Explore Your Thing Out Loud

What’s your thing?

For me, it’s how Agility and personal development intersect.

I mean, I like making music, too. I’m usually found remixing something in my head, or beatboxing something out loud. This is a thing I can’t help doing, not so much because I’m intrigued by it, but because… I can’t help it. I guess this is a thing, too… a natural thing, vs. an intriguing thing. BOTH are things. (Where the fuck am I going with this thing? Let’s keep exploring…)

Pick a thing, then explore it out loud.

My Thing

When I started this blog a decade ago, it was to solve a problem: How do I apply Scrum to personal development? I googled around and found very little, the few examples focusing on how Scrum helped manage a discrete non-work-related activity: Scrum as tactical tool. Yet I was looking for more. So I made that more. The blog was a stab at crafting a solution for the next suddenly single dude suddenly in a one-bedroom apartment, and eventually, through mid-post-writing epiphanies, a solution for myself as I think through different stages of life, including one where my daughter is now 6 years old.

Investing time in introspection in this area did end up helping with a career change! While my resume showed no full-time experience as a Scrum Master, the interview for my first full-time Scrum Master gig showcased my deeper thinking and some flavour of experience as I applied the concepts unto myself, such that I at least sounded like I wasn’t a newbie (maybe that odd experience translated to confidence).

Exactly 6 years after starting testing medical devices, now Scrum Mastering full-time, I had accomplished a milestone of my own exploration, so when it came to the blog, I found myself saying,

“Where the fuck am I going with this thing? Let’s keep exploring…”

This exploring has led to what I want to do overall, and what I want to do next.

This exploring has led to my first YouTube lecture, and my first YouTube interview.

When I started this blog a decade ago, I’ll admit I was not motivated by a specific outcome (future-focused / “Where the fuck am I going with this thing?” / noun-focused), but rather by the intrigue of the thing (now-focused / “Let’s keep exploring…” / verb-focused).

I picked a thing, then explored it out loud.

Your Thing

What’s your thing?

What intrigues you, or comes naturally to you, where you can explore it such that the ultimate results become inconsequential?

You’re likely not the only one with this thing.

You’re likely not the only one wondering where the fuck you will go with this thing.

So explore it. Out loud. For all of us.

And when you get somewhere, accomplishing a milestone of your own exploration, you will ask yourself, “Where the fuck am I going with this thing?”

And then, I hope you exclaim, “Let’s keep exploring…”

Pick a thing, then explore it out loud.