My perfect job? Right under my nose

Perfect job? Right there!

by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat

Seven short weeks ago, I wrote about my excitement in choosing corporate work over teaching yoga for making a living.

Now everybody’s asking me if I’ve found a job yet.

Well, yes. And no.

What I’ve found is the ideal company to work with, and what I’ve found is my people. What I still haven’t found is a full-time salaried job. For one, as I applied for both full and part-time work, I soon realised that I was kidding myself about getting a full-time job.

I already spend five hours or so a week teaching yoga, plus 10 – 15 hours running The Yoga Lunchbox. Factor in single-parenthood, and the only way I could’ve worked full-time was to shortchange my son, myself, my yoga teaching or The Yoga Lunchbox. Wasn’t going to happen.

So I started looking at part-time gigs, and as a result, I’ve joined the team at Enspiral:

“A social innovations company, a coming together of change-makers of world class talent.  We’re an innovatively new kind of business incubator. We spin off startups that are designed to tackle some of the pressing social and environmental issues of our time with creativity, a touch of technology, and a whole heap of talent.”

Business incubator translates to ‘lots of interesting ways to contribute for no direct, salaried return (but plenty of other kinds of return)’. Something I excel in – contributing what’s needed, when it’s needed, for no direct return (hello The Yoga Lunchbox!). And while a part of me wondered if I was crazy to do more for nothing… the other part of me is trusting the process.

I mean, Enspiral is a company built on values – values like:

“How can we help you?”,

“Take what you need, use the rest to change the world”

“How do we make this planet a better place?”

Oh yes, these people, they are my people, and I am their people.

They care about using business to change the world, and find creative ways to deal with the pressing social and environmental issues of our time.

Gets me all hot and bothered just thinking about it. And now I get to join the party too.

Recently, I rocked up to a day-long workshop on Loomio, on of these innovative start-ups that’s going to change the world. You may have seen their PledgeMe campaign a month or so ago. I did – I saw, I loved it, and I pledged money. Little did I know that a month later I’d be helping them workshop their founding story and guiding principles. I felt like I’d come home.

And that’s just it – this entire job-hunting process has been about getting to know myself better, and what I need to feel satisfied in my work life.

It’s been about getting clear on exactly what I want to experience and daring to write it all down in a grand vision. It’s been about trusting that those needs articulated in that vision would be met.

Along the way, I was applying for every communications job that came up, and being rejected for them all. I didn’t even get any interviews. It could have been discouraging or depressing. But it wasn’t. All the work I’ve done on myself in the last few years stood me in good stead.

I knew that if I was being rejected for those roles, it meant I wasn’t right for them, and if I wasn’t right for them, then it meant that they weren’t right for me. I didn’t feel like I had to make any effort to ‘fit in’ any more. What a relief to finally be in this place!

I now have the confidence that I can be me in this world, and there is a place here that’s perfect for me, just as I am.

And there is. I’m already doing it. The Yoga Lunchbox.

Yep… after all this, I’ve come right back around to where I’ve always been and realised that publishing this magazine is the perfect role for me. It’s been four years, and over 500 articles since I first launched The Yoga Lunchbox.

During those four years of work, I’ve self-funded the website, putting in my own time and money to make it fly.  Why? Because I love this website and the type of work it requires from me.

Knowing this still didn’t solve two of my needs though – interacting with other people, and earning a living.

And that’s why I’m so stoked to be joining up with Enspiral. I retain my autonomy, and get to work with an inspiring company that sees the world the way I do. I may not have done any paying work with Enspiral, but it is only a matter of time. Plus I can now call on a passionate, talented, creative, intelligent, supportive and fun group of people to help me workshop The Yoga Lunchbox and it’s new direction.

‘Cos that’s the other thing I’ve realised as part of this process.

Yet again, I’ve spiralled round to my passion for writing, my passion for community, and my passion for publishing. Sure, to date, I’ve failed miserably at making this website financially viable. But I ain’t giving up. This website has value, this community has value, and the work I’m doing has value. All I need to do is work out how to unlock that value. It will happen.

Watch this space.