Don't Lose Your Love for Detours
I like connecting the dots, as in, how did I get to this point in my life? What were the chapters that led me to where I am today? Some of those dots I really like, some, not so much.
Back then, when you had no idea where life was going, what captivated your attention? Before the career. Before the responsibilities. Before you started making practical decisions about what you should do and who you should become.
My young Karen sure had a lot of smarts about her. I underestimated how intuitive she was about what she wanted and who she wanted to become. The dreams she had were telling. Was it naive of her to imagine ideas and reach for futures that seemed too far out of reach?
Looking back, I see now how pure those early dreams were. They were, in a way, a portal into the unknown, an ideal she could see for herself.
Have you ever gone back in time to reacquaint yourself with the younger-you? Learn from that younger-you that had perspectives about their life before there was stress, pressure, and responsibilities?
All these years later, what I thought were just her silly ideals were actually glimpses into what would become of her. I see that now.
Every Detour Is Part of Your Path
I have three distinct memories from my 14-year-old self.
I used to spin a globe with my eyes closed, stop it with my finger, open my eyes and think, That’s where I’m going next.
In math class, for fun, I’d draw these little icon images that described my friends and their personalities and say, “This is how I see you. This is who you are.”
I dreamt (almost daily) that I’d be an executive in the fashion industry. I knew what car I’d drive. I knew what my office would look like. I could see the whole thing.
Those were my silly ideals at 14.
I didn't know it at the time, but these were the early signs of my absolute love and fascination for business; my relentless passion for helping people recognize what they’re capable of and rise to it; and my insatiable, adventurous spirit for exploring the world.
Here’s the cool part... they all happened when I reached my forties.
In 2008, I was invited to join the executive team at a luxury footwear company, John Fluevog Shoes, where I was responsible for sales, operations, and culture across the U.S. and Canada. I wore many hats, and it was here that my business acumen soared. I loved the fashion culture, the people who worked in the industry, and the unique artistic expression that made it feel so free and creative.
In 2015, I launched my own business. And although I may no longer draw little icons on paper, I've been fortunate to coach more than 150 decision-makers, C-suite executives, small business owners and franchisees, and start-up entrepreneurs across the U.S. and Canada.
Over the last 15 years, I began traveling more, and when I met Corey, my life partner, that love of travel only grew. Together, we’ve had the opportunity to experience breathtaking places, immerse ourselves in enriching cultures, and coexist with this big, beautiful world that reaches far beyond my own backyard.
It’s like it all came together, but not the way I expected it to.
I guess you could say that the space between my teens and my forties was a very long detour. But I don’t see it that way. It was filled with adventures, mistakes, disappointments, pain, unexpected turns, broken relationships, career changes, and countless life-changing stories I could never have planned.
What I’m realizing is that the detours I’ve experienced throughout my life didn’t erase those pure parts of me that were uniquely me. No one taught me nor trained me on how to have these wonders in my youth. They came from within. And they lived inside me, patiently waiting to be found again.
We Put Too Much Ink on Our Plans
I’m not good with directions and I get easily lost. I had a friend once joke with me and say, “When I pass through this life, I want you to be my pallbearer, just so I can have a laugh watching you get lost with my casket on the way to my gravesite."
One day, I was driving through the mountains when I took a wrong exit...again.
No big deal, I thought. I’ll turn around.
Except mountain roads don’t always cooperate, and there was no easy way back onto the highway. When I finally found a place to turn around, I landed in bumper-to-bumper construction traffic. What should have been a small mistake cost me about 30 minutes.
It really bothered me. I could feel the heat rising. I felt angry. Not at the road, but at myself because I had disrupted my own plan.
When I couldn’t find an exit to turn around, I switched from enjoying the drive to I’m going to be late. I didn’t want to keep people waiting. My people-pleaser took the wheel. (Pun intended. groan)
I started coaching myself through the frustration, reminding myself, Is it really a big deal? Getting there at a certain time was just a plan.
Then I remembered something Corey and I do whenever we, okay, whenever I, take a wrong turn. We say, “Oh look. An adventure.” Or, “We’ve never been on this road before.” It changes the experience immediately.
The wrong turn is still the wrong turn. But suddenly I’m looking around again instead of being mad at myself. And I could feel that switch happening in me. It all came back to me. The open road for miles. The mountain air. I turned the tunes back up and settled into cruise control.
I started enjoying the ride again.
By the time I arrived, being late was not my focus. What mattered was how I showed up. The detour had become this gift that brought me back to myself.
And I’m pretty sure everyone was happier to have that version of me walk through the door than the worried, stressed-out driver I had been two hours earlier.
Plans are better written in pencil than in ink, and that applies far beyond road trips.
There’s nothing wrong with having a plan. The problem starts when we believe the plan is a contract with the future.
We create plans for our careers. We decide when we should get promoted. When the business should grow. When the book should be finished. When the next client should arrive. We create expectations around all of it, based on our own perception of time and what success is supposed to look like.
And then we stop enjoying the open road and care more about getting there. We miss out on so much when we set plans with ink.
The future is written in pencil. And detours remind us to loosen the grip of expectations.
Still Plan, But Use a Pencil
I was recently reminded of the television series The A-Team. Hannibal, the leader of the pack, had a famous line: “I love it when a plan comes together.”
I don’t want in any way to convey that we throw our plans to the wind.
Let’s say you spend weeks on an important presentation, anticipating the questions, preparing the data, and thinking through every detail. You deliver it, the room is engaged, the executives love your ideas, and afterward your boss pulls you aside and says, “That was exceptional. You nailed it.” You walk out of that meeting feeling proud, confident, and recognized.
That feels great!
That could not have happened without putting a plan in place and preparing for it.
There’s nothing wrong with having a plan. Plans give us direction. They give us something to work toward.
The ink I’m referring to, that thing we can so easily fall into, is the ink of control. We can become so attached to our ideas of how and when things should happen.
I should have done this by now.
I should be further along.
I thought my career would look different.
Those expectations can start to feel like ink. When we use a pencil, it gives us more freedom to adjust along the way.
Detours are inevitable. Big or small, something will eventually shift what we originally had in mind. And that’s a good thing.
Re-routing rarely looks like what we expected. Staying open to detours can show us something the original route never could.
It’s easy to put so much pressure on ourselves because we decided something should happen, especially when we put a timestamp on it.
Yes, make your plans, set goals, and know where you want to go. Just consider using a pencil and eraser, and stay away from ink.
Don’t Lose Yourself in the Detour
This may be the most important part.
Although a detour can change your timeline, what I’ve come to learn over the years is that the one thing it should never change is who you are.
When I look back at my 14-year-old self, I’m amazed at how much she already knew about me.
She was a free spirit. Curious about people and different cultures. She could see strengths in her friends and loved showing them what she saw. She had this wanderlust for the world. And somewhere inside her, she already knew there was something about business that resonated with her.
No one knew about those daydreams. Only I did.
The other part that intrigues me is the serendipity between what was and what is. Moments I could so easily have overlooked, until my memory nudges me and says, “See the parallels between your 14-year-old self and this moment right now? Isn’t that cool? She was more attuned to who she was than you realized.”
For example, there was a Jaguar dealership near my Montréal home where I spent my teenage years. Every time I walked by, I would stop to admire the cars and pick out my favorite. No one in my family talked about cars. I didn't care about the engine or the fuel efficiency. I just thought they were beautiful.
Years later, while working at John Fluevog Shoes, the first store I helped John open was in Portland. John collects Jaguars, and in the store design he displayed his restored 1965 Jaguar Mark X that had belonged to his dad.
What are the odds?
These are the moments in my evolution where I see the dots connecting. The Jaguar I admired at 14 showed up again years later when I was opening my first store with John.
And there I was standing by a beautiful jaguar, training a brand new team as we prepared for the grand opening. I wasn’t drawing little icons on paper anymore, but that instinct I had at 14 had grown into my career. What I once did intuitively with friends, I was now doing professionally across an entire organization.
Fascinating synchrony.
Detours may shape me. Teach me. Grow me. But they are not meant to rob me of those parts of myself that were there all along.
There’s a journey ever-unfolding, and eventually, some of it starts to tie together.
What About You?
What did you love before you started thinking about what was practical, impressive, or expected of you?
Maybe as a teenager you loved writing stories. Maybe you were always organizing group hangouts. Taking things apart to figure out how they worked. Making people laugh. Helping friends solve their problems. Drawing. Building. Performing. Riding your bike all over the neighborhood by yourself.
These moments that belong only to you are significant.
When I say don’t lose yourself in the detours of life, I can testify that, in some wonderful way, those parts of you come back around.
They may not look the way they did at 14, but there’s something familiar about them. Something that makes you stop and smile, “There you are. I’m so happy you’re back.”
Those early parts of you may still have something important to say about who you’re becoming.
Sometimes the Detour Is the Reroute
There’s one other possibility.
Sometimes the detour isn’t taking you back to your original road at all.
There have been detours in my life that I would describe as kind. It’s like I got nudged onto a different road, only to discover I was always supposed to be there. I had just lost sight of it along the way.
Those are some of my favorite detours. They accelerated my growth and opened doors I never saw coming.
You may not understand the reroute while you’re in it. That part often comes later, when you look back and realize, Oh. Now I see why that happened.
Sometimes the detours we wanted to erase become part of the story we wouldn’t change for anything.
That’s why I can’t stress enough the importance of focusing more on not losing who you are and less on what you think your life should look like.
- Karen Thrall, @karenthrallinc
🎧You can also listen more about this topic on The Don’t Lose Podcast Ep3 on all channels and YouTube
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