(Mom & Dad, bribe your child to read this!). Focus on how you want to live, not what you want to do
"To be honest with you, I am sitting on my hotel balcony right now with my wife overlooking Waikiki Beach in Hawaii on an amazing vacation."
Ironically, even though I am on "vacation", I have worked the majority of the day. When I say work, I have spent most of the time on my phone dealing with real estate agents, loan officers, home buyers, and home sellers. I have negotiated two successful contracts which in turn allow me to provide for my family. Do I really want to work on vacation? No. But would I rather have my butt plopped in an office chair going about the 9-5 grind and having to ask permission to take my 10 days off of work a year...ABSOLUTELY NOT.
7 years ago I worked at a coffee shop and was still trying to figure out the question a lot of 20-somethings have, which is, "What do I want to do for a living?". I'll never forget talking to a customer I only met once and he told me not to focus so much on what I want to do for a living, but how I want to live. That was an absolute game changer for me in my thinking pattern about my career.
My degree is in Exercise Science. Is what I am doing for my career right now related to anything that has to do with exercise? No. My passion is endurance sports training and health sciences. Does my vocation involve any of that? Not in the slightest bit. If I worked in a field I was truly passionate about, would it allow me to live my life how I want? Not at all. I want to be able to go on vacations with my family. I want to be at home as much as humanly possible with my daughter. I want to be able to buy carbon fiber road bikes that cost more than a lot of used cars. I want to be able to do what I want, essentially when I want. And Real Estate is something that has allowed me to do that. But let me be clear when I say it is NOT my dream job.
I want to encourage any young person this evening that is struggling in High School about what college to go to and what to study. There is a 99% chance that what you want to do for a living now is going to change. The amount of change the brain goes through from the ages of 18-24 is astonishing. The very fact the pressure exists to have a career picked out in High School is sickening. I want to encourage the college student who is struggling in their major asking themselves if they picked the right one...most likely, probably not. And that is OKAY. You are a unique human living a unique human experience.
Ask yourself, what do you value? What do you believe in? What do you want to be known by? What are your passions outside of responsibilities? Most likely, the job you have in mind right now is not going to check all of those boxes. A job is a job. I still have yet to meet someone who says that they love their job so much that they feel like they don't work a day in their lives. To be honest, I think that is total horse crap. I absolutely love swimming, cycling, and running. But let me tell you, some days the training feels like WORK. You can have the dream career and the perfect situation, but it is still going to be work.
Why do I say all this? You are going to be okay. Your job is going to be okay. You are not locked in to what you want to do now for the rest of your life. Take chances, take on new experiences, and test yourself in new things you never thought you would try. It might just work out in your favor shifting your trajectory to a career that you never would have thought of.
