When I was a child, some of my happiest memories were getting new LEGO sets. Immediately I opened it and began building. My head was buzzing with excitement and while putting brick above brick I spun stories about pirates, castles, deep sea exploration and space adventures.
Once I had finished building the sets, I played with them for a while, but that was just nice to add. The most joy I always had was just building.
Then growing up, I stopped building. “Playing is not a part of adulthood” – I thought. I have to become serious and start working on my career. Until I read a book called “IKIGAI” in 2023.
This book is about the japanese IKIGAI model that looks at the one thing that
- You love doing,
- The world needs,
- You can earn a living with
- And that you are good at.
While reading, I got frustrated. I didn’t know what my IKIGAI could be. But on one of the last pages, there were two sentences that sparked my interest: “What did you already enjoy when you were a kid? Maybe you still do that?” – “Could it be?” I thought to myself.
I loved building LEGO back then. And I still love building furniture or something for my terrace. And basically that’s what I have also been doing professionally, without seeing the connective thread: I was building campaigns, marketing strategies, brands, projects and my career.
What is it about building that I love so much?
It is like a good strategy: At the beginning, we take a look at where we are. And then we look at where we want to be in the futures. Or in other words: There is something which doesn’t exist yet, and we need to create. This gives me the best high: The feeling of building something that was not before there yet and that I can help shape. Maybe there was no strategy there before, maybe there was no connection to customers, maybe there is a new product that needs a novel marketing approach, or it might be a new channel that needs to come to existence.
I worked for brands like McDonald’s and Greenpeace, and finally put it all together when I became the Head of Marketing at Too Good To Go. I built the brand for the Austrian market together with an amazing team.
After being employed for 15 years, I started my own marketing studio in 2022, and I’ve been lucky so far to be able to continue working with and advising some amazing brands. So now I build my own company. I dedicate 1–2 days per week to building it by writing a newsletter, hosting a podcast, again building a team and the rest of my week I work for my clients. I help them with marketing workshops, strategies, coachings and an online learning format. All to build their brands, be it a startup or a corporation.
It is all building. That’s my IKIGAi. I am good at building things.
Steve Jobs famously said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”.
By the way, I started building LEGO again in my free time. It still calms me down, and it is a great practice to do while I now listen to podcasts.
So let me ask you now: What did you love doing when you were a kid? Do you still do it today?
