My Passions, Calling and Career. What do they have in Common with Each Other?

Today, I had a very interesting experience. Lesson learnt, I’m not even going to talk about what it is this time; I’m just going to wait and see what happens first. Too often, I let my own excitement and passion get in the way of my own desires/plans/goals/potential successes & victories. Nope, it doesn’t mean that I will dilute or dial down my level of passion for the things that I believe in (or am striving towards). It just means, I have to decide when (under which situation) I should allow my passions to ooze out of my pores. Usually, when I get very excited, or when I allow my passions to run wild, it can be a little overwhelming to some people (even for myself).

When I used to do speaking engagements as a Telerik Evangelist and a traveling tech speaker, I had to learn to “tame” my excitement and passions. It’s extremely difficult sometimes because when you are on stage, or in front of a crowd, you need to bring with you that energy that would captivate the audience (or they lose interest), but you also cannot [must not] allow yourself to get so carried away that you keep on blabbing non-stop. Yeah, I have had plenty of both. (I am naturally born to be deeply passionate about all things STEAM, so you can see why)

So yeah, in many ways, I am still constantly learning. It’s a daily process. I need to know when and how to properly manage my own excitement and passions. Put it simply, I think there’s a time and place for everything (yeap, I took that reference from the Bible).

Back to the Subject…

See, what did I tell you. I got carried away…almost. Hehehe…

Okay, so whatever I had experienced today has given me an opportunity to reflect on the overlapping similarities between my passions, calling and my career choice/options. I’ve actually shared about this before (either in a previous YouTube video or in one of my social media posts, or both) when I talked about how during the early months of the pandemic in 2020, I had essentially given up on my calling. Actually, now that I recall, I actually told my mentor about it first. He was the first person who actually really knew what I was going through.

During that period in the early months of the pandemic, I had to entertain the possibility that it may no longer be a possibility for me to turn my calling into an actual job/long-term career essentially. It was a crushing feeling. I mean, even for me, at that time, I didn’t even realize how crushed I was. I was just overwhelmed with despair really.

All Hope isn’t Lost. Not Yet.

But in recent months, after some of the job interviews that I had experienced (the close calls), it has given me some perspective and clarity. Turns out, my calling and my career path do share overlapping similarities. See, I found my calling in TWO THINGS:

• STEAM (pretty general I know), but the main focus is on a few things i.e. technology and engineering mainly (if you see it from the perspective of the industries).
• CONTENT CREATION. To be more specific, I am referring to the areas of STEAM Education and Training. So turns out, over the last few years (thanks to my last employment at Progress), I’ve discovered that I have an incredible talent/gift when it comes to making learning content. Both written and visual (aka videos).

And now, when you look at the potential career paths that I can take. The most ideal one. If you still believe in the idea of a “Dream Career”, then yeah, there is one potential career path that would allow me to follow my calling – working in Developer Relations (“DevRel” for short).

Most of the Developer Relations’ responsibilities and work essentially revolve around two things:

1. Talking to/Educating other Developers/Makers/Designers/etc.
2. Making learning contents so that others (those I mentioned above) can use to help them master something.

When I began to look at both my career options and my calling, I’ve come to realize that I didn’t have to make a choice between the two. If God willing, I might be able to land a job/potential dream career that would also allow me to pursue [walk in] my calling at the same time.

Final thoughts???

Well, after 8 seemingly long (feels like eternity…I’m not kidding) years of following and pursuing my passions, I must admit that it still sucks that I have to face this reality – that not everything in life is guaranteed. Just because you share a deep passion for something, or if you have “found your calling” (like I did), it doesn’t guarantee that you will succeed right away. In fact, you and I still need one more really important ingredient – “G.R.I.T”. Without grit (by grit, I mean stubborn perseverance), it’ll be really difficult to live out your calling.

Sure, I did have some early successes in 2015 right after I made that decision to follow my passions. I was probably pretty damn lucky at that time. But the hard part for me came later in the journey. I’m currently in the 2nd half of those 8 years, and I’m still trying my best to persevere.

I honestly can’t tell you how many times I have questioned my own sanity to keep on persevering. LOL! I feel insane sometimes.

Yet, somehow, it is in moments like the ones I experienced today, that really made me realize, “You know what Sherman? You might not be that insane after all. Just keep on keeping on buddy. You’ve got this.”