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April Question of the Month - Join the conversation and receive a badge

Happy April, Community!

We loved last month’s question because it was suggested by YOU, and as expected your responses were phenomenal. We’ve carefully read through all of your insights, and want to thank you for taking the time to share them with us.

Pro tip: Feedback is always welcomed. Beyond this month you can continue sharing and voting on ideas here, our Product team reviews the ideas on that topic monthly.

This year is flying, isn’t it? 🤯 Let’s kick off the brand new month with a new chance to earn badges and connect with the Community.

Who or what inspired you to pursue your current career?

I want to create a space for us to reflect on what has brought us to where we are today. Whether it was a mentor, a specific moment, or a leap of faith, every career has a unique origin story. I can’t wait to read yours. 💙

Share away in the comments below! ⬇️

About Question of the Month:

We kick off each month with a new question. These monthly ice breakers are just one way to help you get to know your Smartsheet peers and rack up some badges and points in the process.

Everyone who participates by answering the question prior to the end of the month will automatically receive a unique participant badge once the question closes at the end of the month.

In addition to the participant badge, the top three answers based on Community member votes will receive the Top Answer badge. To vote on an answer click on the upvote icon associated with an answer in the comments below. Multiple votes allowed and encouraged!

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Comments

knordeen

I've had the privilege of working in healthcare my entire career. Started as a Student Nurse working in a Trauma unit. I've focused on healthcare my entire career directionally moving more toward project management, transformation work and portfolio management. I love the challenge and rewards of knowing the work I do makes our healthcare system stronger. Every new role has built my skills and passions for this work.

Will Duplex

Prior to beginning my career, I had a completely different plan for my life. I had been studying Finance in hopes to obtain a corporate finance job for the retail company I worked for at the time. As the company changed, so did its culture, and I found myself looking for a fresh start and new challenge. Early in the morning, I had applied for a role at another company in which the job posting mentioned "security" and I figured that given my work history in retail and having dabbled in some work with loss prevention before, it might be a good fit. Later that morning, a recruiter reached out to me and offered me an interview within Assets Protection at a retail store. This was outside of my comfort zone, because I felt that I was not an "expert" in the field, and questioned why they'd want someone like me who didn't have the direct 1:1 experience.

Regardless, I took a leap of faith and decided to interview for the role and put my misgivings aside. I wound up getting the job, with a higher title/role than I had even originally applied for. Within 3 years of working Assets Protection in a retail store, I wanted to make more of an impact beyond my 4 walls, and help shape strategy. This is when I took my second big leap of faith and moved halfway across the country during Covid for an entry-level corporate role, my first white collar job. Even though it was an entry-level role and I was overqualified, I just wanted to get my foot in the door and have the opportunity to prove myself.

5 years have passed since then and I am very fortunate to have been promoted several times. I genuinely enjoy what I do, and wake up every day looking forward to making an impact and fulfilling my goal from years ago about helping shape strategy. I've been exposed to amazing leaders, mentors, and opportunities that I would never have dreamt of before. Looking back, I'm glad I did one thing - take a leap of faith. While the unknown can be frightening and full of uncertainty, I continually shocked myself with how resilient that I was.

For those uncertain in their career journey right now, take that leap of faith. You may surprise yourself with how adaptable you are, and how many opportunities you can seize. You've gotten to where you are because of who you are - trust in yourself and bet on yourself, because that'll always be a winning ticket.

S.Stone

`Who or what inspired you to pursue your current career?`

My current boss was actually my boss from my previous job, too. He told me I was one of the best people he ever hired, and he wanted to keep the trend going when he got a new job. My favorite part, genuinely, is that I came to this company before I knew what Smartsheet was, and today I'm the in-house expert on it. I get to help people across our company — who I never would have met otherwise — to build solutions that they never thought possible. What could be better than that?

Paul Perger

I used to work in Construction and loved it. But the work I had caused me to travel 3-5 weeks at a time, and then I'd be home for a week or two. My wife and I got pregnant and I decided traveling that much wasn't a good idea with a baby at home.

So I applied for several jobs and took the first one I was offered. I started my financial world journey as an AR associate, and over the next 5 years worked my way up to lower management, 5 more years and I was a middle tier manager, and after 10 years I was a member of upper management. I stayed because the money was great and I had gotten very good at doing what I did.

There are still days I wonder where I would be had life taken different turns than it did. I never intended to have a desk job, never wanted a desk job, but sometimes we make lemonade. I've gotten very good at making lemonade!!

v.k.longoria

Female attorneys mentored me in the legal field as a paralegal 20+ years ago. However, my natural inclination towards data led me into Legal operations. My legal-related project management experience led me into my current role where 90% of my job is migrating excel sheets into a portfolio, creating user friendly dynamic views and visual dashboards for the upper management. I have been named by my manager as one of two SME's in Smartsheet across our company. Prior to coming here, I had never used SmartSheet. And shortly after I started, I heard the groans from legal that Smartsheet wasn't user-friendly for them. They were looking at what another department had built. What they didn't realize is there are several ways to custom build for whatever data you are using. In the beginning, I started with SmartSheet University videos and now I use 4 different AI (including Smartsheet's AI helper) to vibe build with me and the legal team likes their Smartsheet now. YAY!

Paul Newcome

My career was initially "forced" on me. Haha. I had just gotten transferred to another department that had more room for success when the company I was working for brought on Smartsheet as a solution.

My VP at the time told me that since I hadn't really learned the new position yet, I was going to take the lead on Smartsheet. Initially I was pretty frustrated as it was taking away from what I thought was a career move.

But… I was raised so that if I am going to do a job, I am going to do it right whether I liked it or not. So I dove in headfirst into Smartsheet learning everything that I could hoping that I could quickly move it off my plate and shift my focus back to where it belonged based on my new department.

Part of learning involved interacting here in the Community. Eventually some of my posts caught the attention of someone who owns a Smartsheet consulting company. One thing led to another, and here I am making a career of building Smartsheet solutions full time (which I now love to do).

RebSchr

When I was younger, my Grandfather would show me how to take things apart and put them back together again. I enjoyed working with my hands. When I got to high school, I still had a passion for figuring out how things work. I signed up for the general shop classes and the first quarter I had Electronics. I really enjoyed it, so much that I changed my schedule so that I could take Electronics as a freshman. Not only was I the only freshman, but I was also the only girl. My teacher taught me how to deal with tough decisions and how to handle the 'boys' in class. That same year, my Grandfather passed away. I didn't know until he passed that he had worked in the electrical industry. It made me even more fascinated with all things electronics.

Life then derailed me a bit. I was young, in love and became pregnant with my first born. Fast forward several years, while pregnant with my 2nd child and in the middle of a divorce, I had a epiphany about needing to be a better Mom. I just knew I needed to be able to support the 3 of us on my own. I thought a lot about my Grandfather and what he would have wanted for me. It was then I decided to go back to school for Electronics Engineering. It was a lot of late nights, feeling the world was going to collapse around me, but I did it, I finished school with a degree in Electronics Engineering. I knew my Grandfather would be proud of me.

Long story short, September 11th happened when I graduated. Long story short, I stayed in my current position of where I was working, got married and had another child. Once my 3rd baby was born, I knew I needed to put myself out there again. I ended up working in IT for a large food organization, but I got my foot in the door. I moved up in my positions to a level of leadership. Now, here I am many, many years later, working in a position of leadership in a company that hires mostly electrical engineers, so I feel I have come full circle.

I would say 2 individuals greatly influenced my career choices: The first being my Grandfather, but most importantly, my 2nd born. It was when I found out that I was pregnant with her that I knew I needed to not only be a better Mom, but I needed to be able to support us and provide for them on my own. That is how I ended where I am now and I wouldn't change a thing…….

Bruce Case

I've been with my current employer for 42-years, so it would be hard to go back to my teenage years. 😎 That said, I give a lot of credit to a former boss from 2010 - 2019. He was not only a good boss at work but was a family man and treated us as a family as well. When he asked how my wife and I were doing, he meant it! When my wife was going through some health issues, even though I was in Phoenix and he in Minneapolis, I had the clear feeling he was right next to me. When he departed the company, I was devestated. But I stay in contact with him and his family and I use those principles in my day-to-day work/home life all the time!

And to the old statement my dad used to say (rest his soul) — be sure and call your mother! Boy was he right, because now that I have lost both parents, those are times you can't get back! 🙏

Sing C

Who or what inspired you to pursue your current career?

I started my "work adventure" in the family industry - catering and hospitality. It's what I knew. It's how I met my wife. That sector hasn't changed much in the 35 years since I first got into it - low pay, unsociable hours, etc.

My wife, then girlfriend-turned-fiance was the inspiration to grow and explore something different. I literally went "back to school" and completed a postgrad degree in Computer Studies and was probably the oldest person ever (at 27) to join a company's graduate program (later becoming the inspiration for Nathan Fillion's career flip in The Rookie🤣).

I've moved through the world of technology ever since, in roles across Development, Services/Implementation, Product Management, PMO, Operations. I trace it all back to meeting my wife 29 years ago.

AntonioC

I've always been fascinating by problem and I got huge satisfaction by solving them. I was very good at math and engineering and after becoming a mechanical engineer and work in the field for a couple of years, I've realized that I was even more intrigued by bigger problems that require people coordination. That's when I found that working a Corporate environment, connecting the dots and people and facilitate communication was something that give me motivation and it was also easy.

Protonsponge

Back in school, my report cards basically said: “Louis is capable but lazy - does just enough to get by and could do much better if he applied himself.”

I still think about two teachers who gave me some pretty big (though metaphorical) kicks up the butt, one in primary school and one in secondary. If it weren’t for Mr. Fletcher and Mrs. Donald, plus my mum’s relentless encouragement (and the occasional kick up the butt from her too), I wouldn’t be where I am today.

At 16, I was lucky enough to be offered a job at a pharmaceutical company straight from school with the rest of my education funded on the condition I hit certain grades; without Mrs. Donald, I wouldn’t have met them.

It’s a reminder of how one person’s actions can ripple through the rest of your life.

Ray Lindstrom

In a previous role as a Software Quality Assurance Analyst, I worked on a Scrum team alongside three developers, another tester, and a Business Analyst. While I enjoyed the QA role, I was increasingly drawn to the work of the BA. It felt more “big picture”—focused on connecting the dots, aligning stakeholders, and ensuring all the pieces fit together. That perspective resonated strongly with me and felt like a better fit for my strengths and interests.

I remained in QA for a time, then made a deliberate transition and landed my first role as a Business Analyst. Since then, I’ve also studied Project Management—not with the goal of becoming a project manager, but to deepen my understanding of the end‑to‑end process and further strengthen my ability to see and contribute to that broader picture.

Deanna Vandermeer

I have had the honor of working for my local school district for the past 38 years. In my current role, I owe so much to the amazing, and strong women who were not just my direct supervisors and role models, but mentors. Their belief in me is what helped me to believe in myself and to start reaching for more in my career and for myself. I love the challenges that are now a part of my day-to-day in my current position. And as I find myself nearing closer to potential retirement, I am enjoying mentoring the next generation of support staff in our district. I love watching them grow both personally and professionally. Having someone believe in you is just one, of many keys to success. While looking back at just how far I have come, thanks to so many amazing people, looking forward is just as important. But in looking at who initially inspired me to pursue my current career, I would have to say, that I owe this journey to my father. He dedicated himself to being a teacher in our local school district for 34 years. He taught me what it meant to put others first, and his love of teaching the younger generation always shined through. His ability to hold fast to what he believed in, which was educating the next generation of students, is why he never pursued becoming an administrator. Students always came first. I never could have imagined that I would be doing what I am doing now, and I have surprised myself with the opportunities that have come along when I decided to take a chance on myself.

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