Two weeks ago, I met an old friend for coffee. We couldn’t believe we hadn’t seen each other in about a year and so we brought each other up to date on our changing lives. Talk soon turned to careers and creativity, as it often does when I get together with this creative soul. He told me about side projects he’s been nurturing, books he’s been reading, ventures he’s considering. He had clearly been more proactive in the past year than I; I felt like I was neither here nor there. I told him I was still in the same place as when we last spoke—still unsure about what it is I’d like to pursue next, only certain that I had a craving for a new challenge. Then he asked me what I saw myself doing were I not doing what I do now. I proceeded to answer the question; the answer, and they way in which I delivered it, took me completely by surprise.

I told my friend about this business idea that has been flitting about in my head. It’s not an idea I’d been pondering on a serious level, but the way I told him about it—with so much passion and excitement and conviction that I shocked my own self—I knew it was the one. I knew I had come upon the kind of idea that lights a fire in one’s heart, mind, and soul. The kind that excites and terrifies in equal measure. The kind that requires taking a leap. The kind that feels like a calling. All this time, I’d been wondering what my next act would be, feeling frustrated that maybe the well had run dry, and it’s been right there within, waiting to be introduced in a conversation between friends.

Great idea, it’s wonderful to meet you.

(Image above: May 16, 2009, New York City.)