My Initiative Journey: Preface
I’ve been at a crossroads for a while now; the end of this chapter of my life and the start of a new one: after teaching English in Asia for over 8 years, I’m transitioning back my original career path of engineering, preferably in an industry that is helping to solve environmental problems and fight climate change. Renewable energy, carbon capture, and clean technology are all industries that I am very interested in, and have started looking for jobs in.
But COVID-19 hasn’t made it easy.
Verdant Growth: Born from an overabundance of time and a desire to do good for the environment
Plans were to move back to the U.S.A. in April of 2020, but given the state of the pandemic, that became all but impossible to do: between me, my wife, my daughter, and our dog, there are 4 of us now. This is how Verdant Growth was born: my desire to help fight climate change and solve problems in the environment and natural world combined with an overabundance of time drove me to start a blog (this one!), a YouTube channel, and an online store, The Eco Swap Shop. All of which have been amazing learning experiences and all of which I continue to grow into the foreseeable future.
A job was a different story. Verdant Growth was never supposed to be a source of income. I still felt a need to get a job working in climate and environmental solutions, and I began sharpening my resume and engineering skills with online courses, but after months of doing that, I realized something: sending resume after resume to companies that I didn’t really care about for positions that I wasn’t interested in just for the sake of getting a job I wouldn’t really like just felt wrong. There had to be a better way to do this.
A Better Way: Method Initiative
A friend and mentor, professor at NYU, host of an award-winning podcast and best-selling author, Joshua Spodek suggested I try using his methodology: Method Initiative. Not only that, he offered to coach me through it. He confirmed to me that sending countless resumes to companies I didn’t care about was indeed not the right way to get a job you want.
I was in.
So I went out and bought his book, Initiative: A Proven Method to Bring Your Passions to Life (and Work), and for the next month or so, I’ve decided to use this blog, not continue to write on the environment, but to use what Josh Spodek recommends: that I go through his exercise and publish my exercises to a blog. To learn to put myself out there and document my growth. To open myself up to criticism and to give myself accountability. To show the process that he has taught to hundreds of students and has helped them to succeed. To leave a record of my trail to success.
My Start of a New Journey
His description of the book does more justice than I can:
Spodek presents a practice-based method, not ideas or abstract principles but a sequence of concrete exercises that will lead you to discover and develop passions and take initiative—even if you don’t yet know what you want to take initiative on.
Spodek’s Method Initiative exercises have been tested and refined over years in his popular course at New York University. Spodek illustrates the problem and the solution with stories of students in his course who have started with only a vague idea—or not even that—and have taken initiatives that have transformed their lives and the lives of others.
This is the best part of the Spodek Initiative methodology: even if you don’t know what you want to do, this methodology will help you to find your great idea, find what you’re passionate about, and learn how to advance your career or business by doing; by acting and solving real problems with creative solutions developed through his iterative process.
So that is what I will do over the next month or so! For any of you that regularly read my blog, I ask forgiveness: I promise to return to writing regularly about the environment and the things that I learn about the environment and developing a life that is more in balance with nature. But, I’m also excited to start a new chapter of my life with some exercises that will hopefully soon put me into a much better position to do more for the world, the people, animals, and all living and non-living things on it. Here’s to making a better future. Let’s go!
For anyone else who’s also interested in taking initiative in your life, growing as a person, moving your career forward, or getting your brilliant business idea, be sure to check out Josh Spodek’s book, Initiative and join me on this journey to new opportunities!
For the start of my journey, check out: Exercise 1 – Personal Essay
This post contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.