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Distillation and Recalibration.

[This article is part of a series of articles focusing on my professional experiences over the past 5 years.]

The narratives surrounding my five-year journey will cover a wide-range of experiences and lessons. The difference I’m hoping to achieve through this exploration is to avoid documenting a simple checklist of “what not to do.” This shallow perspective and outcome will miss the point of such an exhaustive exercise.

As an example, while the strategy may not have attained the end state that I had originally intended, I consider the absence of a strategy in a future endeavor unwise.

What I hope to achieve through this process is a careful distillation of the events, circumstances, and challenges encountered during this period.

Distillation is about refinement, and the “extraction of the essential meaning or most important aspects of something.” When one steps outside of one’s self, which is critical for such an exercise, one gains a perspective that is not dissimilar to looking at a simulation from above. The primary difference is the depth at which one views the activity.

A thorough distillation exercise will ultimately “cut through” the noise in future engagements and continuously recalibrate back to what’s important. This distillation and recalibration process appears to represent two of the most important activities I’ll undertake in the years to come.