Do you have what it takes to find a professional calling?: Lessons from zookeepers and shepherds

When Stuart and I were studying zookeepers’ sense of calling, one thing they told us really struck me. We had a standard interview question: “What would be grounds for divorce from the zoo?” Most zookeepers answered something like, “There is nothing that would cause me to leave this place.” That was a new kind of response for us organizational researchers!

So we started following up by asking: “What if the zoo started neglecting or mistreating the animals? Would that cause you to leave?” The responses to that question stunned me. Here’s one typical answer: “If there was any gross misconduct or animal mistreatment or anything like that, I wouldn’t… leave the zoo because of that. In fact it would make me try and work harder to solve the problem.”

For zookeepers, animals are not their job, but their stewardship. Even if the zoo was grossly negligent, they would stay in their jobs because it is up to them to protect their animals. I don’t think we can really understand what it means to have a calling until we understand stewardship.

I’ve been thinking lately about the difference between shepherds and “hirelings,” as described in the Bible. Ancient shepherds were devoted to each of their individual sheep, even if there were hundreds in the flock. A good shepherd gave each sheep a name, and cared for it so lovingly that it would come immediately when called. The tenderness of that relationship is one of the reasons that Jesus was called the Good Shepherd to His followers. 

But then you have the hireling, which Job describes as a sheepherder that “looketh for the reward of his work” (Job 7:2). In other words, hirelings are in it for the money. They wouldn’t bother to form an intimate relationship with the flock. Instead of beckoning sheep by name, they would rely on their dogs to nip at the heels of the sheep to keep them moving. 

And what happens when the chips are down? Jesus described the hireling’s response to a wolf attack on the herd: “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep” (John 10:12-14).

Maybe one of the reasons a lot of people feel stymied in their quest for a personal calling is that they aren’t prepared to make the sort of sacrifice and commitment that only a shepherd can understand. Do we see our work as a stewardship – as a "flock" to be lovingly tended? Are we willing to stand up and fight for our stewardship, even at personal peril? Are we willing to forego comfort, convenience, and convention to invest what it takes to be a shepherd?

Callings don’t come cheap! And you don’t get to experience the transcendent fulfillment of the zookeeper or the shepherd until you are ready to give almost everything for your stewardship. 

Can Tarzan help you find your calling in life?

The other day, I heard an interview on NPR with Jane Goodall, the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees. My ears perked up when the host asked Dr. Goodall to explain how she decided at such an early age to become a primatologist. I wondered: Would she describe some formative experience when she encountered chimpanzees in the jungle as a child? Had she been raised by anthropologist parents who infected her with a scholarly bug?

Nope. Dr. Goodall's answer made me laugh aloud. She said, "It started when I was a tiny child. And then, you know, I found the books about Dr. Dolittle who could speak animal language. And then when I was 11, I read the book Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, and of course I fell passionately in love with this glorious being. And what does he do? He marries that other stupid, wimpy Jane!" (9/24/11 episode of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR)

What a refreshing answer to a heavy question! The first hints of a professional calling for the greatest chimpanzee scholar in the world weren't revelatory experiences or lofty aspirations. She just really liked Tarzan!

Bingo.

I don't think we should look to grandiose epiphanies for hints about our calling in life. Instead, we should look to our sources of childlike wonder. What captivated you at age 11 probably foreshadows what will captivate you now. Surely Dr. Goodall eventually outgrew Dr. Dolittle, but she never outgrew how it made her feel.

I would love to hear your stories about how childhood fancies have shaped who you are today. Please share! (Comment or email is fine.)

The Path to a Calling is Not a Straight Line

The other day, a friend shared this image with me on Facebook:

It’s brilliant! I haven’t been able to discover the source. I wish I knew who to attribute it to.

The diagram reminds me of a conversation I had the other day with one of my Executive Masters students.  She is well into her career, and recently made a big change in her career path. But she’s feeling lost and confused in her new job.

She truly loves the organization she works for, and her job gives her plenty of developmental challenge. But her supervisor is a poor leader, and she finds herself trying to hold together a fragmented and dysfunctional department full of apathetic colleagues and petty turf wars. She tries valiantly to influence the culture, but faces an uphill battle since her position doesn’t give her the authority to call the shots.

As she sat in my office talking about the workplace, her face assumed a mystified expression. She said something like, “I just don’t know how I got here. And I have no idea where to go next.”

Her bafflement rings a big bell for me. There were at least three times in my career when I thought I had gone COMPLETELY off the right professional track. I was convinced I had made a wrong turn in life, and could never get back on the path to my life calling, or to God’s plan for me. It was a wretched, hopeless feeling, which I’ve seen many times since in people who have come to me for counsel.

It also turned out to be completely unfounded.

Let me provide a diagram of my own. Here is how I would depict my career path over the past 20 years:

Looks pretty meandering, doesn’t it! No wonder I was never sure where I was going, or how I’d gotten where I was.

But you might also notice a pattern. The fluctuations have narrowed over the years. And today, I can superimpose some structure onto the pattern. It would look like this:

In hindsight, I can look at all of those twists and turns in my career that were so senseless at the time, and see how they were gradually guiding me to a better understanding of who I am and what I ought to be doing. Ten years ago, I could not discern the pattern, and life really did feel almost random. Those were the panicky years! But today, I don’t regret a single fluctuation – some were painful, but they were all essential to helping me gradually zero in on my contribution to the world.

Please note that I didn’t draw the diagram to indicate that I have now reached my precise calling. I’m not there yet! My career experiences still surprise me now and then, but they now help me come to an ever-clearer understanding of my true gifts. I may never really arrive at the magical endpoint. But that’s OK, because I know now to trust the journey, and I also have a pretty good sense of my target. It’s a wonderful feeling.

And, for me personally, it’s compelling evidence of the guiding hand of a loving Heavenly Father. I think He gives that sort of gradual, nudging help to all of His children that seek to find their gifts in order to serve others.

Whether you embrace a faith or not, I invite you to heed the advice I gave to my student: trust in the journey and allow the twists and turns to gradually guide you to deeper self-understanding and purpose. If you are trying to learn and serve, then you aren't lost! You are just riding the wave.

How Do We Treat "The Help?"

Some people are calling the blockbuster film "The Help" a chick-flick. Personally, I see it (and Kathryn Stockett's wonderful book that inspired it) as a compelling account of the battle for dignity in dirty work.

If you aren't familiar with the story, it's a 1950s tale of black women in the Deep South who are domestic workers ("the help") for white middle-class women who treat them, at best, as mindless or invisible. Confronted with a sudden opportunity, the domestics decide to risk everything to tell their stories to a national audience. And those stories are unforgettable.

Take Aibileen, an aging domestic worker who has lovingly raised many white children, only to see them grow up to be as condescending as their parents. Aibileen is a far better mother to the toddler she tends than the girl's real mother will ever be. And Aibileen's knowledge of cleaning and housekeeping is so extensive that she becomes the anonymous source for a local newspaper column.

What breaks my heart is that Aibileen is actually fulfilling her calling in life -- doing her work with such mastery and originality that the world ought to take notice. Instead, she is dismissed, derided, and humiliated. That's why she is willing to assume great personal risk to share her story with the world. It reminds me of the incredible response my co-researcher and I received when we started surveying zookeepers, another under-appreciated group. They practically fell over themselves to tell us about their work.

The movie made me think about how I treat "The Help" -- the people who do the mundane and unglamorous jobs that make my life more convenient and more pleasant. Do I sometimes look right through the custodian or the food service worker? Am I missing opportunities to be inspired by their excellence because I'm so caught up in my own professional importance? Do I sometimes forget my own words from my BYU speech?: "We do great violence to the souls of those who offer their callings in less-glamorous ways when we consider them invisible or treat them as minor cast members in the great drama of our professional lives."

On a final note, since we're talking about domestic labor, I just have to share the lyrics of one of my favorite songs from the musical "Working." The words are adapted from an actual interview Studs Terkel conducted with a cleaning lady. Her fatigue, her yearning, her hope -- it all moves me (as does the powerful gospel tune it's set to). Brilliant!

Mama worked just like her mama before her, 
Domestic workin' was their trade.
They was laundress, cook, and live-in help, 
Thursday girl, babysitter, and a hotel maid;
They worked six days a week, all day long
Never could get out of debt.
Those were the days when the minimum wage was... anything you could get!
They was Cleaning Women without faces
Coming and going on a first name basis.
You're talkin' to somebody who knows... and after too many years... Lord!
I dont' wanna be in one more laundry room; 
I don't wanna pick up now another broom,
One of these days, just wanna sleep til noon!
All day long I'm thinkin', my kids is in the streets somewhere,
But the lady of the house don't think you thinkin' half the time.
Always talkin' round you, like you ain't even there.
It's gettin' so it does somethin' to my mind!

I've got a daughter with a head on her shoulders, 
Purdy as a picture too! 
She ain't gonna hide that purdy face behind 
Kitchen doors, scrubbin' floors like her Mama do,
If my legs don't give out and my back hold up, 
I'm gonna make her a better day; 
You'll never see her gettin' down on her knees, 
Unless she's down there to pray! No more...

Cleanin' Women, without faces
Sh'gonna walk in-a on this last name basis! 
She'll be the first in this family 
To have a face you can see! 
She ain't gon' be stuck inside no laundry room
When she sweepin' she be pushin' her own broom 
Day may never come when she can sleep til noon,
But long as she can get up singin' her own tune
Only that day 
Can't come too soon!

Another Tip for Finding Your Calling (and a Labor Day Greeting!)

My friend Stuart just shared with me this amazing quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.: 
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”


I love that sentiment. It points out the connection between calling and art. 


Since it's Labor Day, now is a good time to share another principle I have learned about finding your calling in life: Callings almost always involve aesthetic creation -- building something of beauty, or doing something in a beautiful way. So, if you are struggling to identify your professional calling, here are some questions to ask yourself: 


- When have I felt creative? 
- What have I done that has caused people to stop and look in wonder? 
- When have I stepped back and looked at what I was doing with deep satisfaction? 
- What was I doing the last time I wished that a lot of people could see my efforts?
- When have I felt that what I was doing was beautiful?  


If you can't easily think of times like this, don't give up too quickly! Go all the way back to childhood if you need to. Think about all different kinds of activities you have done -- not just at work. I guarantee that there is a spark of creation within you that has surfaced occasionally. Go on a quest to identify it!


If you are going to emulate Michelangelo, Beethoven, and Shakespeare in your work, you will need to find work that creates space for you to exercise this creative spark. Discovering what has triggered that spark in the past will give you some useful cues about how to bring art to your work. 


As Martin Luther King suggested, you can find artists in almost any line of work -- from street sweeper to entrepreneur, from factory worker to physician. In fact, let me give a Labor Day nod to one of my favorite artists, Mahonri Mackintosh Young, who dedicated much of his work to depicting the nobility of the manual laborer. Here's a massive sculpture he did for the 1939 New York World' Fair (the only image I could find that was open source): 

You can see more of his wonderful sculpture and paintings here (Springville Museum of Art site).

As Young's art shows, what looks to some people like menial tasks can become epic and noble when we bring our creative gifts to them. To find your calling, look for your creative center. And then look for ways to create at work! You might find that your calling is not as distant or as elusive as you thought. 


Happy Labor Day! 

What if the Door Has Slammed Shut on my Calling in Life?

I made a new friend recently. He’s a young man I’ll call Grant (not his real name). I met up with Grant after he wrote to me about my BYU speech titled "What is Your Calling in Life?” (you can see the speech here or read it here). Most people who write me about that talk tell me that it gave them helpful direction, but Grant’s message was very different.  Here’s an excerpt:

“I have found something which speaks to my soul. I have wanted to be an officer in the United States Marine Corps for a very long time… Despite years of diligent physical preparation, excellent grades, a record of achievement and compelling letters of recommendation from professors and former employers, I have been medically disqualified from service. This has been a terrible blow. I am pursuing waivers in order to protect my ambitions but I have to face reality--chances are slim to none (worse, probably) that my efforts will come to anything.

Given that career paths associated with my college degree are totally unappealing to me, how should I go about finding a new calling in life? Frankly, nothing is nearly as compelling to me as military service.” 

I couldn’t get Grant’s note off my mind, so I took the unusual step of inviting him to breakfast when I happened to be traveling where he lives. His question demanded a careful answer, and I wanted to better understand the challenge of unavailable callings.

Meeting Grant was a treat. He is bright, extremely earnest, and passionate about his country and about honoring the men and women who serve in the military. I could feel the heartbreak as he talked about his shattered dreams. And I heard echoes of many other similar stories – ranging from the student who dreams of being a professional athlete, but lacks the talent, to the aspiring entrepreneur who foregoes her dream venture to care for an ailing spouse.

I wish I had a golden answer for Grant. Alas, it’s not as easy as that. But I’d like to share a bit about my conversation with him in case others reading this blog are feeling despair about an “impossible calling.”

My first response to Grant was to ask him some pointed questions: What sparked your interest in being a Marine officer? What, exactly, did you envision yourself doing? Why is it important to you?

Grant told me that being a Marine officer would provide him the perfect blend of at least three of his deepest professional yearnings: physical challenge, leadership and mentorship opportunities, and protecting the well-being of the servicemen and women that he so admires. He’s right. Marine officer does seem the perfect job for him!

But then I explained to Grant something that I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog. A calling is not equivalent to a job title. The great Reformation thinkers (as well as my own research) depict a calling as a constellation of talents and passions that one discovers how to use within the life opportunities with which one is blessed.

This classic definition of calling turns the contemporary definition on its head. Modern management gurus tell you that a calling means finding what you love and then “selling” it to the world. Martin Luther and John Calvin tell us that a calling means looking at the situation life has placed you in, finding out what the needs are, and then using your gifts to serve those needs in your own unique way. That’s a much less romantic view of calling. But it’s much more realistic, and makes callings accessible to virtually everyone. It also has the wonderful benefit of subordinating selfishness and celebrating service to others. And we could spend hours talking about why the latter is a surer route to fulfillment than the former.

What is my friend Grant to do, though? I doubt that I alleviated the sharp sting he is feeling from his bitter disappointment.

I encouraged Grant to continue looking for ways around his medical disqualification. Persistence often pays off, even in the face of great obstacles! But I also encouraged him to open his mind to letting go of his narrow view of how he can best serve the world. That’s tough advice, since Grant has built his entire self-image around his professional dreams. Could it be, though, that the closing of this door was actually for the best? Might God have a different use for Grant’s unique set of gifts and passions that will bring him even greater joy? That was certainly the case for me as I look back at a few doors that slammed in my face earlier in my career.

To figure out what to do next, Grant needs to start asking the following types of questions: Where would other combinations of his interests lead him? Might he find opportunities for leadership and service to country by working for the Federal Government – perhaps in the Department of Defense? Might he combine his desires for physical challenge and leadership by pursuing a career in emergency management or disaster relief? The reality is that Grant (and almost all of us) are much too complex and multifaceted creatures to be limited to a single life path. Your unique gifts (and Grant’s) are vitally needed in more than one place. And, if you are like most people nowadays, your pursuit of a calling will usher you through many different job titles.

My heart aches for Grant. But only in the short term. His dream position might now be unavailable to him. But his calling in life is very much intact. 

Finding Professional Inspiration in the Smelliest of Places

Customer service here on the BYU campus is generally outstanding.

With one exception.

The staff at the mens locker room equipment issue desk act like moody adolescents. They sit hunched over their laptops playing games, and seem annoyed if you interrupt them. They don't make eye contact when you talk to them. In fact, I generally get no more than a grunt from them when they hand me a clean towel after my racquetball game. It's the least welcoming service desk I've ever seen.

I can't say that I blame them for being less than enthusiastic about their work. I won't try to describe the sights and smells that surround them -- it is, after all, a mens locker room! But that's what makes Noah so remarkable.

I met Noah, one of the locker room staff, a few years ago when I first rented a locker. He was a tall, affable student with a big smile and a very respectful manner. I mentioned to him that I was disappointed that the lockers were too small for my racquet to fit in them. He said, "Here, I've got just the ticket." Then he showed me to the back of the room where a top-tier locker happened to be missing a ceiling panel, allowing my racquet to fit snugly inside. I thought, "Wow, this guy is different than the others."

The next time I saw Noah, he greeted me by my first name. I was really surprised because I hadn't introduced myself; he had remembered my name from my rental contract. In fact, every time I came in, Noah greeted me personally. He asked me questions about my work and family. Eventually, I asked his name too (I'm a little slower with social graces, I guess) and began to learn about him. We got to be friends, and I was genuinely sad when he disappeared one spring -- presumably after graduating.

Noah is an inspiration to me. Working in one of the least appealing jobs on campus, he brought dignity, professionalism, and genuine service to his work. I'm sure I was just one of many of his "customers" that he treated as friends. The contrast between him and his Neanderthal colleagues was astounding.

I'm not saying that working in a locker room is Noah's calling in life. Far from it. But it was obvious to me that he was honing his talents, using them to serve others, and making the very most of a pretty crummy job. I actually think he was happy working there. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that he will find his calling in life much more quickly than the resentful grumps who won't make eye contact with me when I thank them for the clean towel.

Wherever you are now, Noah, my hat is off to you! You are in my pantheon of people who bring nobility to their work where I least expected it.