When I begin to think back over the past twelve years of my life as it relates to what God put me on Earth to do, I would have to admit that I’ve not done the best job of stewarding my gifts. To be honest, I’ve allowed myself to become so enthralled in the constant haze of negative self-talk, which has kept me chained down in my own mind and prevented me from reaching my full potential.

I began listening to a podcast called “The Ken Coleman Show,” which I had known about for quite some time, but allowed myself to remain too busy to look into it or fully understand what it was really about.

Now that I listen to it regularly, it has become my all-time favorite podcast!

The key theme that Ken talks about is finding your “sweet spot.” We’ve all heard or used this phrase in conversation before, I’m sure. However, he explains that, as it relates to our lives and our work, your sweet spot is the intersection of your greatest strength and your greatest passion.

What You Do Best & What You Love To Do Most

My job history includes:

• Retail jobs like:
  • Bag Boy at Winn-Dixie at 17
  • Cashier at a disgusting small-town seafood place that couldn’t stay open longer than a few years.
  • Late-night frozen food stocker at two other grocery stores.
  • Clerk at a Blockbuster (remember those?)
  • Lower-level management at two Family Christian bookstores (worst job and worst experience ever, which I will explain in greater detail in a later post).
• Full-Time jobs like:
  • Delivering beer for a Budweiser distributor until I left due to a back injury and a very limited understanding of how big of a mistake it was to leave.
  • Working a warehouse job for a Red Bull energy drink distributor for almost three years, which is an entirely separate series of blog posts to come.
  • Leaving Red Bull and moving to a water distributor job five minutes from home (leaving behind a 50+ minute commute one way).
  • That job lasted eleven months before I left to pursue what I strongly felt was God calling me to start a business doing IT Support and some marketing opportunities for a couple of friends’ businesses.
• Currently, I am a little over two months into what I would say would be the only big company I’d really ever work for if I wasn’t working for myself or someone I know personally with a great business that I believe in. I started in late August (2018) working at Apple in one of the Atlanta retail stores.

To say that it has already proved to be the absolute best job I’ve ever had would be an understatement. The way that my leadership team shows they care deeply for my growth and future with Apple, the way that my co-workers show that we are one team, despite all of our differences, and the way that God is pulling together all the things I’ve learned over the years and how it is refining me more into the person He is calling me to be, is just amazing!

In my next post, I will dive deeper into my experience over the past couple of months and how I have been shining a bright light on my sweet spot in ways I never thought possible before.

I want to leave you with a question: Mark Manson (author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***” — sorry, but it’s true) asks the simple, but profound question: “What makes you forget to eat?” Think about it!