Three Things That Will Change Your Perspective About Work

“In truth, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well; and nothing can be done well without attention.”

— Philip Dormer Stanhope

This quote is familiar to me, though the person who said it is not. Philip Dormer Stanhope was an 18th century British statesman. chiefly remembered as the author of Letters to His Son and Letters to His Godson, which are comprehensive guides to manners, the art of pleasing, and the art of worldly success. (I have never read them).

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, though, Stanhope’s painstaking advice fell on deaf ears: his son was known for being a misbehaving hooligan, and his godson was remembered for having “as little good breeding as any man I ever met.”

I’ll admit I’ve often been the recipient of well-intentioned advice I chose not to take. Sometimes the advice I did take turned out to be the wrong kind of advice. And sometimes—though this is rare—I wish somebody had given me more advice. I could have used it!

Like why didn’t anybody tell me it probably wasn’t a good idea to major in Biology in college?

My husband always says it’s futile to ask our friends for advice because they’re all just as dumb as we are.

No offense, friends.

So take this next bit of wisdom for what it’s worth. Friend to friend. Luckily, hindsight is 20/20.

MYTH: You need more education, skills, experience, and connections to make it in your industry.

TRUTH: You are uniquely equipped for the work you are doing.

Education, skills, experience, and connections are good, and of course you should work towards acquiring them, but don’t WAIT to acquire them before you begin work. Preparation is overrated. You’ll never feel like you’re ready. Just begin. You’ll be surprised about how easily all those things you think you need fall into place once you begin taking steps in the direction of the work you want to do.

There’s a story in Judges about a man named Gideon who God called to save Israel out of Midian. In the story, Gideon asks God to prove his presence three times. He doesn’t understand why God called him, the “least in his family,” to strike down the Midianites. Gideon feels weak, inadequate, unqualified, and ill equipped. In the midst of this crisis of character, “The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” (emphasis mine).–Judges 6:14 Like Gideon, I have often felt weak, inadequate, unqualified, and ill equipped. And when I do, this is the verse I replay over and over in my head. “Go in the strength you have….”

In the beginning, that’s where your responsibility lies.

MYTH: If it’s meant to be, it’ll be easy.

TRUTH: If you’re doing your work well, it will be challenging—in a good way!

Tom Morkes (influence blogger and founder of the “Pay What You Want” method) said “doing anything well takes time…A lot of time…And a lot of sacrifice…And a lot of struggle…And a lot of small or insignificant progress…And a lot of time failing…and the rest of the time feeling like a failure.”

Preach it, Tom!

I think there’s a misconception that if we’re doing work we love, then the work should be easy. Fun. Profitable. Even popular.

In 2014, my friend Ginny and I launched a nonprofit called Forever We. Creative entrepreneurs often describe their work as an affront against the Enemy (a.k.a. the Resistance with a capital R.) And it’s true: Work, according to my old Physics textbook, is the exertion of force OVERCOMING resistance.

(For more on that concept, read the War of Art by Steven Pressfield.)

For five years, Forever We felt like one long uphill battle, but I never—not once—felt like it wasn’t work worth doing. So much resistance. So much sacrifice. So much disappointment. So much joy.

And so much growth.

Even now, more than a year after ending it, I will occasionally receive a note from someone who was touched by the work we did. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

And it was worth it.

MYTH: You can control the future with a tight fist.

TRUTH: The only way to live is open-handed. 

Ten years ago, I bought this little iron paperweight that rests on the desk in my office. It’s shaped like a pair of open hands and functions as a small altar that reminds me I am but a steward of all that’s been entrusted to me. An open hand can give as well as it can receive. Ironically, just last month, the shop where I purchased that small paperweight gave me one of the most generous gifts I have ever received. Every time I look at the little pair of hands, I feel a nudge in my heart to give thanks. We often don’t know what good will come from the work we do, but if we’re open-handed with the results, blessings abound.

I read recently that a job is what you do, but your work is who you are. I’ve had many “jobs” over the course of my life, some life-giving and some that made me feel like I was drowning. All that time, though, I was becoming something. Open-handed with the good and the bad. With the things I wanted to do and the things I had to do.

BONUS:

The best advice I ever received about work was this:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

— Colossians 3:23

So many people think about jobs and work as the same thing. They’re not. A job is just a way to make money. A job is all about us and what we think we’re worth—as if that “work ” we’re doing was made for us instead of the other way around.

THE TRUTH IS WE WERE MADE FOR WORK.

Work worth doing points people to heaven. It’s not about us. It never was.

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The Best Job in the World

How’s it going over there?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who's been thinking about our current situation -- managing the day to day, adjusting to our new normal, and taking care while staying sane. 

I’ve been thinking about you too - and how so many of you let me know you’re barely holding it together.

If the family is clothed and fed, you probably feel a little bit like Wonder Woman. And that might be because there’s no such thing anymore as a day job and a side gig. All the gigs have squished together like a 90s mosh pit.

We’re doing what we have to do right now, not necessarily what we want to do.

Which is weird because I can think of a lot of jobs I’d never want to do, and it’s crazy they involve a lot of the work I’m doing now. I can tell you for sure that I don’t ever want to be a full-time teacher, chef, nail technician, or nurse.

But speaking of nurses….

I know a guy whose wife is an oncology nurse. Last year, she missed a Christmas party because she had to work. “Awww,” we all said when he told us she wasn’t coming. “That’s so sad.”

He shook his head violently. “Are you kidding?” he said. “She has the best job in the world! Every single day, she gets to be the best part of someone’s worst day.”

You can always be the best part of someone else’s worst day.

And that phrase has always stuck with me.

Especially when I think about my friends working in the healthcare profession right now. They are exhausted, worn out, and emotionally spent. There’s a big sign in front of our local hospital that reads: “Heroes Work Here.,” and every time I pass it, I smile. It’s lonely and terrifying work, but the ones on the front lines also tell me that it’s extremely gratifying.

I, too, want to be the best part of someone’s worst day.

On days like today.

When I found out my senior is going to have an online graduation ceremony.
And probably not until July.
And when my friend told me her husband’s job was furloughed with paychecks to end “immediately.”
And when my daughter saw her friends from across the street and couldn’t go hug them.
And when this lady I don’t even know who wanted to buy a bed we were selling on Facebook marketplace told me about her daughter fleeing an abusive husband.

Oh, there’s so many things out of my control right now!

But you know what? In the midst of all this bad news, I have an opportunity to be “good news.”

Even in quarantine I can find a way to make someone else’s day better.

And I don’t have to be an oncology nurse (or any other kind of nurse) to do that. I just have to be…

AVAILABLE.
THOUGHTFUL.
PRACTICAL.

Some ideas:

• I love these cards from The Hope Deck, perfect to pop in a mailbox, tape to a bathroom mirror, or leave on a pillowcase for a child to find.

• Jeni’s Ice Cream is always a fun treat. (You know I love good ice cream because I’m always talking about it!) Try the Terrace Brunch or the Virtual Crowd Pleaser collection.

• Send a video text to your best friend, so she can see your pretty face.

• Buy some happy stickers and pop them in the mail. You could also add these limited edition coronavirus stickers to your favorite water bottle or face mask.

• And of course, don’t forget to remind your bestie to “follow her mission, not the madness” with one of these cool tees.

The thing about quarantine that I’ve found most surprising is that my emotions are like little ghosts, creeping around, both there and not there at the same time, and jumping out at me when I least expect it. And I’ve found that this is true for a lot of people right now. It’s not just me. A really good day can turn into a bad day in an instant.

Above all else, be kind. Be extraordinarily kind.

Then count your blessings because the best job in the world is the one you’d do even if no one paid you to do it. And you’re in luck because being the best part of someone’s worst day is something we can all do—FOR FREE.

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Your Job is not the Problem--You Just Didn't Know it Was Work

One of the best icebreaker questions I ever heard was, “Tell me about your first job.”

Our first job not only teaches us a lot about ourselves, but also prepares us for future work.

The very first job I ever had out of college was as a fitness consultant in a Ladies Only gym. Newly married with a degree in Biology, a passion for exercise, and aspirations of medical school, I thought I had found the perfect job.

Spoiler alert: that job had almost nothing to do with health and wellness and almost everything to do with high pressure sales techniques.

I haven’t had a real job in nearly twenty years. But my life has been filled with purposeful work.

In this post, I’ll show you how the way you work in every job is a clue to the real work you’re meant to do.

“Problem solving, and I don’t mean algebra, seems to be my life’s work. Maybe it’s everyone’s life’s work.”

— Beverly Cleary, Children's Book Author

Oh, I do believe it is everyone’s life’s work!

For the past five years I’ve been a part of an Atlanta nonprofit called Plywood People. They have a motto I’ve adopted as my own: “We will be known by the problems we solve.”

Being known.

Those two words by themselves can be really scary.

We want to be known and yet we want to remain anonymous.
We want people to understand us but we want to retain an element of mystery.

And over the past year, on Mission Driven Monday, I ask women this final question: “Can you tell me about your aspirational self?” That question is essentially, “What do you want to be known for?” The answers vary, but one thing remains consistent: all the women want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. When they talk about work, it’s in the context of the values they uphold.

We all want to do work that matters.

Even if you don’t believe in legacies you have one. And you get to choose what you want that legacy to be.

I interact with lots of women caught between the threshold of having babies and raising kids. It’s important work, but sometimes I hear the longing in their voices, the shy whispers that “one day” they’ll go back to work, that their education “won’t be wasted,” that this is “just a season” and that “real life” can begin again “when the kids are all grown up.”

What are you waiting for?

When I was a young mom, I couldn’t even imagine a day when I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night or change a diaper. I felt like I would always have someone at home and that I would always be a servant to someone else’s needs. And yet here I am, with one child out of the nest for good, one with one foot already out the door, and two more squarely in the throes of middle and high school. I will blink, and they too, will be gone.

No one ever told me that I could find intellectual fulfillment in the expression of who I was apart from paid work. I had always thought that the job I got paid to do and the work I was meant to do had to be the same thing. It wasn’t until I became a mother and set aside my so-called career that I discovered on my own what it means to live life within the context of a larger story.

Young moms tend to think that all that time spent at home is like putting a sweater on hold at Anthropologie. You’ll pick up where you left off—when you’re ready. The sweater won’t wait for you, and neither will the job. You could spend the in-between contemplating whether or not you actually need the sweater or whether or not it makes sense to invest in something so seasonal and trendy. Maybe after you’ve walked around for awhile you’ll discover you don’t really want that sweater anymore.

The Tension

Our lives are not sweaters to place on a shelf. And a job isn’t just a job. For some, a job defines who we are, even though we know deep down that we are not what we do. “But if that’s true”, we wonder privately, “then why does everybody I meet keep asking me about work?”

How can we place “the job” on hold and still participate in work that’s fulfilling?

I remember someone telling me once that they never answer that question about jobs with a one word answer of their own. For example, when my friend is asked, “What do you do?” she says something like, “I inspire small children to aspire to a lifetime of curiosity.”

Ooohhh, tell me more about that.

Is my friend a teacher? A therapist? A children’s museum director?
Or is she just a mom?

A job is simply the expression of our work, so while jobs come and go, the expression of ourselves within that job is the real clue to the person we are meant to become. I wish I had known that when I was a 22-year old fitness consultant biding my time and waiting for my real break. I would have discovered that the part of my job that made me feel most alive was when I was learning something new or when I had a chance to hear transformation stories from clients one-on-one.

If you’re wondering about the work you’re meant to do, I recommend checking out The Good Life Project. Jonathan Fields developed an incredible tool called Sparketype that helps you identify the work you’re meant to do. Once you’ve taken the test, I’d love to know what you learn about yourself! Leave a comment, and let’s chat.

Bonus:

There’s a book called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s one of those books that comes up constantly in creative circles, but until now, I’d never read it. Let me tell you—YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK. I’m only three weeks into what feels like a 12 step program to unlocking creativity, and it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve felt freedom to explore the artist within. One of the activities in that book is to write down your Imaginary Lives, those dream jobs you would do IF ONLY you had the education, training, experience, and connections to make them a reality. Two of my imaginary lives include Professional Tap Dancer and TV Chef. I will never be either one of those things in real life, but I can live my best life now by either taking an adult tap class (which I did a few years ago with some of my best friends and we had the best time) and by pretending that I have my own show and hosting demonstrations in my own house with my own kids (Fun Fact: One time I did get to cook on the Food Network, and it’s all because I believed I could when I was at home). When we give ourselves permission to imagine, what we’re really doing is giving ourselves the space to practice and discover new ways of making our dreams come true.

So whether I’m at home with my kids in my kitchen or volunteering in my community, the expression of who I am is front and center.

1. Live your best life now. If you could be anything, what would you choose to do? How can you bring the best of that life into the life you have now? Is it a class you need to take, a party you need to host, a book you need to read, or an organization you need to to support?

2. Identify your “why.” Think about that very first job. For example: Why did you want to work in healthcare in the first place? What do you love about marketing? How can you use your passion for systems and organization in a fresh new way? I thought I wanted to be a doctor. When motherhood came calling and asked me to postpone medical school, I shelved that dream and decided to become a certified doula. It gave me the patient interaction I craved, allowed me to work alongside real doctors and nurses in a hospital setting, and provided valuable practice scenarios for things like honing my bedside manner and researching the challenges and tensions facing healthcare practitioners today. Becoming a doula was just one of many opportunities I was able to cling to when my kids were little. As they got older, I realized I was finding fulfillment in a wide range of creative pursuits. I no longer needed to become a doctor to feel like I was adding value to the world.

3. Your job is what you do. Your work is who you are. Learn the difference, and you’ll be able to find joy in both the mundane and the magnificent. Think about how you can describe the work you do in in a fresh new way.

Ready to take it to the next level?

Follow your mission, not the madness!

Mission Driven Monday--Julie McKevitt

Meet Julie McKevitt!

Have you ever wondered if your heart was big enough to welcome a child into the world? What about a second one? Have you ever wondered if you could make space for a new opportunity when the one that’s right in front of you is practically perfect in every way? Have you ever wondered if you have the courage to forge a new way?

Artist. Entrepreneur. Mother. And social activist.

Julie McKevitt paints the world with kindness and invites others to do the same. In this episode, we talk about staying grounded even while dreaming big and how sometimes the hardest won battles are those between husband and wife. This is a story about BECOMING. Join us and follow your mission, not the madness.

Important Links from this Episode:

Paint Love: Extraordinary arts programming for youth facing poverty and trauma

Julie’s Instagram: Follow the Kindness Day journey

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Choices and Consequences: Is Unpaid Work Holding You Back?

Dream Jobs

I write a lot about finding your purpose and figuring out the work you’re meant to do.

I blame it on my childhood.

We’re asked at a very young age what we want to be when we grow up. We usually reply based on what we’ve seen, either in our neighborhoods or on TV. There’s probably a disproportionate number of people out there who wanted to be things like teachers, doctors, and policeman.

When my son was in kindergarten, he wanted to be a garbage man (his words, not mine).

At the time, we thought it was funny and cute.

Hanging off the back of a truck, wind whipping through your hair…what could be better?

He’s 15 now, and his new dream job is one he calls “fragrance mogul.” I don’t think he’s seen many of those around, but he likes girls, and I guess he’s started caring about whether or not he smells good when he is around them.

There’s a bunch of kids going off to college, and they are stressed to the max. Everyone is asking them where they are going to school and what’s their major. Students like my daughter, with ambiguous majors like Leadership Integrated Studies, get asked a follow-up question, which is typically a variation of “What do think you want to do with that someday?”

How could she possibly know the answer to that question?

Our first jobs rarely determine our final destination.

Case in point: I used to work in a hardware store, and my first job out of college was as a trainer in a gym.

Don’t get me wrong. Work is necessary. Work is good. My daughter’s been working since she was sixteen. All the jobs we have in life prepare us for the work we’re meant to do.

Humans were created to work. But there are so many different kinds of work and ways in which we can work and possibilities for the future that I would never want to lock my 19 year old daughter into just one way of thinking. She’s young and smart. I’ve never told her to choose a major based solely on the fact that she needs something concrete, something “she can fall back on.” I have faith that she can figure out work because she’s figured out so many other parts of her life.

And she’s got time.

So many of the jobs that sound interesting to me now did not even exist when I was her age. I never could have imagined the work I’m doing now. But (and this is the big thing), I knew what kind of life I wanted, and therefore everything I was learning would not be wasted, no matter what the future held.

Choices and Consequences

But the point is that we often don’t think about the consequences of our choices.

Twenty years ago I made a choice.

I made a choice to leave full time paid work in order to stay home and do full time UNPAID work. It was a choice I made, and the consequences were many. I have no regrets because this unpaid work has been fulfilling in other ways

If my son had thought through the consequences of being a sanitation worker, a valiant occupation to be sure, and something we can’t do without ( Does anyone remember New York’s great garbage strike of 1968?), he may have chosen a different path—even as a kindergartener. However, he didn’t think about the fact that it’s pretty stinky riding behind the garbage all day, that HE would be pretty stinky, too, by the end of it, and that lifting garbage bags hour after hour is some kind of back-breaking labor. In hot weather, on cold days, and even when it’s raining, sanitation workers are on duty.

The garbage never stops.

But just because we get older doesn’t mean we think about the consequences of our work. Maybe you have found yourself on the business end of a poorly executed choice. For example, I once thought it would be fun to run a company, which would probably mean time away from family, travel, late nights, stressful working conditions, and possibly even more education.

Is that what I really wanted?

We make the choices we can live with.

And all choices are not created equal.

As I’ve watched my children get older and my friends, stay-at-home moms mostly, go back into the workforce, I’ve noticed that even now we forget what our choices mean.

We want so-called REAL work because it means that the years we spent at home raising our children, volunteering at school, and keeping house were not wasted. We can add value. And if we can, we should…Right? And let’s be honest—kids don’t get less expensive as they get older. We trade diapers and preschool for drivers ed and tutoring. They need and want more than we can possibly give them.

Going back to work is the next logical step.

So we go back to work and discover that we are still needed at home, that children still get sick, that teachers still have conferences, that the laundry and cooking do not cease simply because we are not there to do it. We can enlist the help of our spouse and kids, but everyone is busy. So, so busy.

And we realize that what we really want is not necessarily more money, but more time. The kids are getting older. They will leave us soon. We only have four more summer vacations. Three. Two. One. And then suddenly they are off to college. And family vacations are a thing of the past. At least the way they used to be.

Where did the time go?

Real Work

I want you to know that the work you’re doing now IS real work. It’s important, and it matters. In a LinkedIn article I was reading just last week, 91% of employers say that soft skills are more important than hard skills when looking to hire a new employee. These skills are becoming increasingly important, not just in the workplace but everywhere. Those are certainly the skills I can practice, teach my kids, and cultivate in a variety of non-traditional unpaid ways.

Just because I was (and still am) what some would call a stay-at-home mother, I don’t necessarily do a lot of staying home.

According to the LinkedIn report, these are the soft skills companies need, but have a hard time finding:

1)    Creativity
2)    Persuasion
3)    Collaboration
4)    Adaptability
5)    Time Management

Where better to practice these skills than in the context of motherhood and volunteerism and community service? 

Think about what you’re doing right now. If you’re not doing REAL work, can you think of anything that’s preparing you to lead with the soft skills necessary for the future?

 It’s so easy to think that time spent at home and time spent not earning real money, is wasted time. And this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Your soft skills are getting stronger every day.

 It is possible to chase your dream without running away from your life.

You are not stuck.
You are not stigmatized.
You are not a doormat.
You are not a slave.

You are smart, and special, and someday (but maybe not now), your dreams will actually be closer than you think.

 You will not always have children at home.
You will not always need to be the one who does the cooking and cleaning.
You will find, if you’re willing to share now, that which you have, that when the timing is right, you will receive exactly what you hoped for.

“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.”

— Galatians 6:4-5 MSG

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The Mission Driven Manifesto

Fads come and go. Things like gender reveal parties weren’t in vogue at all when I had my kids, but now everybody has one. And if you’re in high school and have a prom, chances are you’re going to get asked out in a big way, not the way I was. I think we passed the poster in the hall advertising the prom, and my boyfriend (now husband) looked at me and said, “I’ll buy tickets tomorrow.” I’m in my 40s now, and I’ve noticed this brand new trend of sharing what you’ve learned over the years, as if 40 is the age of wisdom.

But Immanuel Kant (1704-1784) was talking about writing down your maxims back in the 1700s—he was cool BEFORE it was cool! Kant believed that the highest good for human beings was being able to achieve both complete virtue and complete happiness at the same time. You could do this, he posited, even without a connection between the two. In fact, virtue and happiness often work in OPPOSITION to one another. (Kant was one of these guys who could blow your mind if you thought too much about the lofty ideas he floated) Further, Kant believed character didn’t develop until age 40, and that’s when you should write down all the things you’ve found to be true. (Gosh, do I sound boring or what?)

Kant believed these essential rules for living should be followed for the rest of one’s life. We don’t have a list of Kant’s maxims, but we do know that before age 40 he rarely had habits he followed or even moral principles for that matter, but after age 40, he stuck to his routine religiously.

Is this why we say old people are “set in their ways?”

Maybe all the old people have finally found their purpose.

Purpose isn’t the work you’re paid to do; it’s the work that experience prepares you to do.

I really like the idea of writing down what you’ve learned and living by a set of rules that you’ve found to work for you. A lot of people think routine inhibits passion and spontaneity. But I don’t necessarily agree that’s true. In the book, Daily Rituals, Mason Currey writes that W.H. Auden once said, “the surest way to discipline passion is to discipline time: decide what you want or ought to do during the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble.”

I have my own rules for living that work for me, and you probably have yours. I realized that my personal rules are directly tied to my purpose. What I believe about the world, work, family, and love has become the building blocks of my life.

Think about the work you do:

1) Why do you do it?
2) What do you want your work to do in the world?
3) How do you want your work to make people feel? Your family? Your friends? Your colleagues?
4) What does success look like to you?
5) What are you willing to do to reach that success?

To learn more about what it means to be mission driven, you can download our manifesto here.

Ready to take it to the next level?