So, what is it you do?

One of the first questions others ask when we meet someone is "what do you do?" There are at least two issues with the way our culture deals with this question. One issue has to do with identity and value. Too often we associate who we are with what we do. This creates esteem problems as this perspective places a performance based emphasis on how we value our self. There is a lot more to this and I have blogged about this issue before.

The second issue is that "what we do" is not our job. Our job focuses on tasks that need to be accomplished in a positional role one holds inside a specific organization. So, although we hold jobs as salesman, lawyer, teacher, accountant, nurse, and such, that is not what we really do. Confused?

One day my son decided he was going to learn how to describe what he really does. While he is a financial actuary and is more recently a risk management executive, that does not describe what he does. He determined that he was a problem solver and an implementer of change. He figures out how someone or an organization could improve things and helps them put the change in place. So, the specific job and company in which he works simply provides the context for what he really does.

I did the same self assessment around my early 40's. Although I had made a career in managing information technology, I too was mainly a change agent. The major gift I had was to help other peeps understand complex things that in doing so, could make their life work better. This became very apparent to me as I changed venues and went from the business world to academia. I found that I was still helping peeps understand complex concepts that would make their life work better. Only this time it is students and not business peeps. Regardless of the job and its context, I was doing the same things.

Thus, I believe it is useful for peeps to reflect on what it is they really do, not the job they hold. A fulfilled life is one in which we play out what has been put in us. That is what we really do and the better we understand that, the less pressure we will feel about what specific job we have or what company we work for or what title we hold or money we make AND the more we will enjoy being who we are because we are doing what we were designed to do.

something to ponder ......