Project Creative Vision

The Chemistry of Careers

Well, it's been a while since I've written here on the blog.  The class I was teaching and the planning and scheming for future workshops took over and now we're here, at the end of November... 

One career-related piece of wisdom that emerged from my recent (and ongoing) excursion into holistic health is that, apparently, a career you detest is as bad for your health, from the biochemical standpoint, as consuming that public enemy number one - refined sugar.  Apparently, negative emotions that result from a job we dislike produce similar chemical reactions in our bodies as acid-ash foods - foods that create an environment that is conducive to inflammation and disease.  In contrast, alkaline foods (and, it turns out, positive emotions) create an environment that is conducive to health and vitality. (For more on the subject, see Dr. Theodore Baroody's classic "Alkalize or Die.") 

I've always felt that when we suppress our natural creativity and true gifts for the sake of a career that leaves us unhappy, we harm our health.  I never realized though that there were actual chemical reactions taking place that were, in fact, ruining our health at the very basic, biochemical level.  Doesn't it kind of put the question of career change in much starker terms?  If you hate your job but keep staying because it provides you with "stability" and "security," you might as well ask yourself:  How much for my health? 

Anyway, have a happy Thanksgiving everyone and see you back here in a few days!

Does Money Actually Follow When You Do What You Love?

I'm traveling today and don't have time for a lengthy post, but wanted to pass this on.  Thanks to Marci Alboher, I've discovered a great discussion of whether or not money follows passion.  The Art of Nonconformity blog, which has hosted the discussion, looks like a great one to follow, as well as those of the folks who weighted in on the post.  I'll be checking those blogs out in the coming days and will report anything interesting I discover there.  The one blog that I already know I will definitely be exploring is Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project.  Seems like a required read, given our own recent discussions of career happiness.  Enjoy!

Dan Pink, Johnny Bunko, and the Purpose of Life

I wrote in an earlier post about Dan Pink's upcoming book:  "Johnny Bunko:  the Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need."  Dan's A Whole New Mind is one of my all time favorites, and I was eagerly anticipating Johnny's arrival.

Well, the book is here, and there is a whole bunch of promotional fun going on around it.  If you're not sure if you want to own it, you can download the first 23 pages for free and even check out a trailer for the book (yes, Johnny comes with a trailer of his own).

The book is written in Manga format (Japanese or Japanese-inspired comics), and is a very quick read.  I actually appreciated the format more than I expected.  It was great to be able to take in a whole book in half an hour, and there was something relaxing about getting your content mainly through pictures, with a limited amount of text involved. 

The messages in the book may not strike anyone who's engaged in serious career exploration as all that new.  They boil down to following your own path ("there is no plan"), relying on your strengths, not being afraid of making spectacular mistakes that ultimately become a source of learning, and - one of my favorites -  thinking in terms of your life purpose.

But I love that these messages are now hitting the 20-something demographic.  And if GenY can absorb those messages - particularly the one concerning your life purpose - maybe there'll be fewer people stumbling into my practice who literally need to be resuscitated from the awful jobs they got themselves into and in which they stayed far too long for all the wrong reasons.

Johnny Bunko's "career coach" Diana warns him:

"You're young now.  But when you get older and look back at your life, you'll ask yourself a whole bunch of questions.  Did I make a difference?  Did I contribute something?  Did my being here matter?  Did I do something that left an imprint?"

The desire to leave an imprint is something I hear from my older - and not so much older - clients over and over again, and I know that Diana's right on when she urges him to "use your limited time here to do something that matters."

In researching the book, I came across a video of Dan, in which he says:

"I think a great life is using your strengths; understanding what it is you were put on this earth to do; understanding what it is that makes you unique, what is the true expression of who you are; and doing that, persistently, in the service of something larger than yourself."

Beautifully put, Dan.  That's what a great life - and a great career - are all about.  Come to think of it, I might make both "A Whole New Mind" and "Johnny Bunko" required reading for my clients.

(This is the end of the post.  For some reason, TypePad thinks there is more, but there isn't.  I've given up trying to figure out what's going on, so I'm letting it persist in its delusion...)

Labor of Love or the Daily Grind?

Roget's Thesaurus offers some 50 synonyms for the word "work," of which most are overwhelmingly negative.  We as a society, apparently, abhor work and consider it to be a punishment.  We live for vacations, and we are obsessed with saving enough money for retirement so that we can spend our golden years, if not playing golf, then, at least, not working.

With all of this, it's hard to remember that work can be something else altogether - that it can be an expression of our essential self and a way for us to feel that we are making a contribution to the world.  We may believe that we'd rather not work, but the actual truth is that we still want to work - just not at the jobs we're at. When I ask my career-transition clients what it is that they are looking for in their new careers, the answer I hear most often is that they want to feel that they are making a difference, that their work is personally meaningful to them. 

And the truth is, those who say that their work gives them a sense of meaning report far greater sense of on-the-job satisfaction than those who don't.  In fact, the greatest levels in work satisfaction are achieved by those who view their work as a calling, rather than just a job or a career.

Happiness Found at Intersection of Pleasure and Meaning

Positive psychology has been on my radar screen for a while, and with my focus on purposeful careers it was probably only a matter of time before I finally delved into it.

Until now, I tended to lose interest in positive psychology because so many of its conclusions seemed like science catching up to something that spiritual traditions the world over have known for thousands of years. Its prescriptions sound like a mix of Buddhist and yogic philosophy, suggesting self-awareness and mindful action as the first steps toward happiness and fulfillment. 

On the other hand, not everyone is willing to take spiritual teachers at their word, and in the meantime, we as a society are getting increasingly more unhappy.  So any help in convincing people that happiness is in their own hands can only be welcome.  (One of positive psych's recent findings, reported in Sonja Lubomirsky's The How of Happines, is that, while 50 percent of our happiness depends on our individual
"happiness set-point" and 10 percent can be attributed to circumstances outside our control, we individually are responsible for 40 percent of our sense of well-being.)

Launching "Bold Moves"!

Today I decided that I am going to publish my very own e-zine after all - Bold Moves.  I've long wanted to have a reason to go out and interview some of the most extraordinary people I've come across in my life.  They are extraordinary not because they have some amazing artistic talent that showed itself at age five, nor because their lives have taken place under some unique circumstances. 

They are extraordinary because they were just like the rest of us - until at some point they chose to buck society's notions of what one "should" do with one's life, left their successful careers behind, and pursued their dreams.  They are people in their 30-s and 40-s - old enough to have achieved success in their first careers, but too young to have accumulated so much money as to not have to worry about making a living.

The things I'm going to be asking them are those that worry all of my mid-career career-changing clients:

How did you know that that was what you wanted to do with your life?

How did you overcome the naysayers, the fears, the gremlins?

What gave you the courage - the boldness - to continue after your dreams?

There is inspiration in such stories, and quite a bit of learning.  So stay tuned. 

This will likely be a bi-monthly, and I already have an amazing person in mind for the first issue.  To receive your e-zine, please subscribe by filling out the two-box Bold Moves form on the right margin of the blog.

On Work, Passion, and Life Purpose

I've been bedeviled recently by the question of passion and work. It began with this thread on Lawrence Cheok's website, continued with a comment to this post here, and then spilled over into conversations with family and friends.

Every day I come across stories of people seeking to not just infuse their work with passion but to put passion at the very core of their work life.  But identifying our true passions can be harder than it seems. And what if our passions belong in a realm that can seem hard to integrate with the world of work – such as art or music or trekking in the great outdoors?

What's Your Calling?

One of the topics I'm really interested in is the relationship between work and a calling. The idea of a calling has traditionally been understood in purely religious terms, as in somebody being called to serve a higher power or a higher purpose.  (This article from today's Gazette.Net reflects this interpretation.)

But we are all called to do something in our lives.  To the extent that we are spiritual beings, we are all called to accomplish something in this life that goes beyond the needs and requirements of our ego and our personality.  And in that sense, while the way in which we express our calling doesn't at all have to be religious, there is no denying that following one's calling is part and parcel of our spiritual evolution.

Carolyn Myss, the well-known energy intuitive, mystic, and one of the leading contemporary thinkers on spirituality, says in her Advanced Energy Anatomy that when we find ourselves searching persistently for that job that we were "meant to do," we are not actually searching for a job or a career.  We are, rather, searching for a vocation - for a way to express our spirit through our work.  She says:

"You begin by the need to work, then you develop a thirst for a career, then you develop a need for a vocation. You want a career because it pays more than work (work at the base level) - you want a vocation because it's fulfilling. ...You develop a thirst for a career, and a passion for a vocation.  And it will happen to everybody."