ICF coach Verena Hoffmann uses the Cheshire Cat's fork-in-the-road question to explore how career choices often lack clear direction. She traces her own non-linear path across travel, roles, and cities, finding a consistent thread of curiosity and service. She asks what you truly need in a role and how your motivations would shift if money weren't the driver.
Hi, my name is Verena. I'm an ICF coach, and let me start with a little story. Alice in Wonderland, she comes to this fork in the road and meets Cheshire Cat, and she asks, which way should I take? Cheshire Cat answers, well, where do you want to go? Alice replies, I don't know. Well, Then it doesn't matter which way you take. And you probably know that kind of situations. Me personally, I had many forks in the road in my life— traveling, changing careers, cities, companies, everything. And on paper, probably my CV doesn't look linear, but then again, there is a thread underlying every decision that I took. And that was my purpose: exploring, staying curious, and serving people, supporting people. What is your thread, your purpose? What is it that you need in a role, and what's maybe currently missing in the role that you are in? What is missing in the life that you are in? And what would change if money wasn't the main motivator? What would you get up for in the morning if you wouldn't have to, to earn your rent? When you hear these words, career, Security, purpose, change. What's going on for you? What becomes present in your mind, but also what becomes present in your body? Is there something like opening, or is there something like discomfort? And if you would come to This crossroads, what would you answer to Shishaya Cat? Well, I hope this kind of shows you that a CV doesn't have to be linear as long as you know why you go where you are going. And if you find— want to find this out, what your crossroad is, let me be your Shishaya Cat.
