I use the Jetpack app for all my blogging on my mobile to tap out a post and it has some daily prompts to help people to start blogging. Every day I look at the questions but just write my own thing.

Today was different.

Let’s give this a go.

So here’s the question on the Jetpack app today.

Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

To be honest, it wasn’t.

This time last year, the company I used to work for, Adopt & Embrace was acquired.

Some few of months after the acquisition, I started thinking about leaving.

There were a couple of reasons for it but the main one was that I preferred to work for a B-corporation (Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose). I liked the idea that we were working in a fairly new and innovative way that gave back to the community making what I did have more purpose and meaning because it was given value and focus.

I had also made an assumption that I would have liked to have worked there for another 5 or so years to build the external community that I was responsible for and to see it through to fruition so that I could then retire having built some legacy.

I saw this role as an integral part of the business where we could have a community consisting of clients, ex-clients, partners, suppliers and advocates learning from and with each other. Our own “fan base” of our company. A place where they could talk openly, teach and share lessons and case studies with each other, and to network with each other – a place where our company provided the expertise as well as the space to connect and bring together people.

I wanted to try this concept of community out as a new way of doing business as part of the B-Corporation: which focuses on people, customers, governance, environment and community, and then quietly retire having built something that was self-sustaining and ongoing.

Unfortunately, what do they say about best laid plans?

What I was quickly realising was that the community idea may have worked if we were a B-corporation, however, it didn’t align if we were a for-profit business which the new acquisition was.

Although the organisation was open to the idea of community, fundamentally, it was misaligned to it simply because it’s focus was not on the above five factors.

So working for this new company meant that there was a fundamental misalignment to the basic reasons of why I had joined the original company in the first place.

So this time last year, I was planning to submit my resignation before Christmas 2021. However, I kept holding out to see if the situation would improve. Instead, I challenged myself to think positively about my work and rather than building the different work locations across three different countries into a community, I changed focus to think more about building an internal community in Yammer. I saw that the teams were working in silos and decided to focus instead on breaking these down and building the internal connections and relationships by helping people use Yammer (Viva Engage) and building communities of practice across a different range of topics related to Expertise, New Technologies and Interest Groups.

Having that as a new focus meant that my work was being “seen” and it would make me feel like I was doing something useful to the new company.

I continued to work until October 2022 and I built the internal community to a point where colleagues from across the countries were now talking to each other. I had achieved what I set out to do despite having constant obstacles and some issues. Finally, around the same time, Yammer was going to be rebranded to Viva Engage and would have incorporated Stories and Storyline (which made it look exactly like Facebook) and it was at this fitting point that I had decided to resign.

Truth be told, I couldn’t give anymore to the idea of communities and social learning in organisations especially when these weren’t formally acknowledged or supported in hierarchical organisations where the majority don’t contribute or participate and those who do, are detrimented in some way.

So my life today isn’t what I pictured for 2022. Instead, I pictured it for at least 2025 or 2026.

However I’m not bitter about it at all. In fact, when I think about it, I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time.

Sure, there are times where I feel tinges of guilt that I am not currently working or that I’ve had a fundamental shift in my thinking when it comes to everything that I have espoused and built up over these last years working in the field of learning and development, social learning and community.

I still believe these in my heart, to be core to what people need in order to feel that they belong and create meaning and purpose in their work. I just don’t believe in the institution of current work practices and the corporate business models of today – which most companies function under. You can *say* that people and community matter but when your actions speak otherwise, you can see through the talk. At that point, you start to question your involvement in the system.

I decided not to be in that system anymore (knowing full well that other systems, yes even B-corporations and not-for-profits, can have their flaws too).

So now, in my “earlier than expected semi-retirement”, I have no expectations put on me, my time is my own. I set my own agenda. There are days where I do absolutely nothing but read or knit. I spend time at home cleaning the house and making things to make it beautiful and comfortable for my family.

Will my life be pretty much the same in 2023? I hope so.

I have no plans other than to build my social circle and start creating more long term friendships and relationships with people who I can bond with and enjoy their company that will take me into setting up a life that sees me through the rest of my 50s and 60s.

I’m also thinking of taking a dedicated focus on my health and diet and finally committing to this as a priority.

The rest? They’ll figure themselves out over time.