I recently remembered a particularly awkward moment.

This year marks 30 years of my continuous work in research, and I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic about the journey. My career began with a summer job in an fMRI lab in 1996 and continued across settings, sectors and methods, comprising an adventure driven by a deep love of the work and gratitude for the people who help make it possible.

I spent nearly half of my career in an office environment that scarcely exists anymore, where my coworkers felt like family friends, my kids attended daycare onsite, and my colleagues and I had time to talk and catch up every day while still doing the work we knew deeply.  There, I had a lot of rambunctious fun with my colleagues, met my “work-wife,” and genuinely tried to learn how to walk in heels. 

But I also used my time there as a stepping stone; attending graduate school part-time, growing this blog and two kids, and serving on two AAPOR task forces while managing multiple studies. I became an expert in measuring employment outcomes, surveying high school teachers, measuring organizational climate, P- Stat and Unix, Multilingual, Multicultural and Multinational research, analyzing open-ended survey responses, and social media analysis. The extra effort led to a position at a large research company that was a real culture shock for me. In the office where I had spent most of my career, we worked hard and had a great time together. The new environment felt relentless by contrast, although I loved the work.

My new boss was someone I had come to know, respect, and genuinely like through our shared AAPOR activities. When she came to town, I was looking forward to our first lunch together as coworkers. But boyyyyy did I screw it up! I chose a nice vegan restaurant that was a little too far out of pocket and proceeded to get lost on my way back to the office. This was a company where meetings occurred nonstop on the half hour during business hours, and the reverberations from my wrong turn(s?) were significant. I couldn’t have felt more embarrassed.

Why tell this devastating story? Because it speaks to something innately relatable, a common fear we share about being out of our element. And being an entrepreneur involves a whole lot of being out of my element. 

I am proud of the company I’ve built. I’m proud of what it stands for and represents. I’m proud of what it does. I believe in its potential. I believe in the direction we are headed in and the changes underway to make the next big pivot happen. Being a business owner involves a lot of adapting, and my understanding of what we are and what we can be is clearer each day. Some of the work I love. Some I’m good at. And some involves me staring down my own weaknesses and shortcomings.

I have often compared being an entrepreneur to being one of those pop-up punching bag clowns that gets hit and bounces back with a silly smile pasted on my face. A business coach recently used better words, saying we all have to be a little witchy and magical to make something where there was nothing. I’ve called it world-building. I’ve compared it to being in a desert searching for water, but stubbornly of my own accord. I’ve talked about the roller coaster of ups and downs and highs and lows each day. It’s a lot of things. It’s all this and more. It’s not for everyone, but I choose it. It’s right for me.

But a part of me is back in that car, obsessing over a GPS device and an ETA, while driving through tree-lined country roads in autumn, forgetting to trust the wind and notice the color. I’ll own that. It’s part of the journey as much as obsessing over the maps and pulling over to actually get a good look at the view.

There are so many of us on this road who are at points in our careers where we expected everything to come easily. We thought the roads would be paved or our feet would be knowledgeable enough not to notice. But may our paths be lined with something greater. In the words of Pema Chodron, “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” May this day, this chapter, this walk through vines and rubbish, this drive through unmarked roads be our gift.