I am a true believer in making your selections in your career based on your passion. Let me explain why. Every day should be a learning experience so having to deal with something that you are not passionate about might take you into places where you do not want to be. I wanted to share some thoughts of my own choices. Maybe there is somebody reading this and contemplating making a chance in direction and this could help.

When I analyze my own career, it is obvious that all of the turning points have been somehow related to a need and a want to change direction.  Or make a decision where to focus next. My cycles used to be around 5 years, but now as a business owner for the past 10 years, my selections have been more or less based fulfilling the needs that the market has. My own company TELLUS International is turning 10 years this June. Time flies.

I made a few core decisions two years ago. I decided to focus on specific ecosystems where I have a passion from a technology perspective: SharePoint, Microsoft Azure and Dynamics CRM (and Dynamics ERP). A natural addition was Office 365 and as part of my business model transformation workshops I went pretty deep with Microsoft Azure. I am glad I did. Now when I review the efforts in these ecosystems, it has paid off. Microsoft focus on both Microsoft Azure and Office 365 is strong and the suggested development model for Office 365 SharePoint solutions is to use Microsoft Azure as backend. I did not forget to maintain my skills in sales either. I have continued selling enterprise solutions to corporations to make sure I understand the buyer side as well. There is a reason for this. When I run my educational sessions on global basis for Microsoft ISVs and SIs, I want to understand what they are going through as I really want to convey my own learnings into my education content both in live seminars as well as courses on TELLUS Academy.

I feel it is our responsibility to educate the generation coming from schools that choices they make in their education are critical for their career and happiness. I have emphasized to my kids that they need to pick their education based on what they like to do the rest of the life and not what is expected from them. Picking a career based on somebody else’s expectations is a big mistake and can lead to a miserable and painful career. It is hard to make choices, but we need to stop every now and then and reflect what our desires are and take the decisions and steps based on what we feel is the right thing to do. You should not wait for somebody else to make those decisions for you, you need to be the one in the drivers seat.