You're So Venn

A mentor once asked me a three word question that packed a punch: “What drives you?”

People don’t normally ask such direct questions. No one else has asked me that, before or since. It’s the kind of question that has presence; the kind that makes you lean forward a bit, as though waiting to hear what you, yourself, will say.

My reply to the question was . . . not great.

Because the question surprised me. I wasn’t prepared at all, and so my answer, delivered with some hand gestures that looked a bit like grasping, was just one word: “. . . more.” That’s all I said: “more.”

At the time, I was years into my tenure with a long-term employer and was looking for a path to what I could only describe, back then, as “bigger” work. In hindsight, I was making a mistake, looking for a kind of fulfillment that no job title or company alone can provide a path to. And I spent several years continuing to make that mistake, continuing to think small.

The question stayed with me, though.

It kept me thinking. What did drive me? And then one day someone else, offering advice and her own experience, shared with me a Venn diagram idea that made it make sense. It was like ingredients mixing. Like continents, inching closer.

She told me to picture a Venn diagram: one circle was what I was good at, another was what brought me satisfaction, and the third was what the organization needed. The goal, of course, was to find the area where they met.

As an aside, this is similar to the Japanese concept of Ikigai, minus a circle—the visualizations of Ikigai have four circles in overlap. And while I love the visual elegance of four circles, it’s easier to remember the three shared with me first.

Have you ever joked about what you want to be when you grow up? I certainly have (and still do!). And ever since hearing the Venn diagram advice I think the simple answer, for me, is that I just want to be in that sweet spot: at the intersection of talent, satisfaction, and usefulness.

Not just for a job or a career, but as a person, in my one lifetime.

That. That is what drives me. It’s not a script, not an elevator statement. Not something I have to work to remember. I want to work my way always toward the meaning and fulfillment that lives in the intersections.

Things live in each circle that will never overlap. For example, I enjoy baking but will never earn an income for it, and do it mostly for myself. And that’s okay—if everything’s in the sweet spot then nothing is. But the best things? They live in the intersections.

And so I’m working my way toward them. Learning about myself as I go, to get closer to the ever-shifting center of things.