Success Secrets and Stories
To share management leadership concepts that actually work.
You are responsible for your development as a leader. Don't expect the boss to invest the training budget in your career. Consider this podcast as an investment of time in your career, with a bit of management humor added at the same time.
Success Secrets and Stories
The Art of Work: Sharing Jeff Goins' Path to Meaningful Work
What does it truly mean to find your calling in life? In this thought-provoking conversation, hosts John Wandolowski and Greg Powell delve into Jeff Goins' bestselling book "The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do" to uncover the seven-stage journey toward meaningful work.
Forget the misconception that finding your purpose requires a perfectly mapped five-year plan. Jeff Goins reveals that discovering your calling is more about embarking on a winding path with unexpected turns and revelations. The hosts break down the essential stages: awareness (recognizing what your life is telling you), apprenticeship (learning from mentors already in your orbit), and practice (embracing the painful aspects of growth that separate a calling from a mere hobby).
Both John and Greg share personal stories that bring these concepts to life. From John's evolution from mechanic to maintenance supervisor to construction leader, to Greg's journey through operations and sales before finding his true calling in human resources, their experiences validate Goins' assertion that our careers rarely follow a linear trajectory. Particularly insightful is their discussion of "the portfolio life" – embracing multiple roles and interests rather than limiting yourself to a single career identity.
Perhaps most compelling is their reflection on legacy. As Pericles wisely noted, "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others." The hosts reveal how their greatest professional satisfaction came not from tangible achievements but from developing teams and helping others advance in their careers.
Whether you're starting your career journey, feeling stuck in a professional rut, or contemplating your next move, this episode offers valuable wisdom about aligning your work with your deepest values and purpose. As UCLA coach John Wooden advised, "Just do the best you can. No one can do more than that."
Connect with us at wando75.jw@gmail.com or gpowell374@gmail.com to share your thoughts or suggest future topics. And check out John's book "Building Your Leadership Toolbox" on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Well, hello and welcome to our podcast, success Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, john Wondoloski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, greg Powell. Greg, hey, everybody. And when we put together this podcast we wanted to put out a helping hand and help that next generation and help answer the question of what does it mean to be a leader? Today we want to talk about a subject that I think supports that concept, about a subject that I think supports that concept. So today we're going to talk about the Art of Work. It's a book by Jeff Goins and a little bit of a support in his title is A Proven Path of Discovering what it Means to Do. So Goins' book, the Art of Work, is a bestseller and he's done four other books. He's explored the concept of living one's true calling and living a life driven by passion and purpose. Goen's emphasized that finding your calling isn't a single straightforward event, but a journey involving the twists and turns and sometimes surprise discoveries. The true fulfillment comes when your passion intersects with your needs in the world, leading to a life of a greater purpose. It seems pretty heavy when you read that description of the book, but he does a very good job of bringing it home and making it a little bit more understandable when he talked about some of the elements of his book. There's the seven stages of a calling and there's awareness, apprenticeship, practice, discovery, profession, mastery and legacy. And I'll be honest, when I was researching this subject, I saw it on a video that I thought was really entertaining. It's a video program called Snackable Ideas and it's on YouTube and it did a wonderful summary of Jeff's book and I just want to try to give the context of the video itself, but I would strongly encourage you to look at it because it's such a wonderful combination of words and drawings and it's really engaging and it obviously gave me the interest to try to share it with you. As a young best-selling author, jeff Goins has written four books already under his belt and has had the guts to have the most challenging question on everybody's mind how can I find my true calling? It's a fact. There is no plan. A key distinction in the book is the finding your true calling is more of a path instead of a plan. Is the finding your true calling is more of a path instead of a plan, because you need to remain flexible and open to surprises that may come your way. There is no such thing as a five-year or ten-year plan. I'll just break from that context. I believe there's a five or ten-year plan, but I think this is the words that are important to somebody that's starting out trying to get that direction. Back to the text Instead of thinking of it as a map or a waypoint to keep you in the right direction, put it as a journey with twists and turns, and that you're going to take it from one place to the next to the. Ultimately you find your destination. The seven steps of a true calling to the. Ultimately you find your destination. The seven steps of a true calling. After you distill hundreds of stories of people who have found their own callings, it broke down and he identified seven common elements on his waypoint of a map Awareness, apprenticeship and practice were his first three that help you prepare for your journey.
Speaker 2:Practice were his first three that help you prepare for your journey. Discovery, profession and mastery is where you take that action, your action and finally, legacy. Here is where they talk about how to prepare yourself and to find the path to your own true calling. Awareness, listening or to what your life is trying to tell you. You probably already have that nagging feeling that there should be more to life If you're not satisfied with chasing happiness or changing where you live or switching jobs. So the first step is you need to become aware. I think, breaking from this context you've heard that in our other presentations that awareness is the key to understand what you're trying to accomplish in life and whether you're on the right path. Okay, back to the text. Listen to what your life is telling you. Start by cataloging all the major events in your life and see what you can identify as a common thread, everything that happens to you, what makes you special, what is the true meaning to life is what you are. Nothing goes to waste, greg. Pick it from there.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Apprenticeship Let your mentors in. Next, you need to become an apprentice, which means listening to your mentor's guidance, but you can't go out and look for your mentors. It really doesn't work that way. The mentors you need are already around you and have been trying to invest in your path and growth. If only you would notice and let them Practice.
Speaker 1:It has to be painful. Finally, step three is practice. The key here is that it has to be a painful practice, and this is probably what we found to be the author's most controversial point, but it's the absolute key to the whole of finding your calling idea. A calling isn't something that you do for fun. It's what gives meaning to life, something that you need and you do despite not being fun. And when you practice it, it simply has to be painful. Anything else, you probably just call it a hobby. Only when you're doing something painful and you persevere regardless, only then you know that you're on the right path to your calling, pulling through the challenges and you rise above them. So next time you find yourself asking what should I do with my life, consider committing to the others that you're calling is not going to be as easy, but it will give you meaning and, ultimately, is what will make you truly happy.
Speaker 2:What I think he's trying to get to the point and he's making a very interesting observation is it's important enough for you to put in the extra effort to stretch, to find that sense that you're enjoying the element of work. A hobby is a hobby, it's a different kind of environment. But when you're doing something for work, you want to be stretched, you want to have that exchange, you want to, in my world, know that you're making an effect, that somewhere around you you're making it better. So that stretch or that pain piece of it does make sense when you're thinking about a career. And then he had a few examples of applying it. Greg, why don't you start off with the first example?
Speaker 1:The importance of community and mentorship. Goins highlights that success stories are often stories of community that are emphasizing the role of mentors and guides in helping individuals on their journey. John.
Speaker 2:So Greg and I have talked about how these different subjects are relevant to us. Being a mentor or guiding someone's career is one of the most rewarding moments in my career. I hired employees with real promise for the future, but their careers were on hold or they were going backwards. The opportunity for the employee and the mentor is to share the experience and to discuss challenges for their advancement. Those were key for my development as a leader also, yeah, and it was also key for the employee for them to secure a career choice and to see that there's progress in terms of seeking advancement. Greg.
Speaker 1:You know, John, I've been honored to be asked to serve as a mentor many times over my career. Some of those requests came from employees outside of my department or function. They weren't just HR folks, right? Apparently. They saw leadership traits in me that they wanted to add to their own style, to their own arsenal. And you know what, when I look back on it, I probably got back a lot more than what I gave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the next subject, I think is an interesting subject, embracing failure, and I've heard this described before and I've heard this described before. As Goins puts it, failure is not failures, as I do. But early in my career I started off as a mechanic and, as luck would have it, the paint and body man was out sick one day and they asked me if I had any experience in doing that kind of work. Well, I did, and as an apprentice I was having my issues fitting in. So I started painting trucks. My manager was impressed. I was a C plus kind of mechanic but I was an A plus truck painter. At one point I was thinking about switching my professions and maybe doing the work, to being a professional body and paint guy, but the investment of equipment and spray boots were just prohibitive. But it was all part of that failure and learning and advancing that really made that trail, that path that I followed.
Speaker 1:Greg. So for me, john, one of the toughest experiences I've had in my career are what I call those little people failures. And I had them early on, and it was about people I trusted, folks that just flat out let me down. I was gullible, right. I believed that their intentions were honorable, and some were and others weren't, and that was my learning curve around the ability to recognize who was credible and who just talked a good game right. And as time went on, I got pretty good at reading through the BS. Hmm, game right. And as time went on, I got pretty good at reading through the BS. It also taught me the importance of something called trust and verify.
Speaker 2:The next point. What I think is interesting is the ability to be a professional, or your profession, to explore how to turn your calling into a profession that aligns with your values and your purpose. My calling was clear at the time that I reached my mid-30s I wanted to be in management and I wanted to make a difference and change executive views of what support services can do to improve the bottom line of profit and to improve the performance of the company. Support services, by the way, is code words for maintenance and housekeeping and landscaping and warehousing and all those things that are considered back at the office. Well, if it's not working, it's going to show up. I found a real sense of satisfaction when the C-suite would actually recognize our changes and the cost reductions due to our approach and the enhancements to the site and the safety improvements. That C-suite exposure was something that I really did concentrate on, greg. So the next concept is the portfolio life, and the concept of a portfolio life is introduced encouraged individuals to embrace multiple roles and interests rather than just confining themselves to one single career path.
Speaker 2:So for me, there was the teenage years of doing fast food and working in the UPS truck loading and gas station attendant and oil changing and all those things. In my mid-20s I was an apprentice mechanic, a foreman, a new truck foreman in an out-of-state application and out-of-state assignment. By my mid-30s I needed to change directions and I had an opportunity to be a maintenance supervisor for Johnson Johnson on the second shift. I mean, that's just the trail of being a teenager and making that next step. And then in my 30s I'm trying to now hone in on what I really want to do. To be specific, a maintenance supervisor in a gauze mill production department.
Speaker 2:So that's food service and warehousing and trucking, repair and manufacturing maintenance in 10 years and the jobs aren't really related to each other. It was my path, it's what I learned and I liked to fix things. That was the bottom line. The other elements that were part of my portfolio of life was being a dad, with the lessons and recitals and scouting and marching band and also being a volunteer working with your church, doing kids' school programs, the charity food drives. All those things together created that environment of where I was taking that next step and I think that's what Goins was talking about. Greg.
Speaker 1:So, john, when I think about the portfolio of life for myself, it was really kind of a career life adventure. And it started off in Kansas, if you can imagine that, and then I grew up in Illinois, professionally and personally. I think I blossomed in Indiana professionally and personally, and with all those different locations was culture that also became part of my culture and in a similar fashion, my roles in different areas like operations, sales and finally, human resources, all led to my deep-rooted desire to help people, whether they were individual contributors or part of the management team. Parenting with my wife, elder care, knights of Columbus, boy Scouts with my son, a variety of sports activities with my daughter, doing an interview, skills and resume writing workshop with a buddy in Chicago to help those that needed it helped build my life and fueled my passion to work with people. So my career path was ruled by real life, not just the plans that I hope to execute.
Speaker 2:Which is Gowen's point. I mean that really is being aware of those things, those changes, those opportunities, and then, as you get older, you're making that decision of where is this going to be pushing me towards? Why don't you take the next?
Speaker 1:point. So the next point, john, is profession Exploring how to turn your calling into a profession that aligns with your values and purpose, john.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me I think we just touched on it. But when I reached my mid-30s I wanted to be in management. But I really wanted to make a difference in the executive views of how they perceived the support services group. To improve the bottom line profit, but also to improve the performance or the image of the company. Support services is also code word for the maintenance department, the housekeeping, landscaping, warehousing back at a house kind of operation. I found a real sense of satisfaction when the C-suite would recognize our changes, our cost reductions and the enhancements to what we did in terms of safety. All those things kind of proved the point that we were more than just the back of the house.
Speaker 1:Greg, the back of the house, greg. So when I think of profession for me, john, even though I knew it was a possibility in college after talking to the career counselor that I could be in human resources or, in those days, personnel I had to work in operations and sales before I focused on HR and ultimately got to the senior leadership role in HR. I always believed that people were a company's greatest asset and during my first HR job interview, when I had the opportunity to meet with the VP of HR, he asked me that famous question so what are your career goals? I looked him right in the eye and I said you know what I want? Your job someday, and the rest is history. But I knew I wanted to be the senior HR leader for a company, and working on that dream became my goal moving forward to be the senior.
Speaker 2:HR leader for a company and working on that dream became my goal moving forward Mastery, aiming for the state of flow, where your skills meet the challenges and you embrace continuous growth and adaption. A true master in my world is someone who is in a professional assignment and has the ability to develop that particular profession, that assignment. A true master is someone who is a continuous learner. They are always on that journey of refinement. They say that you need 10,000 hours of practice to truly understand an assignment and to be an expert. You need to go beyond that 10,000-hour commitment.
Speaker 2:I have found the estimate of practice as a minimum requirement. Go beyond that 10,000 hour commitment. I have found the estimate of practice as a minimum requirement of time of 10,000 hours. I have only met a few technically true masters within their field and a combination of their formal education, their experience and their incredible knack to learn every day made up what they were in terms of being a master within their field. It is actually kind of rare to see, but it is interesting when you have the opportunity to work with people who have understood their profession to that level. Greg.
Speaker 1:So, john, when I think of mastery, I think about things like lifelong learning. You know the world is in a constant state of change. Companies must be ready to change, to compete, and even disciplines like human resources are always looking to stay current and relevant, with tools and services that are in line with the times. And what a company's pursuits are. A continuous learning attitude and ongoing education activities, interactions with your peers and other companies All these things help you master your discipline. Got a quote from Pericles what you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. Next one is leaving a legacy. The book emphasizes that a calling extends beyond personal success and is about the lasting impact you leave on others and the world.
Speaker 2:Your thoughts, john the people that you work with, not with the monuments. For me, it was helping people to advance in their career goals. In my life, one of the most tangible things was having basically building in stone. You know that $500 million construction I did for a local community college. But it wasn't so much building it, it was building a team that did amazing work in a very short period of time and that was probably the most fun I've had in a working environment, because and there was failures there was probably more failures that were associated with the politics of the job rather than the performance of the job, but it's all within that path of life and you learn from those experiences. It was a failure and it was a success at the same time. I think you have something along the same lines, Greg. I do, John.
Speaker 1:When I think about leaving a legacy early in my career. Several times I thought I had that down. It sounded pretty easy legacy. I'm going to leave my legacy and I'll leave it in fine fashion. But leaving a legacy seemed like something noble.
Speaker 1:But the focus from my leadership team was day-to-day execution Get her done right. Leaving a legacy is important, but do your job first and we'll talk about that legacy stuff later. But over the last 20 years in particular and I wish it would have happened earlier I decided that I wanted to know what my legacy was going to be and make it happen and work towards making it a reality. And I look back at some of the great HR talent that I had to work with, some folks I hired, some folks I inherited and I recognize the incredible accomplishments we've made as a team. So for me, because of human resources and what I've been involved in, I'm excited about things like really, really strong HR processes, value-added benefits and compensation, outstanding learning programs. That makes me very proud that we left that legacy at the organization To summarize so from Jeff Gowen's book the Path of Discovery.
Speaker 2:He had these seven points. First one was awareness that we've talked about recognizing your gifts, your passions and self-reflection. Apprenticeships to learn from your mentors and to learn from others, and to include the accidental apprenticeships and all those other encounters that help you get to that end. Result of learning opportunities. Practice dedicating yourself to be deliberate and often challenge. Practice needing to master your craft, needing to master your craft. Next is discovery understanding that finding your calling is a journey with intentional steps and not just a single epiphany Profession, exploring how to turn your calling into a profession that it aligns with your values and your purpose. Mastery aim for the state of flow where your skills and your challenges and you embrace the continual growth and adaption Legacy Consider the lasting impact of your work and how it will influence others in the long term. And whenever I think about the long term, greg, I think you have a wonderful sports application.
Speaker 1:I do, john, whether you like college basketball or you just have a passing fancy with it, you probably have heard of John Wooden, the legendary coach at UCLA. And Mr Wooden said just do the best you can. No one can do more than that. Key is to challenge yourself. No one can do more than that. Key is to challenge yourself. Challenge yourself to be a great employee, a great parent, a true friend and whatever else you are interested in. Being the best you Not the fastest, not the most famous, not the highest paid. Just do the best you can. No one can do more than that.
Speaker 2:John. So, if you like what you've heard, building your Leadership Toolbox is actually a book that I have available on Amazon and Barnes Noble. Our podcast is available on what you're listening to, thank you. It's also available on Apple and Google and Spotify. A lot of what we talk about is from Dr Durst and his NBR program. It's available on successgrowthacademycom and, if you want to talk to us, my email address is wando75.jw at gmailcom and Greg I can be reached at gpowell374 at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:And, greg, I can be reached at gpowell374 at gmailcom, and the music is brought to you by my grandson, so we want to hear from you. Let me get an opportunity to give us a shout. Drop us a line, tell us what you like, tell us what you would like us to try to look into. It's all part of what we enjoy, so thanks.
Speaker 1:Greg Thanks.