Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Selling Happiness

I had the pleasure of having a really great conversation with a good friend that I trust yesterday. I was having a really frustrating afternoon and Tom helped me to think more clearly on several issues and made me think on a few more. Thanks, Tom.

Part of what he got me thinking about was the following:

1. If skill and money were no obstruction what would you be?

2. Inreal life of course, skill and money are required for many jobs. At what point are you willing to forgo doing what you love for money. That is, how much would it take to persuade you to do something (career-wise) you weren’t passionate about?


I’m still trying to figure this out for myself…

6 comments:

Mamma Sarah said...

Hmmm good questions:

1) I would be CEO of National Girl Scouts. That means going for a masters or better yet a PhD. :-) OR a stay at home mom to make sure my kids turned out awesome.

2) Nothing could persuade me to do something I wasn't passionate about. Been there, done that, won't do it again. I'm doing something I love right now and don't make much, but I wouldn't trade it for something that pays twice the amount... because that means my happiness suffers and all I dream about is getting back to what makes me happy, which turns out to be things that I'm passionate about.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, P&G's boring... I want to be a full-time softball player and consult Men's Health magazine :)

LisaMarie said...

I want to be a doctor...without all the training. I love working with people. Or else, I'd love to just be that person that reads novels and says whether or not they think they should be published. That would be cool too.

To address your other thought, I don't think you have to be passionate about your job. I think you have to at least feel needed and an asset to your job. There are definitly days when I would have a hard time saying I'm passionate about teaching, but overall I really like my job and working with kids.

RandomBitsofDigitalFlotsam said...

You are welcome!

My thoughts on this subject could take up a whole book really, so I won't bore you all here :).

TreyJ said...

1) If skill and money were no option, I would be a professional musician.

2) I guess it depends on the situation. If I needed to survive and couldn't support my family (hey, the cats count as family) doing what I enjoy, I would do something that I wasn't passionate about in order to stay afloat. But only until something better came along. If I had a choice between 50 grand a MONTH to be a stock broker or 27 grand a YEAR doing music, I would take the music.

Dale said...

My answer? A direct consequence of my life mission statement (potential subject of another blog?): I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to make a lot of money doing what I love.

I'm with Jim, P&G isn't QUITE there... :)