If you’re in a Job You Love, you'll not 'work' all your life

“Whistle While You Work”
By Richard J. Leider & David A. Shapiro
Berrett Koehler Publishers, 2001


A friend sent me a gift -- a coffee mug with these words from Dilbert, the cartoon character, now considered a 21st century sage: “Work can be very REWARDING. You should TRY it.” This mug is my daily reminder, whenever I pound on my computer for proposals to clients and for book reviews for the Inquirer.

We spend much of our time in work, career, employment, calling, public service, etc., and there are as many books as there are problems and opportunities for this magnificent preoccupation – from the workable pocket guides to psychological analyses to probing philosophical-theological ruminations on life’s calling.

Remember “Who Moved My Cheese?” (July 23, 2000) -- the inaugural piece of Executive Read close to a year ago? The reactions to the review and to the subsequent reading of the book itself showed one thing: Many of us are in the wrong job! And several have considering moving – or scampering away from their unproductive “cheese station” to a new one.

Being in the job you love was also discussed in a book earlier reviewed in this section titled “Business Is a Calling” (July 30, 2000), which was summarized thus: A business career can be a morally noble one. Written by a theologian, the book provided ethical foundations of being in or working for business enterprises.

These two books – one a modern-day light-hearted parable and the other a serious but earnest theological and philosophical treatise – now see themselves harmonized in a book whose title is playful -- “Whistle While You Work” – but whose sub-title is dead serious: “Heeding Your Life’s Calling.”

The book combines the narrative and essay forms as it brings us into the journey of re-discovering our work (or the things we like in our work) or in discovering what we really want to do in life.

It begins with a story of a group on an adventure safari in East Africa. In the middle of the wilderness, Tom, a successful New York lawyer, freezes, imagining a lion behind the bush, and says: “I just want to get out of here. I want to go back.”

To which Derek, director of the Voyageur Outward Bound School, replies with this line (which has served as the thematic line in the entire book): “If you can’t get out of it, get into it.” The authors, who have switched careers midstream, connect such a statement to anyone’s career. They say:

“We see so many people who are ‘stuck’ in their current situation. They want out where they are. They fantasize about winning the lottery, about becoming a millionaire … about space aliens making contact with humanity and changing the entire world as we know it... But the simple fact is this: If we want to experience real joy in our work, there’s only one thing to do: get into it. And for us that means getting into the process of hearing and heeding our calling.”

The discussion begins with “The Call,” the authors say, with this insightful truth: “Calling is the inner urge to give our gifts away. We heed that call when we offer our gifts in service to something we are passionate about in an environment that is consistent with our core values.”

That said, the book proceeds to hold the reader by the hand for the journey that makes a difference in his or her career forever. First, the reader is asked to re-visit his or her childhood dreams with the question: “What do I want to be when I grow up?” Before life became complicated, and before we were thrust into a job by accident, what was actually our dream job?

Then the book brings us to an eye-opening discussion on what we want in a “calling card” – from the perfunctory use of business cards to a soul-searching effort to find out what one really wants to do as a “calling.” The calling card of one of the authors identifies his job as “Uncovering Callings.”

In sum, the book is your career counselor as you come prepared for changing horses midstream or for enriching your present career with the things you have passion for. Ann Anderson, for example, a physician, has this imaginary calling card which says, “Seeing Possibilities,” as she works with children. Arthur Rouner, president of Pilgrim Center for Reconciliation, has this “calling card”: “Building Bridges”.

This book is not your usual job counseling session. It brings you back to what pumps your adrenaline or what makes you passionate. We know somehow that our associates have their passions somewhere outside their work – photography for a systems manager, painting for a construction executive, humanitarian service for an engineering consultant, and playing with a band for a legislator. A faculty member with a Ph.D. now lives with the Mangyan tribe to share the good news of life abundant. We act on instinct. Now this book shows us why.
Our real calling is a call for us to give our gifts away. If this book does not move you to change jobs, you will deepen your involvement in a job you love because, after all – since you have fun doing it – you have not actually worked all this time.