What is Your Intersection of Success in Business and at Work?

Thanks to my fourth grade teacher, Miss Lee, I discovered one of my intersections of success at the age of 10.

At the beginning of the school year, Miss Lee started running a monthly writing contest. You could submit a work of poetry, fiction or a class newsletter article. The winner received a dollar, a substantial sum of money when I was 10 years old.  To Miss Lee’s delight and mine, I won the contest several times over the course of the school year.  Until Miss Lee’s contest, I did not realize that my love of writing and my aptitude thereof could be a source of income, that it had market value.  The intersection of all three – passion, talent and market value – was a sweet spot, a hot house of self-worth and satisfaction that comes from within, like the muse that moves me to write.   And from that point until present day, it has been an immensely satisfying intersection of success for me:

 

Intersection of Success

 

As my academic and career life progressed, I learned along the way that I had other intersections of success.  For example, as I put the finishing touches on my husband Joel’s business plan for The Best Framing Company, he predicted a future intersection of success. “You’re practicing for your own business plan,” he observed with absolute certainty, and love.  I was much less certain.  “I don’t see what my business would be,” I replied.  Joel smiled. “You’ll figure it eventually.”  Joel was right: I did.

Whether I’m coaching others to plan the next step of their business / career journey, or visualizing my own path, I always confirm the intersection between the talent and the passion.  And once that intersection is established, then the due diligence can be conducted to confirm or deny market value. And that confirmation of that triad is the intersection of success.

What intersections of success will you dream, discover and manifest this week, in business and at work?