The Art Of Work is the instruction manual to find your vocation by looking into your passions, connecting them to the needs of the world, and thus building a legacy that’s bigger than yourself.
When spending a year abroad in Spain during college, Jeff Goins discovered his love for writing, traveling, and realized he really wanted to make an impact on the world, but didn’t think he had what it takes to be a writer.
Eventually, a friend told him: “Jeff, you ARE a writer. You just need to write.” He sat down to write the very next day, and he’s done so every day since then.
This has led him to publishing 4 books since 2012, The Art Of Work being his latest one, and a national bestseller. He’s quit his job at a non-profit organization in the meantime, and lives in Nashville with his wife, son and dog with the incredibly cool name “Lyric”.
Here are 3 great takeaways from The Art Of Work:
- Make a list of all major events in your life to find your calling.
- There is no such thing as “self-made”.
- Don’t sweat it too much – live a portfolio life!
Ready to get to work? Let’s go!
Lesson 1: Start looking for your true calling by making a list of life events.
From the get-go, Jeff doesn’t sugarcoat things. It’s not easy to find your life’s purpose. If it was, everybody would do it and we wouldn’t look at the grim fact that only 13% of all people worldwide actually like showing up for work.
But he instantly gives you some great starting points.
First of all, it’s a lot about awareness, self-awareness, to be exact.
If you don’t know yourself well, you might not see your life’s calling, even when it’s right in front of you. Our true purpose often suddenly hits us in the form of a very strong feeling in your gut or at a major event in life, for example a turning point. Think Luke Skywalker meets Obi-Wan Kenobi. That’s how he found out he had to become a Jedi.
Jeff suggests you start by making a simple list of all the major events in your life.
Note however, that major does not mean important. Yes, the day you started high school should be on there, just like graduation or maybe your first kiss, but some events might seem random, even though you feel they’re important. Maybe you’re just out for a golf session, and the second you hit the ball and see it fly away in a perfect trajectory, you know that’s what your life as a writer would look like.
Go through the list and ask yourself: When was I the most happy? When did I feel fulfilled? What made me feel accomplished?
Your calling lies hidden in these moments, so go find them!
Note: I’m proud to say that my blog post about finding your true calling makes use of this method 🙂
Lesson 2: There is no such thing as “self-made”.
Yes, motivational Instagram channels are great, but every time I read “self-made millionaire” I cringe a little bit.
Jeff says there is no such thing.
Why?
Because even the greatest of the greatest rely on teachers, mentors and guides. Warren Buffett had a mentor (Benjamin Graham), Michael Jordan had a coach, Justin Bieber had a vocal trainer and Jeff Bezos says he’s been mentored by the hundreds of people whose biographies he’s read.
Everyone you meet and everything you do is a chance to learn, so start seeking these people and opportunities.
No one achieves success alone, so you might as well start looking for the right people to help you along the journey now, rather than later.
Lesson 3: Live a portfolio life and don’t sweat it too much!
A portfolio life is a term Jeff invented, and it describes a life in which you base your identity on a wide range of things, not just one.
For example Jeff isn’t only a writer, he’s also a husband and a father. Living a portfolio life means refusing to be defined by just your work.
In fact, Jeff says next to work there are also home, which is all about friends and family, play, which is all about having fun and purpose, which is your life’s grand work.
A portfolio life is a life of freedom, and it’s getting more and more popular. The numbers prove it – by 2020, more than 40% of all American workers will be freelancers, and by 2030 they’ll be the majority.
Freelancing means getting to do a wide variety of work and making your own hours. This working style allows you to spend a lot more time in flow, where work is challenging, but you’re doing great.
It’s this kind of work that builds the basis of living the life of your calling, and it’s best achieved when you don’t sweat work too much and focus on the great variety that life has to offer.
My personal take-aways
This summary is very short, but it carries some great advice points. However, Jeff’s book isn’t too long, roughly 200 pages, and Jeff has some heart-warming (and also very touching) stories to make his points.
Jeff works hard, but he’s the kind of guy that doesn’t forget about the important and fun things in life, like playing with his son or making time for his wife – it’s exactly this kind of life that he’s leading you towards with this book.
As a man of many passions and aspirations, I deeply appreciate that.
He reminds me of Steven Pressfield.
If you want to make an impact on the world, but still have the time to appreciate life along the way, go for this book!
The Art of Work by Jeff Goins
Print | Kindle | Audiobook
The Art of Work Summary
The Book in Three Sentences
According to Victor Frankl, there are three things that give life meaning: a project, a significant relationship and a redemptive view of suffering.
If we want true satisfaction in life, we have to rise above the pettiness of our own desires and do what is required of us.
Clarity comes with action.
The Five Big Ideas
“A calling is what you have when you look back at your life and make sense of what it’s been trying to teach you all along.”
“Most people waste the best years of their life waiting for an adventure to come to them instead of going out and finding one.”
“Sometimes all it takes to make a difficult decision is an affirming voice telling you what you know to be true but still need to hear.”
“Regardless of natural talent or the lack thereof, every person has the ability to improve themselves.”
“The basic idea of a portfolio life is that instead of thinking of your work as a monolithic activity, what if you chose to see it as the complex group of interests, passions, and activities it is?”
The Art of Work Summary
“Maybe we all have the power to turn our lives into significant stories if we start to see our difficulties as opportunities.”
“[Victor Frankl] learned there are three things that give meaning to life: first, a project; second, a significant relationship; and third, a redemptive view of suffering.”
“What we all want is to know our time on earth has meant something. We can distract ourselves with pleasure for only so long before beginning to wonder what the point is. This means if we want true satisfaction, we have to rise above the pettiness of our own desires and do what is required of us. A calling comes when we embrace the pain, not avoid it.”
“In any great narrative, there is a moment when a character must decide to become more than a bystander.”
“Most people waste the best years of their life waiting for an adventure to come to them instead of going out and finding one.”
“And they learned, as you might, an important lesson: clarity comes with action.”
“A calling is what you have when you look back at your life and make sense of what it’s been trying to teach you all along.”
“But a vocation is not like that. It’s not something you try; it’s someone you become.”
“Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come. —UNKNOWN”
“Sometimes all it takes to make a difficult decision is an affirming voice telling you what you know to be true but still need to hear.”
“The worst way to get a mentor is to go find one. The best way is to see the one that’s already there.”
“Regardless of natural talent or the lack thereof, every person has the ability to improve themselves.”
“Any great discovery, especially that of your life’s work, is never a single moment. In fact, epiphany is an evolutionary process; it happens in stages.”
“First, you hear the call. It may sound different to each person, but it comes to us all.”
“Humility is a prerequisite for epiphany.”
“Second, you respond. Mere words will not suffice—you must act.”
“Third, you begin to believe.”
“The path to your dream is more about following a direction than arriving at a destination.”
“Every calling is marked by a season of insignificance, a period when nothing seems to make sense. This is a time of wandering in the wilderness, when you feel alone and misunderstood. To the outsider, such a time looks like failure, as if you are grasping at air or simply wasting time. But the reality is this is the most important experience a person can have if they make the most of it.”
“The basic idea of a portfolio life is that instead of thinking of your work as a monolithic activity, what if you chose to see it as the complex group of interests, passions, and activities it is?”
“And what if instead of identifying with a job description, you began to see the whole mass of things you do as one portfolio of activity?”
“This idea was first coined by Charles Handy in his book The Age of Unreason. In the book, Handy lays out five different types of work that make up your portfolio. They are: fee work, salary work, homework, study work, and gift work.”
“Fee and salary work are the only types of paid work and are somewhat self-explanatory: fee work means trading hours for dollars and a salary is a fixed income based on a job description.”
“Homework is work that you do at home, like mowing the lawn or spending time with your family. Study work is any intentional education that contributes to any work you do in the future, like reading a book or taking a vocational class. And gift work is any volunteer experience you might do, including giving your time to a local homeless shelter or even taking someone out to lunch to give them helpful career advice.”
“Handy then encourages what he calls “portfolio people” to organize their time not based on hours in a week, but rather days in a year. For example, if you need to make $50,000 per year and can figure out a way to make $250 a day, then you only need to work 200 days a year. The remaining 165 days can be spent on the rest of your portfolio.”
“Life is not a support system for your work; your work is a support system for your life.”
Other Books by Jeff Goins
You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One)
Buy this book– https://amzn.to/2BDYfCu
