I’m sure this is plain marketing 101 to anyone reading this, but this aspect of creating profiles - or creating resumes, or planning out interviews, or setting ourselves up for promotions - will always take the top spot in the work that I do.

I believe that 10 years from now, the one thing that won’t change for audiences is their desire to have an experience.

That means creating a profile banner and headline that immediately answers the question, “What’s in it for me?”

Using the spark of excitement that takes place when we find someone who could be a benefit to us, we read the profile’s summary to gather more evidence that we’ve found who we’re looking for.

Then, either at the very bottom of the summary or listed directly in the featured section, we plant the first seed in the audience’s mind by including a call-to-action.

After that, we pause - a call-to-action requires work, so we gather more evidence before taking the step. We review the next section in the profile, which contains the work history. We find even more evidence that we’ve found who we’re looking for.

And then, having enough evidence to take the step, we engage in the call-to-action: messaging about a job opportunity (if we’re a recruiter), sending a connection request, sending a friendly message to begin a new professional relationship, grabbing some time on the person’s calendar - whatever it needs to be for our audience to feel good about engaging.

What are your thoughts on the idea of creating experiences? What likely isn’t going to change for your audience 10 years from now?

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Abundance

One of these days, I’d love to sit down and talk about the role that abundance has played in my life. When I say “abundance,” I’m referring to a habit of mine of planting seeds long before I’m ready for any kind of harvest, and then cultivating the garden in preparation for what promises to be a feast.

If you know anything about me, you know that I still haven’t figured out how to manage the actual “harvest” part. The result of this is basically what happened to me this past week, where I was completely and unexpectedly overwhelmed by the number of signups for resumes and LinkedIn makeovers.

There’s a part of me that sees all of this and thinks, wow, what a blessing. And there’s a part of me that realizes that I can’t sustain this at the rate I’m going - at least, not without help. So, I made a few tough choices today: raising prices, putting people on waiting lists, and even entertaining the idea of hiring. There’s a former physician-turned-resume writer (yup, you read that correctly) that came to my rescue more than a few times last year that I want to message. She sees the same thing that I do - that resume writing is a life-changing and highly worthwhile path to take.

And then, here’s where things really became wild. I’m an independent contractor with LinkedIn, and I work with them on a career services program that has been growing nonstop since they first launched. A few days ago, I received an email requesting that I take on more of the load for the program. However, what they’re asking me to do isn’t going to take up too much time in my week, but the compensation being offered is surprising. I crunched a few numbers, looked over my calendar, and thought to myself, “Oh my God. It’s the solution I’ve been waiting for.”

It is amazing to me what activities are considered deeply value-adding and monetarily worth investing in. It’s also amazing to me that I can decide how I’m going to structure the world that I live in, and still live in abundance.

So, where does that take me from here? Now that I’m going to have time to myself again for research and writing, I want to start off by talking about LinkedIn.

“I’ve heard that LinkedIn is the place to be if you want to land a job. But honestly, Gabby, I have no idea how to wrap my head around that website.”

I used the LinkedIn platform to plant some pretty important seeds early on during my time in pharmaceuticals, and then I used it again to build a business from scratch. I want my upcoming emails to talk about what I did - why I did what I did - and how you can use the platform to achieve your career goals.

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Circle of competence

I recently learned this phrase from Farnam Street. I’ve been thinking about where my circle of competence exists, and how I can expand on it to better serve my clients.

Today, at the drop of a hat, I can help you with:

  • Writing a resume and cover letter that can catch the attention of the hiring manager we want to impress - even if we don’t know who this person is yet.

    • We can make a number of educated guesses as to what they’re going to want to see on the resume/cover letter based on the job posting, company website, company blog posts, and Glassdoor reviews from current/past employees.

    • We can structure the document for two different reading styles - skimming and in-depth reading.

  • Creating/optimizing LinkedIn profiles that attract the attention of recruiters.

    • Similar to the resume, we can create a narrative and an experience out of your LinkedIn profile that will leave a lasting impression on the minds of visitors to your page.

  • Researching target companies and identifying any possible areas that a person could leverage for their career goals.

  • Interview practice and thinking through what the interview could be like.

There are a number of other things that could have made the list (i.e. networking, career coaching, headhunting). But if you asked me where my true, all-day-every-day circle of competence exists, it’s in these four bullet points.

People whom I love and trust have told me I could summarize them all and say that I’m competent at professional branding. But it’s here that I hesitate, even in just writing a sentence like this.

When I think of professional branding, the first images that pop into my head are the LinkedIn “influencers” who preach about professional branding on the platform. It’s a sticky, mildly sleazy, cringe-inducing image that frustrates me when I think about it.

Would it be fair to say that I do professional branding that’s based on substance and value… or am I just being too judgmental when I think about things like this?

I don’t know. Tonight’s email is turning into a bit of a mess, so I guess I’ll stop for now.

But I’m genuinely curious to know what you think.

Even if I couldn’t call my circle of competence “professional branding,” would it be fair to say that what I do is in that ballpark? And if so, how could I expand on it for the benefit of my clients?

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Talking it out

My two favorite experiences as a business owner are hearing from my client that 1) they secured the interview, and 2) they landed the job. It is sheer joy for me to receive messages like this, and it’s a source of pride for me that I’ve never been able to explain. Everything I do - from writing resumes, to hopping on Zoom calls, to digging for any leverage I can find on company websites and blogs - is all for my client’s happiness and success.

I decided to take on this long-term research project for the same reason.

I mentioned yesterday that I wasn’t satisfied with the direction I’ve been taking in my writings. While I was half-asleep and in wicked pain as I cranked out the email as the final item on my to-do list, I did fully mean what I was saying. ;)

There’s something about the research that has stopped feeling like I’m doing the right things or exploring the right questions. The only way that I know how to rectify something like this is to journal about it. I figure, rather than journaling, I’ll use the time here to try and explore what’s going on.

What are my goals?

I want to be a trusted resource for my client whenever they have a problem that they’re trying to solve for their career.

But, if I really stop and think about it, what I actually want is for my client to be able to take control over their destiny.

If they want a successful job search, I want them to be able to make it happen. If they want an internal promotion in their organization, I want them to have an understanding of what the playing field could look like.

The number one thing that I want everyone to know is that they have powerful tools in front of them to make their career aspirations happen. LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and company websites/blogs are the combination that I swear by when assembling a strategy for achieving our career goals.

That strategy leads to positioning power, which leads to increased visibility. The visibility ultimately leads to a cautious trust that we can then build upon through our continued displays of competency, reliability, and (servant) leadership.

(As much as I’m a die-hard fan of servant leadership, I recognize that not all organizations value servant leadership as their preferred expression of leadership. The leadership skills we need to express all depend on the companies we’re looking to build trust with and what they value.)

What am I doing to make my goals a reality?

That’s where I’m staring at my raw notes in Obsidian and scratching my head. I began with a research topic on exploring promotions for remote working professionals, particularly during the pandemic. I loved what I was doing, and I found a tremendous amount of information and clues that I could keep digging at for the rest of the year and beyond. But, is this what I want to do? Is this the best use of my time?

As I’m sitting here and typing out this email, I’m realizing that I might need to pivot. I might need to explore what positioning power looks like for professionals who need to “market” (market?) themselves in order to get ahead in their careers.

Hmmmmm…

I’m going to keep exploring these thoughts. But right now, I’m feeling a sense of peace that tells me I’m on the right track.

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Tired

This week was one of those wild, nonstop, who-knows-what’s-going-to-happen-next kind of weeks. I accomplished everything that I needed to do for the Florida move. I completed all my client work. But wow, I am a special kind of tired. I have just enough energy left to type out one final email to send to my list.

Tomorrow, I’m back to dedicating time to do research on my big career-related questions. I’m not satisfied with the direction I’ve been taking in my writings.

I feel like there’s something deeper here that I should be exploring, but I don’t know what that is yet.

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Leveraging LinkedIn for promotions

Could we leverage LinkedIn as a tool to help us land our promotions?

We can use LinkedIn as a tool to land jobs within companies that we admire. I’d even go so far as to say that LinkedIn is the most powerful tool in our job-seeking toolbox. We can create a narrative, an “experience,” and an expectation for hiring managers and recruiters through our LinkedIn profile and posts.

So, why couldn’t we use it to steer a promotion decision in our favor?

I have a sneaky feeling that we could make this work… Will continue to chew on this.

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Moving to the beach

It’s been a pretty emotional day for me. I finally (finally!) found a place to live. Next month, I’ll be packing my things and moving to Florida.

The place where I’ll be living is a stone’s throw away from Tampa/St. Petersburg. It’s an 8-minute drive to the ocean down a single street and a 15-minute drive to a sand-covered beach. There are so many preserves and parks near where I’m living that I’ll be spoiled for choice whenever I want to be in nature. One of my all-time favorite wilderness areas will only be 10 minutes away.

I say that today’s been emotional because this is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time. For the first time in my life, I’m able to live in a place because I want to live there, and not because it’s where there’s work, or because it’s a hub for pharmaceuticals, or because it’s the cheapest place to live.

There’s a lot to process, and so many blessings to be thankful for.

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