As Labor Day approaches this Monday in the United States, it has me thinking about my own career path, a long circuitous road that began 36 years ago. A fresh graduate out of the School of Business owning exactly two suits and a beater Honda, I accepted a job as a financial analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank, our nations bank. Only about six weeks in, I knew I had to get out of the cubicle that was my prison. I was dying on the vine and I knew it. The hours would drag like months as I poured over the manuals I was to learn in analyzing banks. Yawn.
Without warning or another job to go to, I got up, walked down the hall to my managers office and promptly quit. I was led to the door, stripped of my security badge and the door shut behind me. The reality of my situation immediately set in. No job. Shit. But I remembered being scared and thrilled all at the same time.
Suddenly the road was wide open! I could do whatever I wanted! The rebel and future entrepreneur in me was giddy. Again, the reality set in…too many choices. Nobody gives us a direction in life, sure they can suggest things, but we are not given a manual at birth of what to do and where to go. I began soul searching and remembered in college there was a pull, an excitement, a yearning to make art when I took one jewelry making class. What, I thought?! Like many of us, I was told by someone that you can’t make a living at art, get a good paying job and do that on the side as a hobby. I had just left that good paying job with nothing to go to and notta in the bank. Who knew, surely not me, that 36 years later I would have a “hobby gone mad”, and sense of purpose that allows me to jump out of bed in the morning, now, more than ever. A life, not just a living. And that life has supported dozens of employees over the years as well.
So, it got me to thinking…what is it that brings us to answering the most important question of our lives:
what is my purpose?
How do we get clarity on what we are meant for, not just a j-o-b, but a calling?
Maybe in dreams? Maybe already in our own one-of-a-kind DNA already in us if we just get out of the way and allow? Maybe it’s in the favorite things we did as a child? Perhaps it’s in the years of doing something we don’t want to do, ignoring that small voice still in us until we can’t take another day of it. That fateful day at the Fed, I acted on impulse and optimism, instead of the risk to stay. I call it risk because I truly believe that not taking a risk when that small voice is becoming a roar is often the riskiest move we can make with our urgent and pressing finite days on this planet.
All these years later I have a tattoo that reminds me of that urgency. It says, “Release the Vision”. I have it on much of my jewelry, my little wearable shrines of intention, but wanted that reminder permanently on my skin, nearest my gaze. It reminds me every day to get excited about my vision.
My strongest belief is that chasing your unique calling is the greatest work of art you can ever create. Creating your calling is the conduit to trusting yourself. It is the Divine coming through us. To look forward to each day and get curious to what brings your gifts out. When you love what you do you remember you don’t “have” to do this, you “get” to do this. With your true calling you are creating a visual journal to your soul. To know that creation and destruction are both essential to building what you are meant to do here. To speak to who you are becoming in the world. To give your soul a language. For ourselves and especially to share with others. For creating a life is work in process that happens piece by piece, choice by choice, hour by hour, eventually into a life you are proud of.
Your career path is a work of art.
It is the bestselling book of your life.
Edit often, tell it well.
Nancy + Team Sweet Bird