How allowing myself to linger in the liminal zone led to my dream job
London in winter.
One of own my most surprising periods of in-between came just after I lost my job.
Looking back with the expertise I now hold, I can see that I did a lot of things right without realizing it. So perhaps it was no coincidence that this particular period of liminality led to my dream job and opened the door to greater opportunities than I could ever have imagined.
It was 2009; I’d just been a casualty of downsizing. Made redundant, they called it in the UK, where I was living. What a de-valuing choice of words. The experience fit the words precisely. I was in London on a visa, luckily a fancy one that wasn’t tied to my job. But still, I felt numb.
It was the second time in a handful of years that I’d been laid off (to use the confusing American term for it). The first time, the company was closing. Then, I’d only been employed 6 months, the same amount of time I’d been in London, and it felt like whiplash.
This time, the storytellers in my head saw their opportunity and worked up a frenzy of sad tales: “This is who you are: you get laid off!” “Who would hire you anyway?” “Do you even know what you’re doing?”
I was tired. I was lost. Instead of powering through like I usually would (calling the recruiters, starting the networking, etc.), I hesitated. I could say I decided to wait before looking for work, but it wasn’t that active a choice. I just let go.
Looking back now, I can see how wise that was. At the time, it didn’t feel clever. It felt like survival.
To give myself space without financial pressure, I took a contract role. It was for a company I would not have wanted to work for full time, so a more driven me might have overlooked it. But it was on a team with kind people, spearheaded by a former colleague of mine. And it was work that I knew how to do but wasn’t particularly passionate about. It felt like a palate cleanser, to separate me from the grief of losing the last job, and to bolster my confidence that I was a capable employee.
From this space of reprieve, I started to get curious. What truly excited me? I could see from that vantage point that the last two companies had not been invigorating. They had been things I thought I should want, rather than what I actually wanted. (‘Cause that always leads to the best of things, right?!)
I remembered this company called IDEO that I’d discovered before moving to Europe for business school, back in my engineering days. They used the process of design to help companies grow and reinvent themselves. Years ago, I’d tagged them in my head as a dream company. That had seemed more like wishful thinking than a solid plan.
But I found out they had a London office, so, with no particular expectations, I started to ask around: anyone know anyone there? Turns out, a dear friend of mine lived across the street from someone who was best friends with an IDEO designer. Wait, what?
She connected us, and I came away from my conversation with the designer convinced of two things: that this was still my dream company, and I’d probably never get to work there. Somehow, that felt okay.
I kept asking the question: what else excited me? I was and am a huge, nerdy fan of the Olympics, and London was set to host them in 3 years. The organization in charge of making that happen, the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG to those of us geeky enough to care), was ramping up. This time, I came up blank when looking for contacts.
But a few days later, I was at a bus stop far from my flat, waiting to go to IKEA. It was me and one other guy, and as London buses are not known for their timeliness, I started chatting with him to fill the time.
It turns out, he’d just moved to London from Brazil. To work, of course, for LOCOG. Wait, come again?
He helped me navigate the organization. But weirdly, the fact that I’d hardly ever been to an organized sporting event, never mind run one, was a drawback in the minds of the team. (So strange!)
I kept doing the consulting gig, grateful for the income and the ease of being in a place where I wasn’t striving.
Months later, IDEO called. They needed some pinch-hit help for a project, as the business designer (their term for MBAs) was stuck out of the country on visa issues. Could I help?
I couldn’t.
I was still in the contract job, with a commitment. Plus, the company had just offered me a full time role. While I would never have chosen this company, I’d found it to be a really good place to work. And I was now ready for the consistency of being an employee.
So I countered to IDEO: could you bring me on full time?
I’m still shocked at my boldness in asking that. My dream company called and I said no to the thing they offered? But it came from a place of knowing what I needed. Which came from being at ease in that place of in-between. And… they said yes! I spent about a decade at IDEO after joining them (full time!) that winter of 2010. As with any dream, it didn’t look like I thought it would. In many ways it was way better; in some ways it was worse; but every day I was grateful for the work I got to do and the people I got to do it with. IDEO took me around the world, too: After a few years with them in London, I moved to Australia for a year and to Singapore after that.
You could look at this as a series of lucky breaks, but I think that’s not it at all. Was there some serendipity? Sure. I mean, the neighbor’s best friend and the guy at the bus stop? But, there’s another, more interesting story if you peel away that layer. Knowing what I know now about the liminal space, this is what I did right:
I let go. By not rushing it, by finding a way to be comfortable where I was, I let myself relax and that by turn created space.
I found a palate cleanser. That interim job help me separate from who I was and give me time to consider who I wanted to be, for which…
I let my curiosity lead. I still look back and I’m like, damn, the audacity! I mean: aiming for IDEO, one of the world’s most well-known creative leaders, or the Olympics? But I think it worked because…
I was open to different visions. If I’d been dead set on one of them (or either of them), I’d have brought an energy of desperation rather than excitement and curiosity.
I didn’t settle. I had boundaries for what I needed and I held onto those.
It’s more than just a feeling. I remember the Managing Director of IDEO London asking me directly whether IDEO was really my place. If she offered me a role, would I say yes? She had to create a position for me, and she needed to see my enthusiasm and confidence in myself to advocate on my behalf. I was able to answer with a surety and self-confidence that could only have come from the separation I’d created from who I’d been before, and the growth that had happened as a result.
If I ended this story here, you might leave guessing I’d navigated my various (and plentiful!) life transitions since then “with ease.” But nope. Oh no.
It’s only now, with many more hard times and the expertise I’ve built up doing this work, that I can see so clearly what happened. I think my wisdom then came from a sense of collapse, of having nothing left to lose in my career. There was something about being stripped back and raw that allowed me to let go. Even knowing them, I still need to actively practice these steps. All the time.
Counterintuitively, I think that “easier” transitions can be harder in a different way: it’s easy to hold on too tight, to forget to surrender.
The ideas of letting go and being open to what’s happening in the here and now don’t come easily to most of us. Part of it is human nature: we’re addicted to certainty (which often brings out fear when it’s threatened). Part of it is comfort: reflecting on who we are and what we want out of life can be confronting. And part of it is cultural: We’re more comfortable talking about having arrived than talking about being in the in-between. Consider this: it’s relatively recent history that it’s acceptable to write your own script for much of life, from where you live to how you partner to whether you live near family and how you support them. Plus, we’re really the first generation that has made frequent career transitions normal. As a result, so much more of our lives can become big questions. And, what if we never want to arrive, but simply linger? That’s newly okay too. For all of it, our language and our norms haven’t caught up.
So I’ve written this story down as much for myself as for you as a reminder that many (all?) of the best things in life come when we try the least.
If you want to dig into the liminal zone deeper, I’m offering a short course on the topic in the autumn of 2024. Join the waitlist here.