“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked my seven-year-old the other night as I tucked him in bed. “I want to be a writer. Like you,” he said and flashed me a funny toothless grin.
I smiled back and then said something I probably shouldn’t have, but did anyway. “But Daddy isn’t a writer. He’s a manager who happens to write.” I don’t know why I said that, but I did. And I saw Kyle’s smile disappear. “But I’m going to be just a writer. One day,” I said as he closed his eyes.
As he drifted off to sleep and I waited an extra minute or two for good measure so I could sneak out of his room without waking him up, I started thinking about why he looked so disappointed.
I think it’s because we tend to let our jobs define us. And it’s taught to us from an early age.
When kids are little, we ask them what they want to be when they grow up. And as adults, after asking someone for their name, the next question we like to ask is, “What do you do for a living?”
It’s an innocent enough question. We’re just looking for connection points so we can see if we have anything in common with the people that we meet so we can find something to talk about.
But the answer about what we do for a living usually comes with assumptions about the other person’s education, income, intelligence, and even the value that they bring to the world.
As I left Kyle’s room, a memory came back to me about a boss that I had ten years ago named Bill. He was the best manager that I ever had, someone that I looked up to and still try to be like today.
Bill was always in a good mood, even on the days when everything went wrong and he had every right to get upset. No matter what happened, he had a good attitude. One day I sat in his office and I asked him why he was always so positive when the job should have sent him to the loony bin.
“Because my job doesn’t define me,” he said.
His answer caught me off guard. How could his job not define him? He was a very senior leader. He was well-respected and got stuff done. He was one of the most intense managers I’ve ever worked with. If anyone’s job should have defined a man, it should have been his. But it didn’t.
When Bill saw that I was having a hard time processing what he was telling me, he explained.
“Look, I’m a husband. I’m a father. I’m a Believer. I’m a drummer at my church. This is just a job. Yes, I do my very best every day that I come into work. When I’m here, I push myself to be excellent in every way that I can. But at the end of the day, it’s just a job. It doesn’t define me.”
I think far too often we let the work we do and the job titles we so desperately seek after define us.
We chase money, even though we know deep down that money won’t lead to long-term happiness. And we put our entire identity and self-worth into a job which is a very risky thing to do.
Give your job your all. Crush it each and every single day. Do your best work. Leave your legacy.
But don’t put your entire identity and sense of self-worth into your job, because you are not your job. And you’re not defined by what you do. You’re only defined by one metric – who you are.
Take the time to redefine and reestablish who you are. When your job title is stripped away from you, what’s left? Who are you and what are you really meant to accomplish on this crazy planet?
Maybe the best thing you can do today is list a few passions and pursuits that are just as important to you as your job and people that really matter in your life and start focusing on those things.
And maybe the next time someone asks me what I do…
I’ll tell them I’m a writer who happens to be a manager.