That’s it no more Reign on my Fire.

I can’t believe all this time has slipped by. Where did it go?

September 2008 was a slow return to reality after BRC, followed by October’s fast and furious assimilation by the “Borg” –  my own personal Kryptonite, a “real job”.

Lured by what promised to be, at last, the perfect opportunity to work using only my strengths: Strategy, Coaching, Team Building, User Experience Design, and Introducing Social Media, I leapt at the chance to “build my own team.” I never imagined I’d be hanging up my brand new super-hero suit so quickly.

I envisioned a slow ramp up as a sort of Charles Xavier, culling through my network of ultratalented friends from the online world – designers, developers, social-media gurus and online strategists, to assemble a best-of-the-best league of super online mutants to fight the good fight against an unwieldy navigation scheme and general lack of brand strategy. It seemed so close, so real, so easy. Heck, I was going to work for the American Association for Justice, it already sounded like a superhero gig. Moonlighting as TBD would be snap, right?

But, the world and the economy had other things in store for me and my team. Just days after arriving, out went The Memo. You know the one. Chances are pretty good you’ve seen one or more of these in the last year or so –  the, “cutting back, tightening belts, hiring freeze” memo.

(I think Hiring Freeze must be a distant cousin to Mr. Freeze, and one cold, heartless bitch, tho not as rotten as her paramour, LayOff.)

So my team of soon-to-be-six, was instantly frozen at 2.5, and 9 months of way too many 80 hour weeks, a layoff, a scapegoat and an implosion later, it’s just me and two wonder twins.

I lived so much of this last year so far outside of my Strengths Zone that I feel drained and depleted. But at the same time, I’ve taken on – and beaten – technical challenges I could never have imagined previously. (POW! take that web server scrub! BAM! RedDot LiveServer redundancy! BANG! you’re done, ever- crashing-nightmare-giving website! No more!)

Still, even though TBD would brush through my thoughts with a melancholy longing, there seemed no possibility to pull out the suit, to ignite the Fire of Desire. But in the last several months, with my darkest of foes defeated, I’ve felt her whispering to me at every turn. Teasing me with signs and symbols.

And so feeling like Peter Parker in Reign, or Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Returns, older, slower, surlier, hopefully a little wiser, yet nonetheless compelled, I must don the suit again.

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After a brief stint in the hospital for a very minor health issue (Hey, even superheroes need health-care sometimes.), and a not-so-brief, but all too fleeting stint on The Playa for Burning Man 2008, The Adventures and Observations of The Burning Desire (TBD) will continue next week with tall tales and keen insights into small business superheroes putting their innate talents and signature strengths to work to make the world a better place.

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Ever since I began thinking about writing this blog, I started imagining ways I could connect my readers with Seth Godin because he is one of the members of my League of Legends – thought leaders and provocateurs who inspire me, mentor me, and sometimes just make my brain hurt and my heart ache because they are so brilliant.

How serendipitous (I love it when I get to use that word!) that Seth has recently written an article entitled, “Superheroes”. I’m not kidding.

Seth and his cast of characters at Squidoo are holding a promotion to write Squidoo pages or “lenses” about your favorite everyday superheroes to raise money for charity. I wish I’d read this sooner because the contest part ends on July 1! It will be a challenge to write 5 lenses in 5 days, but it’s certainly worth a shot.

My head is spinning with ideas of people that deserve superhero status in my book. Who are your superheros?

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Hello, and Welcome!

Today is the longest day of the year – here in the Northern hemisphere. That means more daylight hours to devote to doing what you do best and what you love the most.

What’s that you say? You can’t remember the last time you spent more than an hour doing what you do best? You hardly ever feel like you get to really shine at work and lately it seems like every day is so draining? Well…maybe last quarter there was that one great strategy meeting…or a few months ago you got to work on that special project for a couple weeks. But it’s certainly not an everyday occurrence, right?

Unfortunately, studies show you’re not alone. Over the last decade, the Gallup Organization has gathered information from the more than 10 million participants who have taken their Clifton StrengthsFinder profile. Data indicates that only 30% of respondents strongly agreed that they have the opportunity to do what they do best everyday at work.

So that means a vast majority of us spend a vast majority of our time doing things we may not be very good at, or even like very much. For employees, that means things like dreading going to work and spending a lot of time telling people about the terrible place they work. For companies it means disengaged employees and higher turnover. And for small businesses, it can be the root cause of stagnant business growth.

Like most superheroes, we all have a few things that we can do better than almost anyone – innate talents and signature strengths that make us soar high and shine brightly. (Okay, maybe not fly or wield a golden lasso, but, hey, we’ve got planes and polygraphs for that stuff now.) But in this Universe, individuals with the innate abilities for developing loyal customer relationships, strategic planning, innovative conceptual thinking, or mad number crunching can save the day faster than any magic bullet.

Yet the sad truth is that, also like many superheroes, we spend most of our time masking those talents or pushing them to the periphery, focusing our energies instead on our weaknesses or “areas for improvement.” Essentially, hiding our x-ray eyes behind our horn-rimmed glasses.

So, if you need rescuing from your mild mannered life – welcome to The Burning Desire. Here at TBD, you’ll find a fun, lighthearted approach to help you identify your innate talents and signature strengths so you can get more of what you want from life whether it’s a new and improved career path, better team dynamics and collaboration, or a new business venture.

Along the way, we’ll look at ancient wisdom, new research, and comic book philosophy to help you identify your strengths so you can ignite your passion, create focus and “unmask your inner superhero.”

You’ll also meet the “League of Legends” – thought leaders, business gurus, and Jedi Masters of everything from music to gardening to database developing, inspiring people who seem to live by The Burning Desire’s philosophy –

• – Do what comes naturally and what you do best
• – Do what you love the most and with the greatest of passion
• – Do what you do to make the world a better place

Oh, and of course, you’ll learn more about The Burning Desire herself.

So tune in next time…

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