Take a step, any step: three lessons for fulfilling work.
I recently sat down with Dave Childress, a friend and former business school colleague. Dave is the founder of DO/LOVE/LIVE and Common Space Brewery. Prior to these experiences, Dave worked as a VP of Product and Strategy and an Officer in the US Army. As part of a series on creating meaning through work, I interviewed Dave to understand his path, purpose, and lessons for others.
‘How do you get started?’ Take a step, any step.
We sometimes imagine that great ideas, and great missions, appear fully-formed, springing from the founder’s head. When I asked Dave how he conceived the idea for DO/LOVE/LIVE, his answer surprised me. ‘The idea was there in the back of my mind, but I didn’t have business plans.’ He described how a dozen or so friends met in the mountains, each with different areas of expertise. Although they didn’t have a clear idea of exactly what they would do or how they would do it, they wanted to plant the seeds now. They started with a blog, telling stories — of success, of love, but also of pain, and loss. The team also found ways to help, first by supporting family friends whose daughter suffered from a rare disease. And that impact has expanded. To date, DO/LOVE/LIVE has raised over $600k to support other families facing challenging situations. Their mission? ‘Create positive change by inspiring people to DO/good, LOVE/big, and LIVE/now.’
‘Where do you go from there?’ Move through the mud.
While getting started, the day job did not go away. When I asked Dave what challenges he faced, times when he thought this new direction might not work, he described tension. ‘I launched these new ventures, but still had one foot in the tech world.’ He described bad health, high cortisol levels (associated with stress), and self-doubt. ‘What the hell is wrong with you,’ was a recurring thought. Looking back, Dave wishes he’d had a more concrete transition plan, to ease the stress. Eventually Dave completed the transition to a full-time focus on his brewery ventures and DO/LOVE/LIVE. ‘I didn’t get there immediately, it took real work and a shift in my mindset. Most importantly, I wasn’t prioritizing my health and wellness enough. Now I’m way more productive and I can better contribute to people’s development with my time and resources which is incredibly fulfilling.’ In that shift, he described a commitment to ‘fail forward,’ trusting that doing something would be better than doing nothing. Any journey faces challenges, we slow down, the way is unclear. But to get to the other side, we move through the mud, one step at at a time.
‘What’s next?’ Onward, with boundaries.
As Dave continues to build new ventures, including an exciting brewery project in Austin, Texas, he’s applying lessons from the past. He highlighted two insights in particular: set clear boundaries and plan a realistic transition. He highlighted something that’s important for many of us with a helping instinct — learning to say ‘no.’ As Dave said, it’s about deliberate boundaries. Many people on a mission find that their clear ‘no’, leads to a strong and powerful ‘yes.’
Reflecting on my conversation with Dave, I’m struck by these three key lessons:
- Take a step, any step. Although we have the inkling of a purpose, the faint vision of something ahead, we don’t know where our path will lead. But we can start on it now, in any small way.
- Fail forward. Paths are winding and littered with obstacles. Continue forward and learn as you go.
- Be deliberate about your boundaries. As you continue on your path, pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. Put in place the guardrails on your time and energy that work for you.
More to come! If you enjoyed this article, please recommend it to others. I’ll be interviewing more leaders with purpose in the series on finding meaning through work.
