What Color Is Your Parachute? (8 page)

When any of us is out of work, we (
and that’s not rhetorical “we”; I’ve been fired twice, myself
) imagine the most important task lying immediately before us is to master the mechanics and techniques of the job hunt.

That’s what we imagine. But career experts will tell you what I have been emphasizing throughout this chapter: that prior to mastering the job-hunt, the first thing you should do is know where you want to go from here with your life. You need a sort of picture in your head, that beckons you onward and upward. Call it what you will: a dedication, or vision, or entrancing idea, of what you want your life to be from here on out. Then, but only then, does the job-hunt make sense. For it will help you get there—once you decide where
there
is.

Visions have great power. Let me illustrate what I mean. (
I’ve told this story before, in another book of mine, so forgive me if you’ve already heard this.
) When I was in high school, our daily gym class was an unending exercise in personal humiliation. Each afternoon that we went out on the field to play baseball, they would naturally begin by choosing sides, and I was always the last one to be chosen. At which point the other team would declare, “You’ve got Bolles,” and the team that was stuck with me would groan audibly.

I didn’t blame them; frankly, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, when I threw. If I was in the outfield, and I tried to throw home, the ball usually ended up at third. I was awful.

The scene shifts, and I am now thirty years old. I am married, getting undressed at night, and I throw my dirty clothes in the general direction of the clothes hamper across the room—you know, one of those things that looks like a big rectangular wastebasket. The clothes go in the hamper, every time. I didn’t notice this at first; but when I did I thought, “What the…? I’m supposed to be the worst thrower in the world!”

I watched carefully the next night or two, and compared what I saw versus my high school memories. That’s when it struck me: back in high school, as the baseball left my hand I unconsciously closed my eyes—tight.
I remembered this very vividly. By contrast, now I was throwing with my eyes wide open, keeping my gaze fixed on my target (the clothes hamper) all the way, until my throw landed there.

I was amused. I began a little experimentation each night, at bedtime. I focused my eyes not just on the hamper, but on
one corner
of the hamper; unerringly, from across the room the clothes went into the hamper, and
at that corner
. I was entranced with my discovery that if you keep your eyes on the target, you will be successful when you throw, because
where your eyes go, there your throw will go!
Your vision is key.

Soon after this, they had a National Driving Test on TV, and I missed only one question that night: “How do you stay in the center of your lane, on the highway?” I thought the answer was:
keep your eye on the white painted lane divider on your side of the car
. But that apparently only caused your car to gently edge toward that divider, and then into the next lane over. Turned out the right answer was:
by focusing your gaze fifty feet ahead, on the very center point of the lane.
I realized it was the same story that life was drumming into me, at this point:
where your eyes go, there your car will go.
Your vision is key.

Well, this applies to the physical world. But does it also apply to the career world? To use contemporary jargon:
you betcha.
If you have a vision of what you want your life to be, ever beckoning you on, you have found gold!

The only problem is: how do you do that?

In searching for your calling or passion in life, here is the most important truth: speaking broadly, we tend to job-hunt or search for meaning the same way that we live our life. And basically, people live their lives in one of (or all of) three ways:

1. Some of us live our life—at least at its most important times—by depending on careful planning,
   step-by-step
   . Allowing, of course, for unforeseeable calamities like volcanoes, floods, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, accidents, and all the ills that flesh is heir to.
   

2. Others of us hate to live a life that is too carefully planned, so we tend to depend upon our
   intuition
   , to guide us in our everyday choices and decisions.
   

3. And then some of us neither like to plan nor depend upon our intuition, so that leaves us just depending on
   luck
   to get us through.
   

And there you have it: step-by-step; or intuition; or luck. Those are the different ways in which we live our life. And—as I said—those are the ways that we therefore tend to go about our job-hunt.

So, where to begin? Well, let’s begin with planning step-by-step. how does that apply to figuring out where we want to go from here with our life? How do we, in that case, find our ideal or dream job?

Step-by-step suggests that we break the dream down into its parts, and tackle them one by one. What do I want to do with my life? I can’t really tell you; I just don’t know. But, hey, break it down into its parts, let me tackle each part separately, and I probably can answer
that.

As you will see from the Flower Exercise in
chapter 11
of this book (in much greater detail), a dream job—in fact,
any
job—has seven parts to it. They are:

1. Favorite
   skills
   (transferable skills, or functional skills).
   Usually verbs, ending in -ing. Example: analyzing.
   

2. Favorite
   fields
   to use those skills in (favorite knowledges we already have, or want to learn, favorite interests, favorite words we most love to hear or use).
   Usually nouns. Example: health care.
   

3. Favorite
   traits
   or personal characteristics.
   Usually adverbs or adjectives, modifying the verbs above. Example: persistent.
   

4. Favorite
   working conditions
   (indoors, outdoors, time clock or not).
   Example: be part of a small organization, with twenty or less employees.
   

5. Favorite
   people environment
   (kinds of people I most like to serve or help, kinds of people I most like to have working beside me).
   Example: people with deep commitment to accomplishing things, plus a sense of humor.
   

6. Favorite
   geography
   (ideal place for me to live, if I had my druthers).
   Example: A suburb of San Francisco, not flat, but with rolling hills.
   

7. Favorite
   level of responsibility
   and
   salary
   .
   Example: work creatively by myself, but with a team available to me, that I can call upon for help and for ideas; salary: open (for discussion).
   

I can get a vision of my dream job, my dream life, my purpose or mission in life, if I tend to be a “planning step-by-step” person, by breaking down the dream into its parts, and tackling those parts one by one, in turn.

When I’m done I need to go find what the name of such work is; that will give me a job-title to look for, in my actual job search.

Intuition can be simply described in the words of Sophie Sheridan, a character in the play and movie
Mamma Mia!
When asked how she will know which of three men is actually her long-lost father, she replies words to the effect: “I’ll know him when I see him.”

“I’ll know it when I see it” is the way many people search for their life’s work. I met a waitress who was working her way up and down the West Coast of the U.S., staying in one place just long enough to determine if the kind of work she found there, was the kind of work to which she wanted to dedicate her life. A lot of us meander through life hoping that something will suddenly strike us as exactly what we most want to do here in this life. And, often this works very well, though it may take quite a number of years and a lot of patience, on our part.

So much for the
Mamma Mia!
explanation of things. Put slightly more scientifically, intuition is the capacity of our brain (usually the right side of our brain) to take in a whole bunch of different data at the same time,
and confidently and unconsciously, leap to a conclusion about it all. A conclusion, we might add, that is ratified, later, by the left side of our brain. “How do you know that?” we ask intuition when it announces its conclusion. “I just know,” intuition replies.

What can we do to aid our intuition, if that’s how we’re going to figure out our passion or dream job, and our purpose in life? Well, we can ask our intuition some broad overarching questions, which may help it, further down the road, when things get more detailed. You may want to try the nine I mention below, after a brief introduction:

The point is: if what you felt most called to do in life was to make movies, it wouldn’t matter what your skills are, because almost any skills you have could be put to use there.

Life is like that. Figure out what cause, what problem, what values, you want your life to serve. Then, almost any favorite talent, skill, or gift you have, can be put into its service.

So, ask yourself: what kind of footprint do you want to leave on this earth, after your journey here is done? Figure
that
out, and you’re well on your way to finding a life that has purpose and meaning. I will list nine broad outcomes here; all of them are important, in this world; the question is,
which one (or ones) grips you the most?

1. Mind.
   Is the human mind your major concern? When you are gone, do you want there to be more knowledge, truth, or clarity in
   the world, because you were here? If so, knowledge, truth, or clarity concerning what, in particular?
   

2. Body.
   Or is the human body your major concern? When you are gone, do you want there to be more wholeness, fitness, or health in the world, more binding up of the body’s wounds and strength, more feeding of the hungry, and clothing of the poor, because you were here? If so, what issue in particular—concerning the human body—do you want to work on?
   

3. Eyes and Other Senses.
   Or are the human senses your major concern? When you are gone, do you want there to be more beauty in the world, because you were here? If so, what kind of beauty entrances you? What specifically do you want your life to contribute toward? Is it art, music, flowers, photography, painting, staging, crafts, clothing, jewelry, or what?
   

4. Heart.
   Or is the human heart your major concern? When you are gone, do you want there to be more love and compassion in the world, because you were here? If so, love or compassion for whom? Or for what?
   

5. The Will or Conscience.
   Or is the human will or conscience your major concern? When you are gone, do you want there to be more morality, more justice, more righteousness, more honesty in the world, because you were here? If so, in what areas of human life or history, in particular? And in what geographical area?
   

6. The Human Spirit.
   Or is the human spirit your major concern? When you are gone, do you want there to be more spirituality in the world, more faith, more compassion, more forgiveness, more love for God, and the human family in all its diversity, because you were here? If so, with what ages, people, or with what parts of human life?
   

7. Entertainment.
   Or when you are gone, do you want there to have been more lightening of people’s loads, more giving them perspective, more helping them to forget their cares for a spell, do you want there to be more laughter in the world, and joy, because you were here? If so, what particular kind of entertainment do you want to contribute to the world?
   

8. Possessions.
   Or is the often overweening love of possessions your major concern? When you are gone, do you want there to be better
   stewardship of what we possess—as individuals, as a community, as a nation—in the world, because you were here? Do you want to see simplicity, savings, and a broader emphasis on the word
   enough
   , rather than on the word
   more, more
   ? Do you want to see a greater emphasis on quality—on things that make our lives better and will last a long time—than quantity? If so, in what areas of human life in particular? Go right ahead: add it.
   

9. The Earth.
   Or, finally, is the planet on which we stand, your major concern? When you are gone, do you want there to be more protection of this fragile planet, more exploration of the world or the universe—
   exploration
   , not
   exploitation
   —more dealing with its problems and its energy, because you were here? If so, which problems or challenges in particular, draw your heart and soul?