"You have the day off, too?" It was my neighbor, outside on Labor Day morning.
"Every day's a day off for me," I responded as I persuaded Shakespeare the Bassett to give up some interesting scents and move along toward home.
"Must be nice," he said, going back to his newspaper.
My neighbor, like many of you, was enjoying his day off. He didn't have to go to work, didn't have to get up early, only to do what other people told him to do. That will change tomorrow morning when he'll go back to his job, working for someone else. For me, it's different.
I've been working for the writing muse and the market for over twenty years. I'm doing what I love, learning new things, sharing them with others, and luckily I'm making enough money to be happy. But I didn't start out with one of those "do what you love and the money will follow" strategies.
I got into this quite by accident. You see I kept getting fired. I finally figured out that I wouldn't be happy or productive or successful working for someone else.
That was the easy part. Then I had to figure out how to make enough money from this combination of writing and consulting and speaking that I do. That's the part that those "do what you love and the money will follow" folks miss. They believe the money part is automatic. It isn't.
So my life plan became "make enough money doing something you love." I think I'm lucky because what I do for a living seems like play to me. It's interesting. And I get to make the important choices (and not-so-important choices) about when and where and how I do my job.
There are other people who turn whatever they're doing into a game that they play. Nolan Bushnell, the guy who founded Atari, was one of those. "Business is a great game," he said, "There's a minimum of rules and you keep score with money."
Folks like Nolan may not have the engagement with what they do that I have, but they succeed by considering whatever they do as a game. Many really successful small business owners fall into this group. They may not love plumbing fixtures, but they're engaged by the game of business.
Then there are the folks whose life script follows that line we used to hear from our parents. "Finish your chores and then you can go out and play." They work now, doing something they may not love (or even like), so that they can have quality free time and so that they can get to a point in life where they have financial freedom and do what they choose.
What engages these folks? Sometimes it's the goal they're working for. My friend John worked for a large organization for over twenty years. During that time he watched his expenses and saved his money and kept his eye on his dream: a house in the mountains.
When he had enough money, he bought some land. Then he cleared it. And then, over the years, he built his dream house. I remember the day he told me it was done.
"I figure I'll work another year and save some more money before I retire," he said, after he'd showed me the pictures of his finished house. But the dream had changed for John. It had been "build the house" but now it became "live in the house." John retired two months later and moved to his dream house in the mountains.
Of course, each strategy has its dangers. The folks who turn business into a game risk not having anything important to do in life except business. When and if they retire they can be lost without an office to go to, without deals to cut and sales to make. The successful ones get involved in something else, golf or volunteer work, and ease themselves from one life to another.
The folks who work to get their chores done so they can go out and play risk hating what they have to do so much that it poisons other parts of their lives. Many of the ones who handle this successfully seem to do it by concentrating on doing their work with high excellence so that the excellence gives meaning to their daily efforts.
And what about folks like me who try to make enough money while doing something we love? We can get so wrapped up in what we do that we neglect to plan for our future financial security. The successful among us invest in assets that allow us to slow down or to try doing something different.
I encourage you to find the strategy that works for you and pursue it with unremitting diligence. Find ways to value your efforts and savor your successes. I don't know where you are in life this Labor Day, but I wish you as much joy in what you do as I have. May you also reap success and satisfaction ... however you "labor".
