Freedom!

I’ve admitted it before: I am a change-lover. I love the way it feels to create something new, pursue a different course, discover and then realize the beauty in doing something unusual and exciting. It’s invigorating and natural; providing perhaps the kind of high adrenaline junkies seek as they continually push their own physical limits.

This partially explains why my favorite “business” book of all time is Gordon MacKenzie’s Orbiting the Giant Hairball. When I first read it as an MBA student in 2003 I knew I had found a kindred spirit. This was a creative book about relationships – a work about me, about my approach to everything from change to creativity to leadership to entrepreneurship. I love it because it is not some boring business book with position maps and pyramid diagrams. It is unconventional, entertaining, and spot on, and it not only helped shape my approach to business (I am not your typical MBA –and I’m damn proud of it) – it helped me identify how I had been able to thrive for so long in an organization filled with bureaucracy and caste-like politics: I was becoming an expert orbiter.

In 2003, I sincerely believed I would continue to hone this approach and happily grow in my healthy orbit as the years went by.

But the hairball is not what it used to be.

As 2012 came upon us, I reached a new and deeper honesty in my relationship with change -and the hairball. Looking back over the past 18 months I opened myself to the realization that I embrace change so enthusiastically because it has historically unfolded over a foundation of trust and collaboration. The hairball that had been that foundation for so long, unfortunately, no longer offered either of these.

In January, this deeper honesty helped me to set myself free.

Yesterday, I was freed from the hairball.

Ah! Personal and professional freedom is thrilling and beautiful. My inner adrenaline junkie can’t stop smiling.