When I was a kid, my dad (a really smart man) gave me some really great advice. Stuff that I think about to this day. One piece of advice he gave me was about working and this is what he said (I’m paraphrasing and taking poetic license because I’m old). My dad said, Trevor, there are three distinct paths you can take when you look at life and working, and each is as valid as the next…and I would never disparage one over the others…but they are choices you make.

First, you can be a “layabout” (which is kind of a bum…my Dad is a Brit so I’ve dealt with British idioms my whole life) and live off the state. While this is a relatively easy existence, it’s not fulfilling in any sense of the word. You are literally at the mercy of the system and will forever be held in its grip. There are millions in this position because we are (basically) a kind and generous species. This is for people whose makeup just doesn’t have the work gene. This is neither bad or good…it just is.

Next, you can get a job. Now a job is something that is designed specifically to be the funding source for the rest of your existence. It’s usually not very fun if it is enjoyable at all and, more importantly, a job is nether fulfilling or satisfying and you will forget it the moment the clock rolls over to 5 PM. Many, many people have jobs on this planet—and we need them in those jobs to keep the damn thing running—and they are mostly happy in their daily lives but when they are working, they are generally not thrilled to be where they are. This has a deleterious effect because they still spend more hours working than not working when awake.

Finally, you can find a career. Basically to find a career, or have it find you, you need to be explicitly honest with yourself, your motivations and what you are (and aren’t) capable of. Simply, and most difficultly, you need to find something that you love to do…and then find someone to pay you money to do it. Sometimes that someone you find is yourself in the sense that you create your career via starting a new business or a new initiative within an already established business. A career is the resolution of your soul…it is what sustains you because you spend 60%-80% of your waking hours (sometimes many more than that) at your career, nurturing, building and maintaining it.

It is what provides a sense of accomplishment and progress in life above and beyond love and family and is what brings you home happy each day.

Thanks Dad.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen