Five P’s to your Career

The Interplay of Passion, Purpose, Payday, Perks & Prowess

By Walter Oden

Introduction:

Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life!  This may be true, but it leaves out the concept of bankruptcy, homelessness and hunger.  How we choose a career is complicated.  Why we stay in a career is equally complicated.  Choosing to leave one career for another may take a more detailed analysis.  This article proposes such an analysis.

Why the 5 P’s?

If you ever decided to consider another career, you know what happens.  As you are scanning the job sites, you intend to look at careers outside your current business.  Then it happens.  You find yourself getting scared and go right back to the search words in areas you have experience.  We all know why this happens.  Leaving your comfort zone is a little frightening.  Especially when you have a family to support.

Then it hit me.  What we need to do is take an organized look at our career. What if we could categorize each job or career in terms of 5 categories?

Work & Sleep

We have all heard that 1/3 of your life is spent sleeping.  That statistic is pretty important to the mattress industry.  Well, how about working?  Here is some quick math:

Years working:  Age 21-67 = 46 years

Percent of day working:  9/24 = 37.5% * 6/7 days = 32%

That means for about 46 years, your job will be at least a third of your life.  In fact, if you assume you are sleeping about 6 hours per night your job is 50% of your awake hours!  The lesson:  You better like your job.  Which brings me to what “like” means.

You better have the right balance of Passion, Purpose, Payday, Perks & use of Prowess

Passion (Love)

What is your passion?  I like beer and cheese.  Is that a passion?  Probably not.  Yet, ask the founder of Samuel Adams.  He probably considers great beer his passion.  I think a passion is something you choose to do obsessively for unknown reasons.

One of my lifetime passions has been tennis.  I hit my first tennis ball at age 11 against a wall.  I can’t fully explain why I had to do that every day.  I would ride my skateboard down to McKinley Elementary (later Lincoln Junior High) and hit against the wall for hours.  Once I learned to play the game on a tennis court that became hundreds of sets per year.

Passions can become careers.  I am a great example of that.  Is that always the right path?

Purpose (Responsibility)

Purpose is often confused with Passion.  Yet, they have nuanced differences.  For example, tennis may not be my purpose.  Often, we may not know our purpose at the time we are pursuing it.  Sometimes, you may never know your purpose.  Perhaps only outside observers know your purpose in the world.  In other cases, only history will be able to judge your purpose.

Some people might connect the concept of purpose with a higher power.  For instance, only GOD knows your real purpose in the world.  Purpose is the ultimate life secret.  “If I only knew my purpose, I would follow that path”.  On the other hand, purpose is sometimes external to career.  Most people would agree taking care of their family would be ranked high on the purpose list.  When that is the case, it impacts your career decisions.  In fact, we are often sacrificing our own passions based on purpose.

One final note.  Some of us make “purpose” the only goal.  Saint Mother Theresa comes to mind.  She might even call her commitment to alleviating the suffering of people her “passion”.  If you have found both your purpose and passion, nothing else may matter.

Payday (Coin)

It is too bad.  We live in society that defines success by one metric; How much money do you make.  In fact, we can’t help ourselves.  We look up to the rich.  We don’t even do it consciously.  I think we can all agree that we don’t want to judge people by their wealth.  Yet, we do treat people differently based on their economic stature.

Let’s assume you are at a cocktail party with the President of a Fortune 500 company and a Starbuck’s Barista.  You will have a very different initial conversation.  Once you get to know someone, the economics don’t matter in a relationship.

To some people, payday is how they keep score.  The higher the payday (or stack), the more you are winning.  Chasing the “payday” is a goal into its own.  I work with children for a living.  Sometimes I ask them what are your life goals?  Yes, I do goal setting with my students.  Life goals matter.  I am very concerned when I hear “I want to be rich”.  In fact, this is fairly common in my circles.  That means they have been sold the concept “You are only a success if you are rich”.

Yet, seeking the big payday is not always bad.  Why?  The alternative.  I have known people that grew up very poor.  The daily struggle to eat and have housing made chasing the payday a reasonable life goal.  Have you ever heard the story of Jim Carrey about being homeless with his family?

When you hear these stories you understand why people want to have money.  Also, there are famous people that made/make a huge impact in the world because they had money.  JD Rockefeller and Bill Gates are just a couple of examples.  That real impact to society (purpose) would not have been possible without them chasing their payday.

So, maybe the key to this discussion is why do you want a payday?  Is it to live the life of a celebrity?  I just loved the show Entourage.  The premise of the show was 4 kids growing up poor in Queens, New York.

Their goal was to become rich and famous and take each other along for the ride.  Every day was a party.  Yes, a big payday makes that life possible.

There is also a self-worth factor.  We liken respect with wealth.  I will be looked up to or respected if I am wealthy.  Some people equate happiness with “payday” or wealth.  Seeking the payday is not necessarily bad.  But, it does have its pitfalls.  We will discuss this later.

All these questions connected with “Payday” are nuanced and connected with our other P’s in the analysis.

Perks (Lifestyle)

Perks can certainly be the obvious extras of a job.  Healthcare, bonuses, company car are all perks of a career.  But that is not what I am talking about.  I am talking about the stuff that makes your life better.  It might be that you have people at your work that have lots of Indians and Cavs tickets they give away to you.  It might be you have a lot of flexible time.  In other words, your job allows you to come and go as you see fit.  That might let you to attend your kid’s baseball games in the afternoon.  Some jobs might be low in payday, but high in perks.  Maybe you get to work from home.  The opposite might be also be true.  A job could be really high in payday and low in perks.  The final analysis is rating all five P’s in these terms.

Prowess (Skill)

Prowess is our current skills sets.  It may be something we trained to do.  It could be our formal education.  This is a dangerous P.  If I spent 20 years in retail consulting, it is hard to look for a career outside that skill set.

The problem is that skill sets are used to determine employability.  In some cases, they can set you up for the job you really want.  A story that comes to mind is Harrison Ford.  In his early career, he was a self-taught carpenter.  He learned these skills as a young actor to pay his bills.  He took all sorts of jobs within entertainment as a carpenter.  He was even a stage hand for the Doors!  This eventually got him introduced him to George Lucas.  He was given a small role in American Graffiti.  Yet, he was still being hired as a carpenter.  In fact, even after American Graffiti, George Lucas hired Ford as a carpenter to expand his office.

He got additional small roles in some of George Lucas’ next films until that famous day.  Ford was finally hired by George to read lines opposite actors auditioning for Star Wars.  George finally noticed, “this guy could be my Han Solo.”

So, the key to this category is that we all have a variety of skills sets.  Sometimes, those skills are connected with our career.  Sometimes they are not.  Is your current career simply using your skills without having huge passion, purpose or perks?  Prowess matters, but use it wisely.  Harrison Ford successfully pivoted a skill into a passion and purpose.

The Paradox (The Hidden 6th P)

I have been lucky enough to live in two very different career worlds.  My initial career was a CPA in a large multinational firm.  My second career was pursuing my passion for tennis.  I am careful to refer to tennis as a “Passion”.  Tennis is not my “Purpose” in life.  That is yet to be determined.  I would also not consider it my “Payday”.  Yes, I get paid.  Although, each year varies with the economic wind.  Clearly, I chose the passion as the priority.

You might argue my job is high in perks.  Relationships are strong and familiar.  My friendships are pure and honest.  I teach children and adults to love something healthy.  I essentially have become a part of many families.  I consider this a tremendous perk.

On the other hand, there are times the economic pressure can make this career difficult to sustain.  There is not a year that I don’t consider chasing the “payday”.  In fact, I question the validity of prioritizing my “passion” in place of my “purpose”.  I believe my “purpose” is to be a good husband and father.  Therefore, taking care of my family must trump all other goals.  Being true to that “purpose” may require a bigger sustained “payday”.

For a final twist in the paradox, I would never have met my wife (or had my family) without following my “passion”.  I met my wife (of almost 15 years) on a tennis court!  So, my “purpose” was introduced to me because I chased my “passion”.

Some Graphs to Analyze your 5P’s

I am a graph guy.  I love them.  I created a couple of graphs to use these concepts.  The first uses 2 of the 5P’s.  I decided to use “Passion” and “Payday”.  In the graph below, you have 4 quadrants.  If you find a career that has is high “Passion” and high “Payday”, you hit the jackpot.  I labeled that area green for GO.  If you have a job that is low “Passion” and low “Payday”, I gave it an obvious red color.  The only reason you wouldn’t STOP right there would be the “Purpose” factor was off the charts.  The other two quadrants are yellow because you need caution.  What balance between Passion and Payday fits your current situation?

The next graph might be a little more useful.  It lists all the 5P’s in a bar graph.  The goal is to rank your current job with a percentage in each of the 5P’s.  Imagine getting a job that pays you over $1M per year for digging out roadside ditches.  Your graph would be 100% on payday, but nearly 0% in each of the other categories.  I included my current analysis of my career in tennis.  It might be important to set limits or floors in each category.  Maybe a warning sign would be if a single category falls below 50%.  It all depends on your personal situation.

Some Conclusions:

I think the most important point is that our graphs change with time.  Life events, age of our children, health of parents can all drastically change our analysis.

Since our graphs change over time,  a “P” may abruptly fall below a certain level.    For example, my job role was just changed.  Suddenly, Passion and Purpose have been forced below the 50% mark.  This can lead to increased stress, pressure and unhappiness.  The Payday and Perks better be high enough to compensate, or something will have to give.

Likewise, if I have been forced to take a pay cut,  you may find that no Passion, Purpose or Perks can justify staying in that job or career.  Honesty in this analysis is key.  If playing guitar is my passion (and job), but I can’t pay the mortgage it is time to get another job!

Thanks for taking the time to read this article. Your feedback is always welcome.

Copyright Walter Oden – October 21^st, 2016 – All Rights Reserved

Please review the global copyright notice on my homepage sidebar

The Happiness Project – Part I

How to quantify and gain awareness of your personal happiness

by Walter Oden

Prelude: 

I am generally a very happy person.  Yet, I have had some really low times.  We all face challenges in our lives. These challenges test our outlook on life.  Sometimes lows overshadow the highs.  I have been waiting to post on this topic for some time now.  I never seemed to find the right time.  I decided I would publish at a time I was REALLY HAPPY.  I also think I was nervous.  We are always wary when sharing some deep feelings.  Every holiday weekend is a time of reflection.  This weekend was no exception.  I thought about my dad often.  Yet, I really did have a wonderful weekend with my family.  Alas, happiness has motivated me to write about happiness.

Introduction

I originally wrote this article on New Year’s Day of 2012.  I actually shared it with a couple of friends at that time.   My dad was approaching the end of his life.   I was in a pretty dark state.  He had reached Advanced Parkinson’s Disease at that point.

I recently saw a poll result on general “Happiness”.  The report indicated that the average happiness of people was dropping dramatically.  One theory was that we are becoming too “technology” focused.  My theory is that “pressure” was taking over our lives.

Why Happiness is Important

Ask any parent what they want for their children.  Most will answer “I want them to be happy”.  What about your own life?  How do you want to breathe your last breath?  We have all seen the quotes describing what we will be thinking when we get older. They all have the same theme.  You will never say “I wish I spent one more day at the office”.  End game happiness is the goal. If we can learn how to do it, we can teach our children.  Then we will fulfill our mission.

New Year’s Resolutions

I make the same New Year’s resolution each year; Focus on happy.  This may sound like a cliché.  On the other hand, who hasn’t become a big cliché?  I am considered to be a “Tweener” by many.  I am not talking about the tennis shot between the legs.  A “Tweener” is term used around social circles to describe a state in your life.  If you have  people OLDER and YOUNGER relying on you for their well being, you are a TWEENER.  You also understand the special pressure that goes with this label.

My History

I have a beautiful loving family and my health.  I have a job I value.  Yet, the years of pressure from my dad’s health, debt, the economy and shear work load has added up.  In fact, it has robbed me of pleasure over the years.  It has robbed me of enjoying what is really important.  I have even occasionally described myself as unhappy.

Being weighed down by negatives is probably what is called “clinical depression”.  Do you see problems as bigger than they really are? This kind of negative stress has a big impact.  It affects you, your family and everyone around you.

My dad’s illness first became prevalent about seven years ago.  The first “hit” was when he lost everything he owned.  That became the least of our issues.  We were fighting so hard for his well being.  We wanted any glimpse of hope.   He lost his fight during January of 2013.  During his decline, I felt helpless most of the time.  Stress + Helplessness + Money Woes + Responsibility and you get one giant ball of unhappy.

Yet, I am going to hypothesize a strange concept; Unhappiness is a mirage.

Why do the Project?

I would try to go see my dad in the nursing home for long visits about once per week.  On other days I would pop in and out.  I was always guilty I couldn’t be there more.  He told me on New Year’s 2012 how “unhappy” he was.   During our visits it was very hard to focus on any positives.  My dad had not come to terms with his plight.  He was also very aware of what is coming.  My dad had dementia that kept getting worse.  He was very scared.  If I tried to bring up the past, he resisted it.  This was his defense mechanism.  It was almost like if he remembered the past, he got more depressed.  He wished it was the past and it wasn’t.

A Call to Action

And now for another cliché.  How do we live in the “now”?  Do you have a habit of waiting for things to happen to you?.  Are you always looking for that change that will make you truly happy?  Could more money or a better house make you happy?  Maybe, but not necessarily.

Yet, if we don’t get to happy right now, we’ll miss it.  That is because happy isn’t a moment in time.  It is time itself.  Having “time” is what happy is.  My dad was out of time.  He didn’t have much happy left.  He missed the opportunity to embrace his time when he was happiest.

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and say “I guess what I used to have was happy”.  I missed it.  I don’t want to ignore what is happy.

The Concept

I was trying to conceptualize this plight in the last couple of years.  I wondered if happiness was simply a state of mind.  I wondered if it was a state of awareness.  Could I be happy and not see it?  It reminds me of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.  You go through life and can’t realize how lucky you are to be you.

By the way, I included the imbedded link above to also answer a favorite trivia item of mine.  Ever wonder how the characters Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street were developed?

So I said to myself “I wonder if we can define happiness in something that is NOT SUBJECTIVE.  How could we create a definition of “Happiness” in terms of something that is totally OBJECTIVE.  Could I take a math approach to happiness?  How about an accounting approach to happiness?  Could I tally things and record them on a balance sheet?  Could I create the financial statements of life?

The project

I am about to show the reader why I quit being a CPA.  I have to explain some basic accounting to the reader.  It will take you about 3 seconds to pass out with boredom.  Please trudge through it, it matters.

Basic financial statements include a Balance Sheet and Income Statement.  The Balance Sheet lists all your Assets, Liabilities and Owner’s Equity (Sometimes called Retained Earnings).

The Income Statement (Sometimes called the P&L) is a picture of income and expenses during a given time period.  That period is usually a calendar year.

This concept has not changed in accounting in a hundred years.  Even Ebenezer Scrooge understood this.  Although, his accounting methodologies included slave labor that took food out of the mouth of Tiny Tim.

If you are still awake, you may be asking why do we need to know this material?  The answer is what I call the “Happiness Project”

Getting Started – Your Balance Sheet

We need to build financial statements to your life.  We will begin with a Balance Sheet. Start by listing all of your assets.  These are not just things you OWN!  These are things that are positive to your life.  Some examples include:

1) A wife that loves me

2) Three very different kids that love their dad.

3) Own a home

4) A job I like

Then you need to list your liabilities.  These are the things that are potentially negatives.

1) Debt

2) House has huge flaws that can only be fixed with lots of money

3) Job requires long hours that take away from my family

4) Father in nursing home with incurable disease.

5) Wavering belief in higher power/purpose

Finally, you need to list what positives or negative you NET after your years.  That is the statement of retained earnings

1) Fairly youthful looking from years on tennis courts

2) Home is worth more than I owe from years of paying mortgage

Your Current Year – The Income Statement

Now we need to build an Income Statement.  This will require daily recording of Income (Things that make you happy) and Expenses (Things that block your happiness).  You need to religiously record this data every day for 30 days.  Record everything that made you happy, especially the simple stuff.

Monday

Income

1) Kids came running to door yelling “daddy!” and attacked me .  They squeezed me dragged me inside.

2) Had more than (3)  beers in the fridge

3) Great dinner waiting on stove top

Expense

1) Got into a conflict with co- worker today

2) Cash flow went negative today

3) Leak in pipe in basement appeared today

Working list and results

It is impossible to create all these statements in one sitting.  Our subconscious does an incredible job blocking things out.  You may be adding to your balance sheet as you develop your income statement. That is totally fine.

Analysis of your statements

You can have a good year or bad year (income statement).  The key is to focus on the income.  Why?

This is YOUR HAPPINESS PROJECT summarized!

Take all the INCOME items you listed for 30 days.  Put them on a single sheet. That list is your roadmap to happiness. It’s kind of like how you value a business.  Sometimes, you just want to know how much revenue the business earns each year.

Happiness is a cumulative conglomeration of happy moments all rolled up into a single ball.

This project forces you to be aware of your happy moments.  Happiness does not guarantee a life devoid of unhappiness or negatives.  In fact, the key to this project is being able to accept negatives and SEPARATE them from the HAPPY.  Focusing on the happy, is merely a matter of getting organized.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This movie starred Jim Carrey,  Kate Winslet & Kirsten Dunst.  It got mixed reviews.  I thought it was brilliant.  The premise was that we had invented a way of erasing memories.  In fact, you could erase any BAD memories and eliminate your sadness.  The movie created a hypothesis through its story.  A person’s happiness is eternally linked to all moments in your life.  Eliminate the unhappy and you risk eliminating the happy.

Life experience, much like our income statement, includes both Happy and Unhappy moments. Our project allows you to focus on the happy without ever “erasing” the lessons learned from the unhappy.

Conclusions & Part II

This project will NOT add happiness to your life.  This project will not eliminate sadness or disappointment.  The bigger plan is to make you aware of what you already have.  That happiness is a state of mind.  It is a state of awareness.  We can either choose to be happy or not be happy.  I am choosing happy.  We will explore methods for improving your financial statements of life in PART II.

My Dad in 1968

Copyright Walter Oden & “I Have an Idea” –  January 2012 – All rights reserved.  Please review the global copyright notice on the sidebar.