Monthly Learning - April 2026
Brain Dump (Calling)
A bit of a brain dump for this month, as there have been a couple of major things on my mind over the last month.
Calling / Vocation / Gift
The idea of calling or vocation has been on my mind for a long time. I’ve taken several personality assessments, completed dozens of thought exercises, read many books, prayed consistently, and talked to others many times on the subject. It has been something I’ve over analyzed at this point, even to the point it has probably held me back in some ways. I’ve been so focused on finding out what my calling has been, that I haven’t taken steps forward in some areas of my life. I haven’t completely moved on from this desire to have a stated (known) calling, but I like to think I have a good enough understanding of what it is that I can really take action towards. I think I have been in a state of analysis paralysis and I am trying to move towards a bias for action instead of just continuing to come up with the “perfect calling.” As I keep going down this path I am on, if that is not the path God wants me on, I pray He will find a way to direct me in His direction.
So what helped?
Talking with others and finding out that no one has all the answers. That is why faith is so important. If you knew what the entire road map looked like, we wouldn’t need to put our faith in God. At the end of the day, I just need to put my faith in Him that things will work out the way He has planned.
Reading the Bible and understanding that a grand calling likely will not come to me in a booming voice from God. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6. This Proverb has been an open tab on my laptop for over a month now, and I come back to it on a regular basis as a reminder that it is not my job to know the plan. I just need to trust and take one step forward at a time.
One of my favorite recent metaphors for your calling has been GPS. You usually only get directions when you need to change the way you are going. If you are on the right road, your GPS usually doesn’t tell you to just keep going.
Focus on the things that I am good at, which is the intersection of business and technology. I am not the best programmer and I am not the best business person. However, I am pretty good at combining the two to build technologies that people actually want to use.
With where AI development is heading, the coding side of things is certainly going to be a part of this strength and who knows how coding will evolve over the coming years.
Honestly, Claude was great to work with on this. LLMs are great at taking in a lot of data, analyzing it, and finding patterns. How I did this was upload personality assessments, feedback from others, and some thought exercises (key questions to answer and random thoughts) into claude and asked it to analyze all the data, ask me some follow up questions, and tell me what my calling was. I was shocked at how well it did because it was able to draw insights across years of material and find trends of how my thoughts on calling have changed over the years. Claude was able to find recurring themes in my life that make sense when they were pointed out.
So what is my calling (in this moment)?
You’ll just have to ask me ;)