What I watched: Find your dream job without ever looking at your resume by Laura Berman Fortgang. Delivered at TEDxBocaRaton. Posted May 7, 2015.
Recently, I left my longtime corporate job. It was time. I was ready. But no matter how much I was ready, the mental shift has been bumpy at times. No regrets. Even with no regrets though there is still a lot of reconfiguring going on in my brain right now.
I have many projects going on. I’m busy. Much of what I do is pretty cool. However, it appears I need something that will be my “next thing” even though I’m not entirely sure what that’s going to be.
Many of my friends are telling me to chill out, relax, enjoy “retirement” (I don’t like that word). I don’t want to retire from doing useful and interesting things. However, if I do something as work or a business, I want it to be intentionally meaningful.
I know. That sounds like new age, find your purpose stuff. Ugh. I know I don’t have a purpose. I think we create our purpose, and we can have many of them. I don’t think purpose is innately or inherently something that’s hidden inside us awaiting our discovery.
Contrary to the sentiments expressed by many workers, I didn’t hate my last job. With the exception of a restaurant waiter job I had in my early 20s that I walked out of after two weeks of daily hell, I’ve never hated any other job I’ve had. Not one. But, does that mean I found them all meaningful, doing good for people or the world? No.
Everybody knows somebody who hates their job. And maybe that's somebody's even you. In fact, half of the people in the United States who work would do something else for a living if given the chance. That's an epidemic.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky, but generally I’ve had good jobs when I’ve worked for others. I’ve also chosen to be self-employed for a good chunk of my life. Self-employment or contract or consulting work is likely the path I’m on now should I move toward regularly working again.
All that said, the message Laura Berman Fortgang delivers resonated with me in a powerful way. Workers, myself included, don’t just want to collect a paycheck any longer. We want engagement. We want mastery over our knowledge and skill domains. We want our work to matter.
And today, the research shows that to be happy at work, people want to be engaged. They want to have mastery over their subject matter. They do want to know that what they do matters more than the paycheck they get.
As I look at what the next phase of my working life might look like, I’m one of those people who does not want to settle for anything less than full engagement, robust mastery, and knowing the work I do is doing some good for people and the world. That good can take many forms, but just collecting a paycheck isn’t an attractive option at this point in my life.
Fortgang points out the folly of relying on our resume, that chronological list of jobs along with education, credentials, and skill sets, as the basis for deciding what work we’re going to pursue.
What we're qualified to do is not necessarily what we're meant to do. It isn't necessarily what's going to bring us satisfaction.
Fortgang then uses an egg and yolk metaphor to explain how she thinks about this subject. All eggs, small and large, are similar. Roundish shells with a yolk in the center. The shell represents our credentials, work track record, and accomplishments to date. That shell often becomes our identity.
I’m not happy with myself that while still employed in my last job, despite all the other cool things I’ve done and am doing, when I was asked “What do you do?” I would spew forth without thinking “I’m a Senior Director of…” I had adopted my shell as identity, at least to some extent.
But crack our egg open and inside is the good stuff, the yolk, the DNA that determines how each egg (and us) is unique. Fortgang calls the yolk a person’s life blueprint. I’m not entirely comfortable with that analogy. It strikes me as a bit too close to the “we each have a predestined purpose” way of thinking even though I know that’s not exactly what Fortgang is getting at.
Then Fortgang gets to what I consider the heart of her presentation.
So, everything that can be taken away is the shell. The status, your identity, what people think of you, the perks, the salary. But what can't be taken away is the yolk. And that's where the discovery of career satisfaction can happen. Maybe it's more important to understand that career satisfaction doesn't come from what you do. It comes from who you get to be while you're doing that job. Who your job allows you to be, that's where the happiness comes from. So, the shell is what you do. But the yolk is who, who you get to be.
Yes! This is what so many career coaches and counselors don’t fully understand. It’s not so much what we do when we work. It’s do we get to be ourselves when we do it? Do we get to be authentic when we do it? Do we get to express ourselves fully while we do it?
When I look back on all the jobs I enjoyed, either through sheer dumb luck or because I configured it that way, I was always allowed to be myself.
Funny story. In my last corporate job, one of my past managers called me into her office. I sat down and she proceeded to tell me she stumbled across me online. She said “You lead a very interesting life outside of work.” She then proceeded to promote me and give me the biggest salary raise I’ve ever gotten. I was able to be my gay, kinky, and polyamorous self, along with all the quirky things I am, without fear. That moment was huge. She’ll never know what an impact those few moments in her office had on me. I was understandably devoutly loyal to her throughout the time she was my manager. Being able to be fully present and oneself at work is an amazing gift.
At one point, Fortgang mentions the ridiculousness of picking a college major when we’re 17 years old. I remember that moment in my life. I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do. I defaulted to an accounting major destined for law school because that’s something my father always talked about. My dad was an accountant. I think I would have hated that profession even though I know he loved it. Asking someone so young what they want to study to prepare them for life is kind of bonkers if you think about it. Few of us have enough self-awareness and experience at that age to know what we want to study.
A part of the video I would challenge is the notion that people who don’t know what they want to do in life had a rough childhood. Maybe. I’m not sure I buy that. That seems entirely anecdotal, and I wouldn’t take it too seriously unless someone does a well-structured study and comes to that conclusion.
I had a great father but a horrific birth mother. I won’t go into details, but my younger life at home with my birth mother wasn’t pleasant and was often abusive. But I don’t feel that’s kept me from anything in life including doing things for work that resonated with my core desires. I danced professionally. I owned a successful book publishing company. I was a freelance software specialist consultant and trainer. I rose to a high management position in a Fortune 100 company. And I did all that never having finished college. I’m not trying to toot my own horn. I just want to point out that maybe we should take Fortgang’s contention about challenging upbringings or life circumstances with some skepticism until some solid evidence emerges about that.
Fortgang is on to something though. I do think we too often mistake what we do for work as the barometer by which we judge if it’s a good fit rather than digging a bit deeper to figure out what it is at our core that we want to be, how we want to function as a person within whatever profession or job we choose.
So, you see your resume is only part of the equation. All the things that happened to you made that resume. That made your life story. That's what reveals your blueprint. That’s what reveals the themes and the imprint that is your yolk.
I want to live in a world where people stop competing at work because they realize that they are so unique that there's nobody to compete with. Everyone's unique. We don't cross over. We don't have to compete. I want a world where we don't torture our teenagers to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their life at 17 years old because we've taught them that their dreams have many ways that they can come to be. And I'd like to see a world where nobody suffers to make a living because they understand that they are not wedded to the shell, but they can evolve from the yolk.
So, before I told you that half of the people in the US would do something different if given the chance. Half! That is an epidemic. But it's an epidemic that has a cure. And the cure is understanding that career satisfaction doesn't come from what you do. It comes from who you get to be while you're doing it. And the beauty is who you get to be is the real you.
I recommend watching the video. It’s under 12 minutes. The message is one that could save you a lot of wasted time, effort, and angst trying to find the what to do for work rather than the work that lets you be you.
You can use this link to access all my writings and social media and ways to support my work.
There is so much to this. Without any effort at all, I see at least five topics in this essay that could consume multiple entries each.
I, too, have only ever hated one job and I lasted three weeks at it. I have been so incredibly lucky to work at jobs that I loved doing, or was good at, or both. One thing I learned early on is that many people cannot be fair and don't aspire to be competent. How many times did I work for someone who would ask me to "just hire my son" or "let's use my friend's business as a consultant"? And I came to know that how managers did things was often illogical, unfair, and arrogant.
One passion for me is consistently doing a good job well and with integrity. And that means listening to my teams and partners and peers and being a good business partner and colleague. Because it turns out that one reason people leave is the capricious nature of their management teams--and that's totally within our control. Another passion is to do a good job: what does good staff work look like? What's the difference between half-assing it and doing a good job?