Just finished 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller. The author is a career coach and his book is all about finding your “calling” in life, meaning finding the work God meant for you to do.  I found the majority of the book to be not-so-useful generalities such as, “find a good work/life balance” and “don’t get a job just for the money”.

I did, however, love the chapter on entrepreneurship.  The author had some ideas about traditional work that I have heard before, but really enjoyed the way Dan Miller said them:

Making the shift from a paycheck mentality to making it on your own can be exhilarating and intimidating at the same time.  Pushing off from the shore without being able to see the desired port can seem to be a very rsiky proposition.  Yet we know that in today’s workplace, staying with a company can also be risky.  Just recently I met with a gentleman, who after 32 years of faithful service with Texaco, was told his services were no longer needed.  And at 57 years old, he was not ready or prepared to retire.

Another man at 46 years old, after 17 years of rising responsibility with Texas Instruments, was told he had 60 days to find something else to do.  Did they think they had security? Certainly!  But what is security? General Douglas MacArthur defined security as “one’s ability to produce.”  Your security is determined by your ability to define what it is you do that has value.  The clearer you can be on what it is you do well and what provides value for someone else, the more security you have.

Back in the day, the road to success was all about getting a job with a big corporation, where you received a good salary, health insurance, and guaranteed employment until you retire and collect your sweet pension.  Today, whole branches and divisions (hundreds of jobs) are terminated with the swipe of a pen.  Your security can no longer come from the company you work for.

Dave Ramsey is a financial guru who compares job security to being a caveman.  Job security, Dave says, is being able to kill something for dinner and drag it home to the family.  I like that mentality.  We need to put our trust in our abilities to produce and provide, rather than hope the company we work for doesn’t “downsize”, “restructure”, or whatever you want to call getting fired.

Tags: 48 Days to the Work You Love, Dan Miller, job security

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