The best way to discover your calling is to know who you are.

So many folks are living in paralyzing fear because they are trying to live a life created by others. Hiding behind the mask of appropriateness deadens your soul and changes your identity to something less than you could have been.

Instead be all of who you are. Get inspired by these powerful benefits to being the individual you were always meant to be.

1). The honor of giving space to who you are gives you access to so far hidden wisdom. Gain access through asking your most challenging discovery questions. Residing within this wisdom are jewels in the form of thought connections, fresh insights and rich realizations.

2). Decision-making is easier and more spot on. You only struggle with big decisions because you are choosing from culturally created options that are not a fit for you. Be who you are and you’ll more readily see the wisdom of hindsight in foresight.

3). It allows you to see opportunities you were once blind to. It’s impossible to see the right opportunities when you are looking through false lenses. But once you know who you are, then you can see more of the opportunities that fit you.

4). You’ll be more productive with less effort. Authenticity allows you to tap your purest vein of inspiration so you don’t have to use will power, discipline and self-control to get things done. Inspiration is the only effective antidote to resistance.

5). True north self-identity allows you to see options that are more supportive of your true desires. But when you are living a false life, one that was created by someone else, the choices you see only perpetuate that fallacy. Living from true north gives you greater access to the actions you can take to get what you want.

6). You can only truly see what you want (your heart’s desires) from the vantage point of who you are. These desires of your heart of hearts feed you at a soul level. They are your Divine gifts that have been sent from God’s heart to yours. Until you honor who you are these gifts stall in limbo waiting for your recognition of them.

7). Once you know who you are you can choose or create work that is aligned with you. This work is your natural edge in the marketplace. It is your calling which is the work that will give you both the greatest fulfillment and the most prosperous rewards.

Which of these benefits inspires you the most to be who you are?

I’ve dedicated the last ten years refining my true calling coaching process and it’s the most comprehensive and thorough career discovery process I’ve seen.

This process unveils who you are in startling, crystal clear detail. Most clients are able to leverage self-discovery to identify six or more true calling possibilities from which to choose. Yet for a few others, it’s not enough to simply know and understand who they are.

If you’re one of those folks I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you. Realize that each of us processes inspirational information differently, so the same path of discovery, doesn’t work the same for everyone.

When you hit a wall you can either tunnel under it, climb over it, bust through it or walk around it. Sitting on the other side of the wall and moaning is ineffective. Just because a door of understanding opens for others, it doesn’t mean that it will for you.

We all suffer from experiential myopia. This creates a narrow-minded projection of our own personal experience, so that we believe the way that worked for us can work for all. This is especially dangerous for career coaches and authors who dispense true calling discovery advice.

We’ve been guilty of mindlessly spitting out oft-repeated, simple advice like. “Write down all the things you love to do.” Yet if you’ve been searching for your calling for years, without success, that suggestion makes you groan in despair. You’ve read it hundreds of times and tried to answer the question dozens of ways and still, you face the wall of not knowing your right career.

If you get this, maybe it’s time to consider the possibility of what you can’t see.

Some beliefs are so deeply lodged in our minds, that they become blind spots, blocking the opening to understanding. Just like the blind spot in a car mirror, you can be looking right at it and not see your calling because it just isn’t visible to you.

But if you’re willing to courageously consider the possibility of blind spots, by considering the root limiting belief, then you can inquire into it further. Inquiry may remove the block so you can climb over the wall and see your calling.

Warning! These beliefs may hit hard you hard, below the belt. You may not want to admit that something so simple has been blocking your vision. If you try one on and become defensive  – guaranteed there’s a personal truth there that you must investigate in order to be free.

1). Might you believe that a calling ought to reveal itself with certain attributes in a certain way? Perhaps you think that true callings are such a big deal, that if it were really your calling, it would come like a thunderbolt of clear profundity that rocks your soul. Not likely.

Perhaps our callings, the wisdom of our true natures, can only be hinted at, anyway – filtered through symbols, dreams, symptoms, happenstances, and synchronicities. Gregg Levoy

2). Might you believe that more time or more space will help you to figure out what you have not yet been able to figure out? My dear friend, please consider that it was your considerable ability to think that created the wall you face in the first place.

3). Might you believe that if you’d seen your true calling that you’d feel much more inspired, motivated or joyous than you do? This search for euphoric confirmation is most likely keeping you on the sidelines of true living. Like many of us you may not feel the delicious juice of deep satisfaction until after you engage your calling.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Joseph Campbell

Campbell didn’t tell us to first feel our bliss for the doors to open. For you to follow your bliss you’ve got to first walk down the hall to see what doors will open.

4). Might you believe that something is wrong with the world, your upbringing, the economy or the process or guidance you’re using? If you persist in believing that the issue slowing or blocking you, is outside of you – then you might as well give up and build a life on the unfulfilling side of the wall.

5). Might you believe that you can’t really play the game until you know for sure that your calling is the right game? Hope you see the unsolvable trap in this one. Truth is you can never confirm you’re in the right game by sitting on the sidelines.

If one of these hurt you, then you might have to admit the need to swallow a radical antidote.

You might just have to discover your calling the hard way. Why should that surprise you? You’ve spent years not discovering it the hard way. Hard or easy is so relative to your situation that it may not matter. You just want to find a way over the damn wall.

Here’s a major realization that I’ve recently had by being blessed with clients who had one or more of the above beliefs.

True calling discovery is not the most valuable process for some. Usually the decision to act on a calling comes after discovery but if discovery isn’t coming then decision must come first. Some have to decide first before they can discover their calling.

It may work for you to disintegrate your beliefs but if it doesn’t, please don’t wait to see your calling. If you take that path you may die with your music still in you.

So what can you do? You can work a comprehensive true calling decision-making process that forces you to identify and act on your best, educated true calling guess.

Then your hard way will ease up because courageous engagement creates clarity. But please don’t think you’ll figure it out. You can’t – it’s your mind that got you where you are and it will keep you there unless you jump over the wall with some radical new thinking.

I’d love to show you the way. Surprisingly making the decision first is often a shortcut to prosperity and fulfillment. Call 724-823-0317, to discuss your true calling path or enroll in this eye-opening class: How To Decide On The Best Business For You: Make Your Right Work Decision Now While The Window Is Open.

Clarity is clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding. It is freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity.

Do you more often look for clarity or create it?

I’ve been pondering the creation of clarity. Most folks look for clarity like it’s something to be found. Discovering clarity happens but not as often as you’d think.

It’s far easier to decide to create clarity.

How do you come to your clarity? I find clarity is best approached with openness, calmness and a determination to create it.

A comprehensive process works best especially in matters of career change clarity. When there are many factors to consider that fog our clarity we must work a process that cuts through fog like a torch of sunshine.

Clarity is best created through a process of questioning, dialogue, decision and action. Every progressive step leans toward clarity and further away from confusion or complexity.

But there is one essential ingredient that must be put into the mix early and often.

Truth. If you really want clarity, you must decide to tell the whole truth to yourself about yourself. That’s the truth as you see it, without regard for the opinion of others.

To create clarity you must take a stand for your truth and your truth is likely to be unpopular. Its unpopularity is what makes it individual and thus valuable to you.

But without deep truth, as only you know it, you’re just spinning you wheels.

Here’s the secret. Be especially aware as a truth-teller, just before and during periods of important decision making.

Use this time to note your decision – to comprehend and appreciate the raw truth of it.

When we make a decision and then decide to make up some justification, explanation or fabrication after the fact, we don’t get the benefit of endorsing own authentic choices.

Singular and courageous endorsement of your own wisdom is what creates clarity and confidence.

Here’s a powerful opportunity to practice your truth telling.   Decide to tell the truth when you decline every invitation, be it business or social.

Just saying no thank you can be enough.  But just in case you’re asked, be ready and willing to share your whole unvarnished truth, even if you know that it will not be welcome.

It will be one of the cleanest and most liberating practices of your life.

What someone doesn’t want to hear, can be delivered respectfully and gracefully.  But a sincere, blunt and clumsy truth is far better than any eloquently crafted lie.

Life is given, and not one other human being on the planet was given to live the life you’ve been given to live.  The given self lets you quit trying to live another life, which is what the quest for the ideal life is, and lets you begin to live your own.  Mari Perron

I’ve found that my given, most authentic self can’t get clear in the presence of white lies.  I’ve found that in order for my given self to flourish in resolute clarity, I must first take a stand for what I want, even when it disappoints another.

True freedom is found in the loving acceptance of self and in the glory of expressing as no one else can.

How about we skip all the bull and just come out as we are?

When you can boldly be who you are, then you can serve from the core of what you were meant to give.

Coming all the way out and risking authentic expression, is more confidently accomplished from a supportive platform.

Self-employment is the most direct route to being who you really are.  Working for someone else is seldom a supportive platform. 

Sure self-employment can be scary and messy but wouldn’t you rather have scary and messy freedom over soulless imprisonment?

I’m writing this for you if you’re deadening your spirit by doing the same purposeless work day after day.  I’m writing this for you if you’re already self-employed but under-earning.  What good is freedom without the means to enjoy it?

Authenticity and money are connected via confidence.   Money is attracted to confidence.  Confidence expresses most naturally from being the person you really are.

The solution to both under-earning and a lack of fulfillment is the same.  The solution is authentic expression and it’s impossible to express authentically if you aren’t being who you really are.

I admit it.  I’ll use any challenge, urging or encouragement I can to get you to be you.   You think the decision to be self-employed has to be a big deal but it doesn’t.  You can begin here for 77 bucks and 12-15 hours of sweat equity.

Success is really all about alignment.  When you’re out of alignment, with who you are and with what you came here to do, then you must make up the slack with effort.

Have you ever driven a car that was out of alignment?  I have and it’s a bitch to hold the steering wheel steady.  A misaligned vehicle takes much greater focus and much more physical strength just to keep it pointed in the right direction.  Your life isn’t any different.

That’s why you’re so stressed out if you’re unfulfilled in your work.  Your authentic alignment is all out of whack and it’s taking its toll on your body and mind.

Just “be who you are” and bring your gifts wherever you are and wherever you go, and this change that has begun, will begin to show itself as the movement that it is.  Mari Perron

Four Ways To Be Who Your Really Are

What does it mean to be who you are?  That answer is different for all of us but there are four pathways to authenticity.  Each is a conscious choice and for each choice, half measures do not work.

To be who you really are you must:

1).  Express and create your boldest, most authentic, original idea. This path is where authenticity meets creation.  This is how you fulfill your sacred covenant of uniqueness.  Have you chosen to bring about your biggest dream?  If not then you’re acting in a less than fully authentic way.

Don’t let the thoughts of “that’s too big” stop you.   All big dreams begin with single, small, bold steps.

2). Engage that idea and bring it to the marketplace in the way that only you can. It’s not enough to simply choose your biggest, boldest idea – you must also deliver it from the core of your individuality.  This is your authentic edge.  Are you driving your dream in your own special way or are you copying the methods of others?

Don’t look around at the way it’s always been done.  Blaze new trails, in ways, that could only have come to one who is being who she is.

3).  Create in service to those you care about the most. This is where your life experience rubs up against what you came here to do.  Who you are now is different than who you were when you arrived.   You’re an individual who has uniquely responded to challenges.  Are you working in service to the group of people that you most care about?

The fierce and compassionate qualities of your heart will give you strength only when you really give a good shit.

4). Show up and stand up, in ways that fire you up the most. Are you fully alive while working?  Are you enthused just thinking about your work?  Is it a joy to experience others appreciating your work?  Can you feel your special juice even when you must be open and vulnerable to express?

The only person who can ultimately save your ass is a stronger more determined version of your true self.

Those are the four ways to be who you really are.  What’s your authentic batting average? Are you 0 for 4, .500, batting a thousand?

If you aren’t yet being who you are, do you really want to be?

Self-employment is the most direct route because it presents more options with far less restriction.   But even being your own boss doesn’t have to be an all or nothing leap.  You don’t have to risk everything.

But you do have to risk looking like a fool for the love of who you are.

Why not lighten the risk?  Why not put your toe in the waters of self-employment by starting part time?  Here’s one way.

I’ve created a process where you in less than a week, you can weave in all four authentic ways while creating and completing your original information product.  In five days at least you’ll have something to sell that you really care about.

Are you ready to cash in on who you really are?

Work a Creation/Completion process that inspires your to create authentically.  Get your copy of Create Your Inspired Info Product In 5 Days.

Not sure that you can create authentically? Then this no obligation opportunity is for you. 12 Core Components of Inspired Completion Rally Call

You’ll get a free download of all 12 components plus a coming alive rally phone class on what it takes to put them in play.   Even if next Thursday at 7 PM Eastern isn’t a fit for you.  Register and I’ll send you the recording and the download.  You could win a copy of Create Your Inspired Info Product in 5 Days just for showing up on the call.

You have powerful points of wisdom within that when expressed could be your authentic edge in the marketplace.  That wisdom represents better business ideas than anything your conscious mind realizes.

We talk a lot about authentic expression in terms of standing up for what’s important and in terms of life purpose but I don’t think we talk enough about our inner wisdom and how to extract it.

When you decide to express your well-earned inner wisdom you set yourself apart in remarkable ways.  It’s your wisdom and no one else can express and exploit it like you can.

Your best idea is waiting just below the surface, buried under your lack of willingness to dig and your fears.

How about instead of waiting for true calling epiphanies you take a look at how to dig deep and extract your own inner wisdom?

Create Your Inspired Info Product in 5 Days is one way that you can extract your deepest wisdom and begin part time without risking your current gig.

This creation/completion product leverages a combination of authentic inspiration, coaching accountability and airtight, crystal clear, guidance to birth a true calling inspired product in just 5 days.

You can read more about why I developed this product at the end of this post but for now I want to share what I learned about wisdom extraction when I tested this product.

Major Wisdom Extraction Realizations

1). Forced Urgency is like a shortcut because it goes directly to the engagement of wisdom extraction.
2). With Increased Decisiveness you can discover, decide on and develop wisdom much more quickly than imaginable.

Forced Urgency

One of the most practical therapists I’ve ever read is Nathaniel Branden. He’s written classics such as The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem and Taking Responsibility.  One technique that Branden uses to extract wisdom is the technique of Sentence Stem Completion.

When we intensify awareness, we tend to generate a need for action that expresses our changed psychological state.  Nathaniel Branden

By swiftly answering strategically chosen sentence stems, six days in a row, with at least six complete sentence endings, we access resources that normally remain hidden from our consciousness.

Without the exercise this wisdom does not normally show up in our behavior. This powerful technique doesn’t give enough time for self-doubt and questioning so resistance doesn’t rear its ugly head.

If you’d like me to email you complete instructions on this technique ask for them here.

Increased Decisiveness

Resistance adores delay. It will seize any excuse to delay you just long enough so that your original inspiration fades.  Resistance knows that when left to discipline alone you are more likely to give up.

Self-control is exhaustible.  Chip & Dan Heath from their book, Switch: How To Change When Change Is Hard

So if self control (willpower, discipline) is an exhaustible resource, it’s only a matter of time when burning adrenaline alone, you run out of fuel.

What’s the answer?  Increase your speed to action by making decisions much quicker and engaging them much sooner.  In a word, decisiveness.

Surprisingly speed inspires sounder decision-making than careful analysis. When you’re quick about it, the best ideas surface and it’s easier to pick out the viable ideas from among the junk.

We have assumed that taking longer and being more thorough is good for us.  But getting lost in the delay of over-analysis is always more costly than acting decisively and making lots of mistakes.

What’s your experience using forced urgency and greater decisiveness?

Free Business Confidence Podcast

I think it has a lot to do with these three factors.
1). They didn’t go deep and extract their waiting wisdom so the idea was not authentically aligned.
2). They never followed a firm, creation/completion process with supportive structure and environment.
3). They were not able to use discipline and willpower to follow-through.

Free Download Ebook Nine Compass Points of True Calling

What if the great depression had never happened?   What if industrial engineering and the dehumanization of workers had never occurred?  Imagine instead the influence of a great awakening to true calling that immersed all in expressed authenticity rather than fear.

How might your life have been different if your parents were raised during a great spiritual awakening? What if they were celebrated and encouraged to find their own authentic sweet spot in service to the world?

What if this great awakening had championed uniqueness and abundance in service to others? What if this great collective awakening honored authenticity, fulfillment and money?

How might your life have turned out differently were you raised in that sort of environment?  Would you have answered your true calling?

Well, it’s not too late.  It’s my desire to serve you as you reconnect your own link between your truest of callings, deep fulfillment and abundantly flowing streams of cash.

Cautious parents who hoarded out of fear and scarcity raised many of us.  But we are more in control of our destinies now than we ever have been. Together we can create a world where our uniqueness is championed.

Imagine the possibilities.  I’ve discovered a way to make this happen sooner.  The missing link is found within the power of connected intention.  We must connect through our callings while demolishing our me-centered, fearful walls.

The answer is to immerse your intentional being in an environment conducive to the discovery, validation and or evolvement of your true calling.   Right now I’m designing adventurous experiences of environmental support.   Soon these one-of-a-kind adventures will be available to you.

For a large part we are products of our environments that’s why we need to theme them authentically rather than fearfully.   Authenticity has something going for it that fear does not.

Authenticity empowers and emboldens.  Authentic callings carry the energy of right momentum.  Work in service to your calling and your environment carries you along with it.

Enroll here for announcements of true calling awakening events.

Please pause and imagine being awakened greatly.  Share where you are on discovering a or validating your truest of callings.

This is a pretty much off-the-cuff report on what’s been going on with me in the last week.   I’ve identified a very big objective and I’m working through a gestation period to allow my ideas to fully form.  Realizations are coming rapid fire and my certainty and confidence are growing daily. 

Perhaps you’ve tried to do what you love to do but not enough money has followed.  Or you make lots of money but starve your soul.  Or you might know your big dream but you’re afraid to make the leap.  Or you want to be independent, fulfilled and prosperous but have yet to discover what to go for or how to bring it about. If any of that applies to you read on.

I was talking to colleague and regular reader Keena recently and she remarked how my posts have had a kind of ramping up momentum to them lately.  Keena is right on (a very good trait to have in her business).

So what have I been ramping up for?  In this post,  Make Your Life Count, I hinted about my new big thing.   Funny how it’s become bigger than I ever imagined it would be.

I’ve fully identified the what.   Now I only have to develop the more involved but easier work of the how to.

In this post, I said I was dedicating this year to reconnecting the link between authenticity and prosperity.

I’ve decided that reconnecting that link has become my life’s work and the mission of my soul here on earth.

Funny, I’ve always resisted using the life’s purpose term; probably because as a dedicated Scanner I didn’t like the permanence it implied.

But Holy Shit this is a whole different thing.  This is the real deal and the big banana all rolled into one.  So I’ve set the clock for 60 minutes and I want to share some raw realizations that may be helpful for those of you who are also on a path to discover your souls’ mission.

Yes you’ve read it right.  I’m making it my life’s work to reconnect the link between your original authenticity and your abundance.  For all who want to play along it’s time to put an end to this growing lack of vocational fulfillment.  I’ve got no choice.  I’ve been called in grand fashion and I’m up for it.

My Coaching

My main coaching gig has been coaching the leap to self-employment freedom.  Until my abundance fully manifests I’ll continue to serve one-on-one clients with this aim.  In fact I’m putting it out there – if you are scared shitless because you want to make a very big thing happen now, it will be very advantageous for you to work with me while I’m doing the same thing for myself.

Use Divine Coalescence

Call on Spirit to coalesce and assemble all the discordant facts, learning and realizations you’ve had in your conscious lifetime.  The good news is, even if you’re vocationally lost there is an Authentic Accumulation going on.  This aggrandizement has been amassing and gathering all the forces both seen and unseen in service of your good.  I’ll explain more on how to do this later.   But for now if you’re tuned in – ask for the coalescence to begin.

Hints Of Things To Come

Writing is not my best medium for delivering inspirational transformation.  Phone is good.  Groups on the phone are better.  In person is best.  You may want to pack your bags for an upcoming visit to Pittsburgh because the experiences I’m planning will more than knock your socks off.

I’m not sure how many more posts I’ll be publishing here at Delightful Work. Obviously the Reconnection requires it’s own home.  I’ll send you there once I’ve moved.  If you want to be sure not to miss major announcements and alliance opportunities subscribe to this email list, which is only for inspiring this big link.

Invite Mutation & Evolutionary Flux

Words can’t describe the raw energy that comes rushing in once you hit the mark on your calling!  Callings get heard from a strong declaration of “Bring it on Soul, I’m open and listening and ready to go wherever the journey calls.”  Know this – acceleration happens once you truly let go of dictating terms and throw yourself wide open to guidance.

Rapid Realization

I’ve surrendered.  Now I know what the artist who can’t quit painting feels like.  I must allow the Universe to work out the most important intentions so I’m turning a lot over to higher good.  I’ve been compelled to get my exercise outdoors in more natural settings lately because the ideas flow gloriously in nature.

Right Business Model

The right dream with the wrong business model slows development unnecessarily.  That delay could kill your dream if you don’t have the determination to hang in there no matter what.  And you’re not going to hang in there if you are working on a third place dream.  This has been my most valuable realization.

I know that there are those of you out there who have been trying to hit your sweet spot for some time without success.   I suspect that you also could have fallen prey to your caution.

Consider this.  When you do the business stuff wrong or make the wrong choices is it really because you don’t know how to do the business stuff right? Or is it because you haven’t chosen purely enough?

Could you be playing too small?  Could it be that somewhere, deep within, you really do know what your authentic work is and you know that eventually you will go for it?

I’m a ballsy guy but it took every once of courage I have to go public before working out all the kinks in this link.  But I also know that’s the way I’ll help those of you who want it the most.  I’ll be continuing to put out less polished stuff that you may find helpful.

Of this I am certain. We are all in this together. The link will not connect without the strong unconditional support of those who also believe in the glory of uniqueness.  I welcome all supportive comments and questions for connecting your link.   Let the real games begin now.

Your main thing both grounds you and inspires you.

Your main thing presents an opportunity for self-honor and personal integrity.

Your main thing must be something that you’d always defend when backed against the wall.

Your main thing emboldens you organically with natural confidence.

Your main thing is the core backbone of your business niche.

If you aren’t sure about your main thing then you may struggle in business.

Do not confuse the business function built around your main thing as your main thing.

My core business function, as a start up coach, is to guide clients through the process of discovering, validating and expressing their main thing in the form of a prosperous business.

But that’s not my main thing.

My main thing is championing uniqueness.  My main thing is encouraging you to express your authentic singularity.

The world needs you to express your magnificent unlikeness.

The independent nature of your makeup is the key to finding and profiting from your authentic sweet spot.

We want to know what makes you different.

We’ll pay you well for your distinctiveness.

What’s your main thing? If you know it will you honor us by sharing it here?

Have an idea for a business and your not sure if it will fly? Then join us for this free phone class, on July 15, to run your idea through the gauntlet.

I’m a 270-pound, 59 year old, with two ankle fusions, who is in training to play one more game of rugby.  Often they ask, why subject yourself to the very thing that destroyed all the cartilage in your ankles? 

What they may never understand is that while playing rugby I feel most like myself.  Most of my deeply fulfilling flow experiences have come on the rugby pitch.

I wonder, what’s your one more rugby game?

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.
Howard Thurman

There is great value in doing something organic to who you are.  There is great honor in deciding – screw them.  Be.  Stand tall in your own skin.

A life of engaged authenticity carries great benefits and rewards.   Somehow this choice of authentic bliss extends to other areas of our lives.

The demonstration of unique self-honor creates an attractive self-confidence that cannot be created in less genuine ways.  It’s that bona fide self-confidence that makes us feel competent to life, as though we really fit the game of life.

Somewhere in your life right now is a dream, a passion, a quest or simply an enjoyable pastime that you may have set aside because “they” said that you should.  To hell with them!  Be your own bad ass self and dust off your true desires.

True callings need no further explanation.  They don’t need to make sense to anyone.

Can you imagine how beautifully different our world would be if everybody said? “To hell with them, I’m going for it! ”

I talked to a right livelihood client this morning that is terrified of discovering a vocation that would require further schooling.   In my post Screw Going Back to School I talked about this myth that someone else knows better than you do, what’s really good for you.

Ideal careers and businesses are more often created than found.  Creators don’t need further education because creators credential and qualify themselves.

Sure, really going for it is scary as hell but there is a version of you deep within who does not want to settle in any aspect of your life.  That bold being wants to experience all the necessary bumps, disappointments and scrapes on the way to really living.

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming  ‘WOW-What a Ride!’”
Robert Wickman

There may be a time for caution but from what I’ve seen, caution is only a self-constructed cage that delays courage and holds back the real freedom of living.

What is your one more rugby game?  Will you commit to playing it?

Every once in awhile, a new idea, explodes a concept that I previously thought was rock solid. Regular readers won’t be surprised that I’ve written 11 previous posts tagged with work that you love.

I’ve known that money doesn’t always follow finding work that we love, but now I have greater understanding.

Now I’m seeing that loving your work is, quite possibly, extremely overrated.  My friend, Egbert Sukop, in his new book, How to Better Hate Your Job, blew up my mind with these excerpts.

When I choose more often what I want to do, it is more likely I’ll make more money.  What you want to do is NOT identical with doing what you love.  Love in regards to business and work is so overrated.

Self-determination is key.  And so is a series of continued choices and course adjustments versus vegetating along the rusty tracks of a decision you made years ago.  Making a lot of choices is likely to lead you to making better choices, with some of them possibly leading to more money.  Egbert Sukop

Perhaps I was already aware of this distinction when I wrote this in a popular post on seizing the freedom of self-employment. “By working on what you want to work on and dearly value you’ll end up producing work of higher value that will make you prosperous.”

This concept is still formulating for me, so I could use your help in thinking it through.  Here’s why I think Egbert is onto something big.

Doing work we want to do, is so much simpler than searching for work that we love to do.  Simply doing work that we choose, because we want to, takes the pressure off.

Doing work that we want to do, permits the ongoing possibility of mistake making.  Making mistakes is no big deal because we can just change our minds when we are doing what we want to do.

I coach many clients on right career and right business discovery and the pressure they put on themselves has much to do with how they think true calling ought to feel.  If the horns of angels and blinding white light don’t announce their epiphanies, they often question their discoveries.

Identifying work that we love to do, is a much higher standard that comes with huge expectations.  High expectations often lead to second-guessing and disappointment.

Consider how challenging it is to continue loving our loved ones.  Many people believe they aren’t at choice when it comes to loving their relatives. That lie gives us a clue as to why loving our work is such an unnecessarily high standard.

Doing work we want to do feels more carefree and unencumbered.  Doing feels more attainable than loving because of the lightness of choice built right into it.

It’s that choice to change our mind and frequently do whatever the hell we want to do, that leads to the only real freedom there is.  The freedom to say no thank you and choose anew.

Resources:

Juliet du Preez at Life Made Great, interviewed  me and published it today.  Juliet asked some piercing questions check it out.

Juliet was bold enough to try something new and participate in one of my exploratory group coaching experiences.  If you’d like to exercise your boldness join us: Creating the Life & Business You Most Want; A Bold Process for Authoring Your Own Life Now!