“Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.”

I’m sat in a generic American coffee shop in downtown Doha sipping on some rather good coffee, nibbling on a tasteless muffin and wondering how I got here. I can still remember when I decided that I’d make the changes that lead to this moment – It was 2.5 years ago on a sunny beach in Abu-Dhabi in December 2006.

I was coming to the end of my first year working in the Mobile Industry and had taken a break over Christmas to visit my family and to figure out where I was going. I should have been happy with where I was at the time. Years earlier, during my last year of university, I had decided that I wanted to work in the Mobile Industry in a job that married my two main areas of interest, mobile devices and the mobile Web. And there I was, working for Volantis, a mobile web specialist, as a Mobile Device Engineer. I’d got where I wanted to go. Targets reached. Dream job attained - this is where I had wanted to be.

The thing is though, your hopes and dreams change. Your aspirations grow, they adapt, they get re-worked and re-imagined. Sometimes they even get scrapped and replaced with something completely new. A totally different direction. Sure I was exactly where I had wanted to get to when I had graduated university, but this wasn’t the end of my road. I had a future to build.

On that beach I sat down and plotted my path – what next? I thought of a lot of different things that day and here is what I took away:

• I believed in the Mobile Industry and wanted to stay involved in Mobile
• I was still passionate about the Mobile Web but not about Mobile Devices
• My passion for Social Media was growing and I needed to harness that
• I need a role that had a creative aspect to it
• I wasn’t a pure Engineer or Developer
• I needed more leadership experience
• I needed to get involved in Mobile and Social Media communities
• I didn’t want to work for other people my whole life
• I had to get out of the UK

A few days later I flew back to England and went back to work. I thought of the changes I wanted to make once or twice but, as is always the case with these things, they got drowned out by the noise of daily life.

But the seeds had been planted and on a subconscious level my mind was made up. I started to make different choices in the months that followed, not realising at the time that they were helping me make the changes I wanted to make. I asked my company to move me to one of our offices outside of the UK, I got involved in more projects and teams at work and I started going to Mobile and Social Media events on a regular basis. I even started to blog again, both here and at my internal company blog.

Before I knew it I was in Seattle for a 3 months stay at our US offices and working on projects that were stimulating and challenging. I was working more closely with different parts of the company and with our customers. I got more useful experience in those 3 months than in the whole of my first year with the company – progress was being made. Sure enough a few months later it looked like I was on my way to a permanent move to Seattle, a move I was really looking forward to.

In life, things never go smoothly for long and change doesn’t happen easily and without sacrifice. In the year that followed, my move to Seattle became a saga of frustration, disappointment and broken promises. I started looking for jobs elsewhere and ended up with an offer from Google, but turned it down based on the renewed promise of a move to Seattle as well as a promotion.

I went through 4 months of waiting for a US Work permit going as far as ordering a new car for my arrival in Seattle. All this uncertainty coupled with the acute feeling that I was becoming stuck in a rut meant that my morale was at an all time low. My productivity slipped and I completely lost interest in my work.

The only positive thing that happened during that time was my involvement with various Mobile communities. I had become a regular at networking events making some great industry contacts (and some good friends) and absorbing everything that there was to learn. I immersed myself in the Mobile world getting involved in conversations that were going to shape the future of the industry and figuring out where I was going to fit in to it.

I was also getting my Social Media game together making sure I was always learning and adapting with that fast-paced industry. The more involved I got the more sure I was that whatever move I made next it would involve Social Media in some way.

So a year passed from my moment of clarity at the beach and from the outside nothing seemed to had changed – I was still in the same job in the same country. But I wasn’t the same person, I was far more experienced, more intelligent, more plugged in, more confident and better connected. I was in the perfect position to make the next step.

And then the opportunity came – I changed roles and became Mobile Web Evangelist at Volantis. While the role did end any possibility of moving to Seattle (a real sore point by now) it was the ideal change for me as the job description covered all of my main interests – Mobile, Social Media, community involvement, future thinking and customer interaction. I loved the job and dived straight into what needed to be done. Fast forward a few months as a Mobile Web Evangelist and I knew this is exactly what I wanted to do next - I was getting closer to the next step I had pictured on that beach.

While it was clear that the job was what I wanted, it was just as clear that I needed to find a new place to do it. As luck would have it I was unexpectedly made redundant a week after I had started interviewing with other companies. With a nice redundancy package I was able to take my time in finding a new job.

Time to speed the story up, don’t you think?

The months that followed in the summer of 2008 were some of the best I’ve ever had. I did some freelance work for a PR company, an interesting an eye-opening experience. It was good to see how the other side worked. I also had a paid writing gig for a Mobile blog and did other bits of freelance work whenever they came up. I met great people. I partied. I laughed, cried, danced, slept, argued, listened, fought, grew, absorbed and laughed some more.

I did a lot of interviews that summer and I turned a lot of offers down (this was before the Financial Crisis had really taken hold). I just couldn’t find what I was looking for and while I was getting by with the freelance work, I wasn’t in any rush. There was one role that bucked the trend though.

In June I was at the Mobile Web 2.0 Summit in London and was part of a bloggers panel at the event (Huge thanks to Bena Roberts for arranging that). After the panel, in which I craftily managed to mention I was available for freelance work, I was approached by 2 members of Al Jazeeras New Media team who were in the audience. Cards were exchanged and interviews followed in July. Finally, here was a role that was perfect for me – The role involved Social Media, Mobile and everything in between. It ticked all the boxes I had set on the beach.

The only draw back was that it was in Doha, which is worlds apart from London or Seattle, but the move felt right. I knew this is what I wanted to do next. The hiring process was slow and lasted all summer but by October I was set and after a break in California for my Social Media Road Trip I was off to Doha, to Al Jazeera and finally, to this coffee shop.

It was only really when I sat down and though about how I got here that I noticed how I had made things happen. I wouldd have never noticed otherwise and would have assumed that it was just life running its course. But the truth is the decisions we make, the things we think about; they are more important than we realize. Even when it doesn’t feel like it, they are constantly helping us carve out our path.

As I said at the beginning, here I am 2.5 years after the day on the beach in Abu-Dhabi. I’ve got to where I wanted to go. Targets reached. Dream job attained - this is where I want to be. But I know now that hopes and dreams change. My aspirations will grow, they will adapt, they will get re-worked and re-imagined. I think it may be time to head to that beach in Abu-Dhabi again…