Am I really a Consultant?

Last week I finished my very first big consulting gig.  I created a volunteer training management process for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. I still get kinda giddy when I say that--it's pretty awesome, huh?!?!

If you would have told me a year ago that someone would hire me to write down and teach them what I know, I would have laughed at you.  I mean, seriously, how many people get this opportunity?

It all started with a conversation with a friend.

Actually, it started before that conversation.  It was when I told God I would walk through any door He put in front of me and I would reach out to every person he put on my heart/mind.

I haven't kept track of how many people I actually met with over the last year, but it's been a LOT.  And there are still many more that I reached out to and either never heard back, or it just hasn't worked yet to get together.  And I won't even tell you how many doors I've walked through that didn't lead anywhere.

But back to that conversation...It was an early one--I think I met him at 6am (which meant I left my house at 5:15).  And it lasted for 3+ hours.  I just spilled what was on my mind and he took notes.  He had covered a couple of pages on his legal pad by the time we were done.

And here's what I learned in that conversation: What's ordinary for me could be extraordinary for someone else--and vice versa.  We have so much more inside us than we know.  SO much more that we don't even realize is buried under all the regular day-to-day stuff.  If I personalize that--I have so much more that I would have ever dreamed inside of me and there are people out there who are dying to have that info that just comes second-nature to me.  In fact, when I was meeting with the team I was creating the project for, I lost count of the number of times they would ask me questions and I would answer and then they would ask me to put that in the project--stuff I didn't even think to add because it was just "ordinary" for me.

And here's what I also know.  I met with that friend on the suggestion of another friend...because of a comment I made about wanting to write a book...which we barely even touched on in that conversation that led to this consulting gig.

In this season of life, I am learning that things don't always look like I thought they would.  In fact, they almost never look like the vision I have in my head.

My choice is to keep trying to make them fit inside the box in my head OR let go and just follow them in the form they appear in.