I don’t think motivation was what drove me into my current career, it was priorities, realization and interest. As a 16–17 year old when I was in my 11th and 12th, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted from life. 

If you don’t know what you want to learn and you were good at studies you went for Engineering. That was the rule in late 80s when I graduated high school. I did the same and entered the workforce along with many others. While many were truly etched out to be good engineers, I was not.

I started with sales and went on to client management and then switched to project management and then discovered Agile Methodologies a little over 10 years back. This was a time when I had a new set of priorities and found out what I did not want to do. I did not want to do sales or entrepreunership because that also entailed sales. I wanted to do something different. 

My client management activities had moved to a bit of project management as well. I also had some expertise in content management. Luckily I got an opportunity that mixed Content Management and a bit of PM role. Jumped into that and swim through it.

I also started building an idea of what my interests were. Yes it had taken me almost 20 years to do that. Looking back, I think that was too much of time spent finding what you wanted to do. But that’s ok.

Priorities: I was around 40 and I realized that age will catch up with me and I had to pivot to a role that can use my diverse expertise into action. My experience with Sales, entrepreneurship, people management, conflict resolution all gave me some insights into areas other than software development. My priority was to remain employable till I retire. I was never a big fan of being a people manager climbing a corporate ladder. May be because I never thought I was good at it. I preferred being an employable as an Individual Contributor. The Agile spectrum seemed apt for that.

Realization: I realized I was able to bring some order to chaos as well as work with people who might not fully agree with me. Here my experienced as a failed entrepreneur helped. I also learned that I was able to coach and train people often explaining my learning from mistakes. Working with them to show they are not alone and if I can even they can perform better. The agile space seemed to have opportunities to put these skills to real practice.

Interests: I have had a long term dream to influence people in changing their lives on a personal and professional levels. In whatever small way I can. Not to motivate through hype talk, but to share models and methods that could be useful. The Agile space was getting out of the software arena and moving to other parts of businesses and even into the society and individual lives. The concept of value and flow was becoming more generic usages and not just agile or even business. As human beings value and flow were critical to us. 

This was more than 10 years back. I am not saying I have achieved all that I wanted. But after graduating 30 years back, I still feel I am learning, it is not the end, but a mid way in my journey. 

In hindsight I also feel there was a lot I could have done differently. But what matters is that the future looks much better than what it did for me 10+ years back. Yes I am 10 years older, but that is part of the game. 

I think today I am motivated to continue to work and expand in the Agile space for the next 15 years more.