A fresh start…and an invitation

Rooting my passion

About a year ago now, I had this very strange feeling.  I felt bored. More than that, I felt uninspired. Here I was–a Vice-president of a large healthcare software company,  a beautiful home,  and a great team of smart people working for me.  Had I know I would achieve these things before turning 35 when I was  a young pup, I would have been thrilled. And yet…. I was ready to quit on just about everything.  My job, my career, my house.

What happened? Simple. I had lost my passion for what I was doing. Worse yet, maybe I had never even had it.

Passion is a squirrely thing. I can get excited about many things.  I am a natural extrovert, I have lots of energy, and I love to share my enthusiasm far and wide. More than anything, though, I was excited to hear about new ideas.

Indeed my passion for ideas was reflected early on in my career decisions. For example, following a brief stint as a programmer at Microsoft (I have cheezy Windows development shirts to prove it!), I attended Michigan Law School to study intellectual property law.

Following law school, I went on to join a Silicon Valley law firm and helped a number of startups go IPO turn into multi-billion dollar public companies.  Money was flowing and the streets were gold. We were changing the world, right?

Sort of.  I saw many brilliant ideas but brilliant ideas weren’t getting funded. Instead, many of the new ideas felt more like marketing tricks–people were using buzzwords and powerpoints and talking about how quickly they could go IPO. They were not even validating the ideas.

The ideas took a back seat to getting to a payout.  The sooner payout the better.

So, I decided it was time for a change and I moved to Colorado ultimately landing with a healthcare software company as corporate counsel. I was negotiating major ($100 million+) software and outsourcing deals but my desire for ideas demanded a change.  So, I accepted responsibility for building an IP program from scratch.

Building the program, policies, incentives and metrics for the program was a great experience but I realized we needed more ideas to build our innovation portfolio. So we developed a grassroots innovation program and built stronger financial incentives and an inventor award program.

We had 60 ideas submitted in the first 3 months and many were valid and actionable.   My promotion to Vice-President was a direct result of these efforts. Finally, with a budget, team and title in hand, I was going to promote ideas that would change the face of healthcare.

That is until I realized that the same pressures that I had seen in the Silicon Valley were doubly true within corporate America.  Everything was about getting to a short-term payoff and hitting quarterly revenue targets.  There was no room  for disruptive and life-changing innovation–or many of the other ideas that we had encouraged employees to submit. My grassroots innovation program was suddenly just another lifeless slide on the corporate deck.

Back to one year ago, I am sitting at my desk looking out the window. It is dark outside and most everyone has gone home. It is then that I turned to a simple little paper weight sitting on my desk: “What would you do if you knew that you could not fail?”

WOW. Not what job I would have, not what I would own, not what would I make–what would I DO. The wheels of change began to turn. Within 3 months I had left my job, moved out of my home, and launched my company-I was on the path to embracing my passion. No more would I get by.  I would help others make world changing ideas happen. I had found my passion.

Actionable ideas lead to change

Trivial Pursuits was born out of this desire and is all about focusing on the right ideas and doing what I can to see those ideas realized as a collaborator, a connector, an inventor, a lawyer and a social media promoter.

So why Trivial? My favorite ideas are often seemingly trivial ones–but it is often the small ideas that lead to the greatest change. And it is in the garden of those ideas–those grassroots, life-changing, world-influencing yet seemingly trivial ideas–the my passion has taken root.

I am still new on this path but armed with my passion for ideas and enthusiasm for change, I have no doubt about the exciting future of seeing great ideas realized.  Hellen Keller once said: Life is an adventure or it is nothing.  I choose adventure.

This blog will serve as a way to share those great new ideas, startup tips, social media insights, intellectual property perspectives, major life insights and other topics that I come across as a new entrepreneur launching a new business and a new life.

Are you ready to join the adventure?