Hey Buddy! (How to Enjoy Your Job and Spread Joy to Others)

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

My kids call our crossing guard “Buddy,” because whenever we see him, whether in the car or walking, he greets us with a huge smile and a shout: “Hey, buddy!” and sends us off with a blessing: “Have a good one!” He does this with everyone who crosses his intersection. If we see him while walking, and the intersection is not busy, he’ll let my 4 year old son hold his “stop” sign for a minute. Drivers honk their greetings at him, and I’ve even seen cooler-than-thou high school students enthusiastically high-five him as they cross the street.

When there is no one to cross the street, “Buddy” keeps himself busy by feeding the birds and listening to music on a small boom box. On rainy days, he is even more cheerful in his big yellow raincoat, and no less boisterous in his greetings. He can’t be younger than 60 years old, but is as carefree in his demeanor as a toddler jumping in puddles, while responsibly keeping people safe as they cross the intersection. It’s abundantly clear that “Buddy” enjoys his job, and even more so, spreads this joy to everyone he meets—even the birds.

Many of us know people with “ordinary” jobs who manage to make them extraordinary. From the city bus driver who knows the names of all her regular passengers and waits for them if they run late, to the cashier who entertains a whining toddler while you dig for your wallet. These people manage to generously bring cheer to others, even others whose salaries and benefits may be 10 times theirs. This is what I’ve learned from “Buddy” and others like him about how to enjoy my job and spread joy to others:

"enable" by quickredfoxandkits

1- Do my job well, whatever it is.  When “Buddy” addresses every driver crossing the intersection, he gets the drivers eyes off their smart phones and reminds them that there will be little people crossing this street.\

2- Be generous with my smiles. The word generous is the key here. “Buddy” is generous with his cheer and it makes everyone else around him cheerful.

3- Make everyone I help feel special. Letting my son hold his stop sign is just one example of how “Buddy” makes everyone who crosses the street feel special. I’ve heard him address other students by name.

4-      Keep my energy level high. “Buddy’s” joy is authentic, and it shows that he is drawing from a wellspring somewhere that makes him able to give this to others. When not helping people cross the street, he snacks on small snacks and listens to music, both of which raise energy as well. 

Do you know someone who does an “ordinary” job exceptionally well? Share your story in the comments below.

To Find Work You Love, Don’t Follow Your Passion (with a Giveaway!)

(What I'm Reading, No. 3)
By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

In this post I’m reviewing Cal Newport’s compelling book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love.” I will be giving away one free copy of the book; to enter the giveaway, all you need to do is subscribe via email to my blog. If you are a current subscriber and would like to enter the giveaway, send me an email at listenlearnactandreflect (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject, “June giveaway.” I will accept entries until June 30^th, randomly select a winner, and notify the winner by email by July 6^th. Unfortunately, at this time I can only ship to US addresses.

“So, what’s your dream job?” I remember being taken aback by this question when I first started my job search after college. Every informational interview, and even some full-fledged job interviews, included this question. How was I supposed to know what my dream job was? I had already changed my mind three times about the field I wanted to get into. I’m sure I came up with some passable answer, but my answer was definitely a dream because I don’t even remember it. In the year 2000, there were jobs galore in the US, and we graduates had the luxury and misfortune of believing that the perfect job was out there for us if we could dream it. It was the decade of dot.com start ups, so those who “followed their passion” could easily find an investor. Fast forward over a decade later, and many college graduates are dreaming just to have a job, any job. And yet, according to Cal Newport’s book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, the “follow your passion” advice is still common in career counseling—and it is bad advice.

I mention pursuing your passion as one possible direction to take while looking for work in my popular blog post, Unemployment Opportunity, but with a very important caveat – one must have the necessary skills and resources to make economic success out of it. In Newport’s book, he calls this “building career capital,” an essential element for finding work you love. Strengthening key skills does two things: it actually increases passion because passion for your work often comes with mastering your skills (not before); and it builds the “career capital” necessary to gain more resources and autonomy and lead the life you want to lead.

One of the most useful chapters I found in this book is the chapter “Becoming a Craftsman,” which discusses a type of discipline known as “deliberate practice.” Newport writes, “if you just show up and work hard, you’ll soon hit a performance plateau beyond which you fail to get any better … deliberate practice might provide the key to quickly becoming so good they can’t ignore you” (p. 85). Newport uses examples of master chess players, musicians, and screenwriters to explain how they used deliberate practice to excel in their fields and end up doing work they love. This involves not just setting aside enough time to practice, but eliciting sometimes painfully critical feedback to continue to improve their craft. The skill that these craftsmen needed to deliberately practice was very clear (chess, guitar playing, writing), but Newport provides steps for determining how all workers can actually determine for themselves what “craft” they need to deliberately practice in order to become “so good they can’t ignore you.” Newport himself schedules as much time as he can for deliberate practice in his own work as a computer science professor at Georgetown University. You can read more about his work on his blog Study Hacks.

Newport does not extensively address external factors that affect workers, such as other colleagues, and issues like workplace and hiring discrimination. In his quest to disprove the “passion mindset,” he also does not address enough how personal interests, abilities and talents do play a role in finding work you love. That being said, I found this book very empowering, challenging the reader to work rightly first, instead of looking for the “right work.”

I read the chapter on “mission” with great interest, since this is a common word used in non-profit work. Newport, however, uses this word in regard to individual careers: “To have a mission is to have a unifying focus for your career,” he writes. “It’s more general than a specific job and can span multiple positions … People who feel like their careers truly matter are more satisfied with their working lives, and they’re also more resistant to the strain of hard work” (p.152). In case you confuse “mission” with “passion,” Newport spends the rest of the chapter talking about how to make mission a reality in one’s working life, and his examples show that it takes some time building career capital in order to formulate that mission. Newport provides one example from the life of evolutionary biologist Pardis Sabeti, but I wish he would have included other examples, especially those of social entrepreneurs (David Bornstein’s book, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas highlights some very inspiring stories).

Although Newport wrote this book for a US context, I found that it is actually quite applicable to people working in emerging markets like India, China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, and Egypt. Emerging markets have smaller markets than the US and thus fewer available jobs, the advice in this book would help workers in these markets to stand out even more than they would in the US, where there is more competition. This is in stark contrast to the “passion” mindset, which can only be applied in larger markets where there are more job opportunities and more diversity of industries, thus lending more credence to the (bad) idea that your dream job is out there waiting for you if you can just figure out your passion.

Who should read this book? I find it a great resource for anyone wanting to improve their professional lives, anyone sensing a “plateau” in their careers, as well as anyone just starting out, making it an excellent gift for students graduating from college or graduate school.

Do you love your work? What about it makes you love it?

Bread, Freedom, Dignity

(the first in a series)

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Bread. Freedom. Dignity.  The three words that should describe any effort towards making people’s lives better. And the well-known rallying cry of the inspiring Egyptian Revolution that started on January 25^th, 2011 and toppled the 30-year regime of Hosni Mubarak. Unfortunately, to date these three demands have not been met in Egypt.

This series on my blog may touch upon the current events in Egypt every so often, but there are many astute analysts found at Jadaliyya, EgyptSource, and MEMRI already writing and talking about Egypt. I focus instead here on how the “Bread, freedom, dignity” demands can be met by people (individuals, organizations, governments) working with the poor and the oppressed everywhere.

Today I’m going to share two examples of the amazing outcomes that can come about when poor people are treated with dignity and respected as important members of their communities.

A food pantry in Ohio chose to have its clients choose their own food, rather than giving them a pre-packaged box or bag.  The outcomes: when people choose the food they want, there is less waste, and the pantries are able to then serve more people:

  

Far from depleting its stocks, Journey's End has seen its cost per person drop as well as a six-fold increase in users since switching to client choice in 2008. Factory closings drove up the numbers, but so did giving clients dignity, Gore said. "We made it much more comfortable for them to shop." (“Let People Shop,” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/december/1.14.html)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrukjod/224752885/sizes/m/in/photostream/

In Schenectady, New York, homeless people are paid to stand outside of businesses there—not to beg, but to work. While many urban economic revitalizations often drive out the lower-income and poor people who lived in those areas, in this case, the work of social service organization City Mission helped the economic developers realize that these residents were assets, not liabilities: 

We worked with Proctors Theater and created the Downtown Ambassadors Program. City Mission residents who have been through Getting Ahead training go out every night there’s a show and greet the guests that are coming in. They have uniforms and flashlights, and they help people across the street, direct them to parking, get them to restaurants, hold the door open—it’s really like a sidewalk concierge service. This went so well that the economic development agency offered to pay our people if they’ll continue doing this. So now Proctors has a contract with us, and other businesses nearby want ambassadors to work in front of their businesses.” (“Paying the Homeless to Stand Outside Your Business: Schenectady Bridges Project Turns Poverty Upside Down,” http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/from_vision_to_action#When:22:29:00Z)

The outcomes: The homeless and low-income residents of Schenectady have jobs, and the patrons of the downtown businesses benefit from their much-appreciated services.

When poor people are treated with dignity, with the right to make choices, and with the understanding that they are an important part of the community, not to be driven away, you get these kinds of positive outcomes.

So I consider a nonprofit to support or volunteer with, I don’t just consider the organization’s financial health, or its overhead vs. its program expenses. I consider how it talks about and works with its program participants. Are the participants “charity cases,” or are they treated with dignity? Do they respect their participants and recognize them as contributing members of their communities?

What do you consider?