We love many things in our lives. Sometimes it’s obvious; family, pets, partners that tolerate our nonsense. Other times, it’s sneakier.
An idea that took root in your head and refused to leave (for me that’s SNAK.)
A city that made you feel like you belonged before you even knew the street names (NYC hands down.)
A job that, for all its chaos, gave you a story worth retelling at dinner parties (no comment, but I have a few stories😉.)
And then there are the people. The colleagues who became your confidantes (Melissa Hecht). The ones who snuck past the firewall of “professional relationship” and set up camp in your real life (Jennifer Villegas). Or the people who changed you without ever knowing it… maybe a passing mentor (Sonya Pombrik), maybe a sparring partner (Joshua Pynn), maybe that one boss who taught you more by being terrible than any leadership course ever could (again, no comment, but you know who you are.)
Love, in all these forms, shifts. It morphs. It re-codes itself into something new. What once was thrilling becomes familiar. What was once background noise suddenly feels symphonic. Sometimes we cling to things long after they’ve stopped serving us, and sometimes we let go too soon and spend years wondering “what if.”
If that sounds a little like yearning, that’s because it is. Professional yearning, the kind that hides under LinkedIn updates and conference coffee chats. We don’t pine for every spreadsheet (well, some of you might, and that’s ok), but most of us pine for the people, the ideas, and the moments that rewrote our trajectory.
Careers aren’t built on ladders. They’re built on loves; SKILLS we fell for, NETWORKS that held us up, ACTIVITIES that fueled us, KNOWLEDGE that shaped us. (Yes, that’s SNAK-talking.)
Because the question isn’t what do you do for work… but what have you loved about your work along the way, and how has it loved you back?
Drop a note in the comments and let us know one professional love that changed you; whether a person, a place, or an idea… and what did it give you that still shows up in your work today?
