Analysis and synthesis. Teasing apart and stitching together. These two primal push and pull forces shape our days and transform our lives as we make our way through the world.

As we live, so we work.

We begin our careers as analysts, breaking down complex questions into smaller, more manageable questions that are easier to solve. Over time, as our careers progress to include formulating policy and inspiring people, the nature of the work we do changes. We start to focus more on discerning the invisible relationships between apparently unrelated data to create a deeper understanding of our organization and the context in which it operates.

As we grow into leadership roles, we transition from analysis to synthesis, from asking “how” to asking “why.”

And as we work, so we live. As our leadership responsibilities at work expand, we coincidentally become adults in the truest sense of the word. We become less preoccupied with accumulating credentials and meeting others’ expectations. We become more concerned with reclaiming our original identity.

Less distracted by the imperatives of “should” and “ought,” we pause to reflect on how we have become who we are today. We might recall the superheroes of our childhood and the values they embodied, because their values are, in a very real sense, our values, too. They are who we hoped to become one day