David Herz for the Work You Love

Another response to one of my Quora readers:

What advice can you give to someone who is afraid to be the person he really wants to be?

You got one life. You can live it for you, or you can live it for whom? Is that other person going to be happy for you enough that you will somehow find happiness for yourself?

It's hard to answer this without specifics. For some people, it's good enough to do something that pleases their parents because that is what is most important to them, but I think parents also what their children happy. If you do something to make them happy, but are miserable yourself, you might all just end up disappointed.

On the other hand, flying against certain cultural norms can be downright dangerous. Do you believe enough in what is right to risk it?

On the other hand, if you never try, you will never know, and you might just end up leading a life of quiet desperation. You wouldn't be the first, but again, you've only got one life.

The director of my area assigned someone to monitor me. She went to ask everyone I interact with what I do. She tells me to report everything I do every day, even controlling where I sit, and it makes me wonder if I will be fired. What should I do?

It certainly sounds like you are being set up to be fired, but you could spin this another way.

What's another reason someone might be put in to observe your work?

I say you take on that they are observing your work because you are an exemplary employee, efficient, producing amazing results, and they want to study what works here in order to reproduce it. Of course this works best if you do actually bring a strong work ethic, a commitment to excellence, and ownership of the job and your company to your work (If you don't, it's time to start).

Then declare yourself this observer's partner, offer to create the manual for what you do, get (more) curious about how your work affects the health of the company and the value you add, and look with her at what can be done to take that up a notch, to make things work more smoothly with your colleagues, to improve channels of communications and optimize channels of production.

Talk to this person about goal setting for your job and making sure you are focusing on what is most important. Set goals, communicate them well, and exceed them.

In other words, be friggin' amazing. Add value to every interaction

But if the seating bothers you, this is a place you can take a stand. On the other hand, if it's just another slight to your dignity, then personalize and make the new spot beautiful and thank her for the new work space.

Now, if you get fired anyway, you've left a door open behind you that you can always walk back in to for a recommendation, or that you may be invited back into if they really see that you are the best for your job.

And if you don't, take on this way of being for the rest of your working career.

And, if this all sounds way too far fetched, then ask yourself if you were really that into your job anyway, and weren't just setting yourself up to be fired anyway. It doesn't matter that others might occur to be less into their job and even less value to the organization. (This is not for you to judge.) They might smile differently at the boss, actually have better results, or just not be as annoying as you are.

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’
“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Asked on Quora:

Should I support my musician boyfriend pursue his dreams while he depends on me financially completely? He has been trying for about 6 years.

No. You should tell him to get a damned job and pursue his music on the side.

It's time to stop trying and start doing. And when he takes on his job, he should take on doing it with excellence.

And then, especially if he hates his job, tell him to double down on his music. Work full time at his job, and work full-time at his music, with the same damned intensity.

Then he'll know if he really wants his music, or just likes calling himself a musician.

And don't let him get away with just practicing. A musician performs. Make sure he's booking at least one gig a week, and giving it his all.

But don't you dare suffer for his art. If he wants to suffer for his art, that's great. You can drive him to his gigs, be his sound engineer if you want, and be his biggest fan, but he's got to take on being the damned artist.

Gemma Evans

Today's assignment is pretty simple:

1. Write down a list of your top twenty five goals in life. Include here things you are already achieving, like raising your kids.
2. Circle the top five.
3. Now consider the other twenty. And then forget them.

These are your distractions. These are the things that will keep you from having what you want. To these you must say no, that is if you want to achieve the top five.