One of us recently moved into a new role. This week’s Hiring Happens comes from that perspective.
Blame the Olympics. Watching all that ice time convinced me to dig the skates out of the back of the closet for the first time this winter.
The first few minutes, I skated with my head down, staring at every bump and crack in the ice. Every move felt tentative. I’d overcorrect, slow myself down, and try to stay perfectly balanced.
I wasn’t falling. But I also wasn’t really moving.
I stood in the middle of the pond watching little kids skate circles around me, wondering why I thought this was a good idea. But I was already out there, so I decided on a few more laps.
Eventually, I stopped staring straight down. I looked up. I relaxed. Instead of fighting every wobble, I let myself move through it. And suddenly I was gliding. Not holding my breath with every step, just moving. It felt good. Good enough that I didn’t want to stop.
In skating, there’s a term for it – finding your edge. It’s the moment you stop fighting for balance and start trusting the blade. The glide doesn’t come from being perfectly steady. It comes from leaning in. If you watched the U.S. women’s gold medal skate, you saw it in action.
After nearly six years on our team, I recently stepped into a new role leading both marketing and sales. And I’ll be honest, it has been challenging. The kind of challenging where you question yourself more than you expected, where the learning curve feels steeper than it looks from the outside.
But here’s the other truth: I love it. I wake up every morning wanting to lean in.
Growth rarely feels smooth at the beginning. Feeling off balance doesn’t mean you’re failing. Sometimes it just means you’re learning how to move differently.
So if you’ve recently stepped into something new – a promotion, a different team, a project that feels bigger than you expected – I’m right there with you.
Sometimes the best thing you can do isn’t slow down or step off the ice. It’s to keep moving.
You might spend a while looking down at the cracks. But eventually, you look up. And somewhere along the way, you find your edge.
Until next time,
Your Spherion WI & Northern IL team