Working in corporate America can be really great or totally terrible. It seems like it’s stable and safe, but can leave you wide-open and vulnerable. It’s at once a gift and at times… a complete nightmare.

I have been lucky enough to have worked for some of the biggest media companies in the world, and each time, I divided my attention because of my insatiable drive (or unhealthy ego). I want to be a network anchor, but I also want to teach yoga. I want to be on the radio, but why didn’t I try to be on TV? I want to be a podcaster, but I really want to be a New York Times columnist. You get the gist?

I’ve learned that getting scattered (or desperate to get there too fast), and losing your steely-eyed focus, is when you start to lose yourself.

I worked weekends for a small news network back in the day. It went out of business, but my network (now in it’s 17th year), the one I created with my own brain, kept on growing, because I maintained it all along. But when I helped create another one for someone else, instead of staying 100% focused on my thing, it sort of stagnated. Then, shocker! The one I focused on more, didn’t work out, but my network chugged along.

Then I went to work at what is arguably the biggest news network in the world, at the same time taking a whole bunch of yoga trainings. I quit the behemoth network, and my little one grew and grew. Don’t get me wrong, quitting a major news network isn’t the right choice for everyone. But it wasn’t the wrong choice for me.

Then the pandemic hit and my yoga side work fizzled (maybe I should have bought Zoom stock!), but my little baby news network continued on.

Since then I have also built a company with a team of smart people who I really trust and admire. And guess what? I never felt that way in corporate America. Trust? More like watch your back little lady.

And still, almost every single day, I look for entertainment jobs online for my company to tackle, but sometimes, my attention is high-jacked by the what-ifs. So, I apply for jobs here and there and maybe one comes along that makes me think I will die there. But that’s a fallacy. At some point, when you totally ignore your dreams; or give up on yourself, YOU go stagnant.

You have to reroute your attention back to your passion. And you know what? It’s totally fine to have many things that spark joy. But it’s never okay to leave yourself behind for someone else’s dream.

That’s my two pennies worth. Do you have a moral to YOUR story? What say you?