Next Step: Go in any direction doesn't matter, just go.

I started to feel like I was having a midlife crisis... but not in a get a new Ferrari kind of way. More of like get a new career kind of way. So I started looking around and talking about it just to see what was out there. My partner worked for Microsoft at the time and started to send me postings that he felt like I would be a good match for. Honestly after looking at them I was 1) pissed that I went into community mental health rather than into tech and 2) Interested in the thought at pivoting to a different sector. I didn't know what that would look like and I know that Social Work is such a broad field that you can have many careers with one license. I was seeing jobs at Microsoft that sounded interesting and that I knew I could do. Specifically a role surrounding retaining diverse staff and leading a team. Oh I have all the ideas... but I didn't have the technical skills  that felt super daunting. We worked on building a new tech resume and that felt hard. I really didn't have any idea how to word my transferable skills since it seemed at the core so far out of my career path thus far. 

So I began to look for other alternatives, who is out there doing this? What types of groups or organizations could help me? There is a Latinas in tech meet up that I came across but I wasn't sure if it was for me, since I wasn't actually in tech, yet. In retrospect, I probably should have attended a meet up just to see what this was all about. Instead I came across a mentorship program offered by the Association of Latino Professionals of America (ALPFA) and that seemed like a good as start as any. Maybe I just needed some life coaching and direction... looming in the back of my mind was still this conversation with Jacqueline about having a mentor that I mentioned in the previous post. I did get into their program and was supposed to get connected with a professional to mentor me through out this program that lasted, I don't even remember maybe 6 months? We also had every other week meetings that consisted of different topics and guest speakers which I was very excited about. Unfortunately it was poorly run, the meeting times kept getting moved and/or cancelled last minute. Or there was constant confusion about which link to use etc. I tried, it didn't work so I moved on. 

Because I kept talking about this to folks in my circles, a friend and fellow entrepreneur Veronique Porter founder of Ampersand Workspace sent me an email that that contained Latin heritage month pop ups for entrepreneurs. The org was called Latino Career Assessment LCA, a whole firm dedicated to "coaching and training solutions for Latinos to be successful in their career". I meeaaan sounds exactly like what I am looking for! So I signed up to attend an initial session to see what it was all about. Turns out in doing so, I became part of something they just launched called HHM Latinos Rising Cohort. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into honestly, it was an accident but in retrospect it was serendipitous. This is what I was looking for with ALPFA and I found it here. Best part thus far everything I have tried has been free99!

After the initial session we were given a link to complete a Latino Career Assessment. Then there was a follow up debrief where we got to learn more about our results and discuss where we go from here now that we know what we know. Here are the results from my Assessment:

Ooff, It didn't look so hot but honestly it made sense to me. I felt like I had become stagnant and had started giving up on things at work because I was tired of the BS and never ending to do list. I was too tired to learn and too overwhelmed to be creative, or optimistic. The assessment didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know but it was helpful to see it laid out like this. It absolutely matched what I was feeling and I didn't like it! My over achiever brain was like... there is not enough green in this here assessment. I need to fix this! I have attended multiple monthly career chats and don't think the 3 month check in has happened. That date would have landed on Noche Buena. I do truly enjoy the camaraderie that has come from attending the monthly career chats. They tend to be small, like less than 10 people, because we are a cohort it is often the same people and the facilitators really focus on engagement. I enjoy how passionate everyone is about what they do and how they can help others. I had no idea if/how this would be helpful to me and where I was heading... which was mainly because I didn't know where I was heading but I know that I come out of these meetings more energized each time to keep pushing myself to figure where we go from here. 

Christmas was only a couple weeks ago, as I write this, the song keeps playing in my head. ♫ "On the first try of entrepreneurship the universe gave to me a failed mentorship trial and budding coaching program ♫ Direct Foreshadowing?