Making things spreads joy, makes people happier and sustains society:

I once heard a call centre manager saying it was tolerable to have a high staff-turnover in his industry because “it’s the nature of the industry”....

...This is b#@`S*^t! As long as workers get a sense that they are contributing to something positive, that their daily tasks in some way create something of value, then they’re going to extract a sense of job satisfaction, maybe even real joy. 

As more and more firms pinch the purse strings in order to turn a profit it is harder and harder for workers to feel as if their contribution is tangible and that their efforts are worth a dime. Their dilemma is made much worse if they don’t get any recognition other than a meagre pay packet.

This is why, increasingly, I get the sense that the makers of things are happiest. You know, those artisans who bake wonderful traditional bread recipes, the dry-stone wall builders, the farriers who work iron into works-of-art, the thatchers who construct timeless roofs on medieval houses and clay potters and wood turners making bowls of perfection.

Sustained psycho-social and economic wellbeing is dependent upon contributing positively to your community for the individual to thrive and prosper in the broadest and most widely rewarding sense. The world is in such a mess because Capitalism removed the individual’s ability to hone their technique and proper through a progressive mastery of skill. 

Self-preservation in the 21^st Century labour market is about being resilient to change and being able to do nothing in particular averagely well. There is no reward in this short-sightedness for either employer or employee. Hence, market volatility robs society of its meaning in the medium to long term with no sight of let-up.

Self-preservation technique, happiness-building and holistic wellbeing rely upon your ability to make, grow and sustain; to move forward and develop. Relearning from scratch every few months erodes resolve as everyone loses sight of growth indicators.

Set your sights on making something of value. Invent something that will make other peoples’ lives happier, more fulfilling and / or efficient. Give joy by building, shaping, designing, sculpting, crafting, tailoring, constructing, drawing, harvesting, divining, staining, whittling, plumbing, decorating, growing, dyeing, turning, potting, hammering, fastening, weaving, joining, smithing, sawing and stitching. Doing words help things grow. Be guided by your actions. 

Be the modern Artisan. Nurture your ability to work, invest effort, form and then step back on experience the meaning borne-out of making some thing tangible. Above, make and take joy in your being your own master. 

[And for those who can find no option other than 'serve', try sincerely to smile authentically. Your rewards are the smiles reflected back.]

Experience joy - Seek that your product live. See others shine. See society sustain. Create, generate, grow, thrive. It is infectious. 

the POWER of words in the discovery of MEANING

'Life' Navigation Using Words - an extrapolation:

Humans are often to be found deliberating and cogitating over the meaning of life. It's a query as old as our species. ~Discovery of the answer will propel a life through time with purpose. A million million thinkers have pondered this. Here are some of my thoughts out loud.

Life is a quest. Even 'the right' find answers every day. Yet there are many more people in search of answers than there are those who know. I see success coming to the purposeful, positive and persevering. 

What it is to know why you are here? The reality is, it probably means you have asked and answered far more questions than the people who don't know. The really successful people, if truth were known, have  braved many mistakes and enriched their navigation technique accordingly. Error forges, steels and galvanises character by ultimately providing answers. Achievement is awarded to the persistently brave. Mistakes are just answers with more growing to do. 

What is the meaning of life? I believe it is to have meaning IN your life. We extract meaning from making sense of the many ingredients that comprise an individual. Once we understand ourselves, perhaps not totally, but better, we then have foundations to build upon. Re-interpreting 'feedback' gives rise to understanding - another word for 'understanding' is 'harmony'. A self-image that we are happier believing in. A personality that we are happy with that we can project to the world, confidently. Wisdom is an understanding of this. 

In the Lexicon of Life there are words that exist that can guide us when we interpret their true meaning: 

'Living' - living is not just about breathing our way through life's journey. It is about how we will live. What will we do to live? How will we feed ourselves and our families? How we get paid for what we do. Payment is not always about money. Our contribution can be recognised in many ways.

'Contribution' - As a citizen how will we contribute? What  will we contribute to better society. It is the opposite of selfishness and involves our whole being.

'To Be' - I am therefore I am. Well it's not necessarily that simple is it. What is it that you are going to do To Be? It forms a big chunk of the answer to 'Why am I here?'.

'Meaning' - It is a tough life lesson to learn, but the practical reality is that most lives require meaning in order that they thrive. It is about listening for and being open to the feedback that living gives back; akin to a bow on a violin generating sound. 

'Purpose'  - along with 'meaning' 'purpose' is a key ingredient in the mix that fuels a life and drives it forward. Purpose instils forward momentum. It provides a reason for being like your internal propulsion system.

'Attitude' - In much the same way that an aircraft's wing must be at just the right attitude to lift a plane in the air, travelling at just the right velocity, so must a life. Attitude is the angle at which we approach life, both physical and mental. The ground, in the case of this metaphor, is the rest of society. 

'Identity' - Who is it looking back at you in the mirror? How will you like that individual? How will you project that image to the rest of society? Everyone I have ever met has a truly great person inside. The problems only arise when we don't give flight to the potential within. When we haven't taken the time necessary to uncover and truly understand the person within. This is where faith in the good comes in. Are you looking at your feet or in the person's eye?

'Love' - It can be an agonizing life lesson to learn, but self-acceptance and learning to love one's self is prerequisite in discovering the part of you that someone else will love. Love is the weave in tapestry of life because it interconnects and perpetuates the whole fabric of society. Love comes in many forms and degrees, success is built on believing in yourself. Only then will others buy into you.

'Conviction' - a word possessing many sides, curiously. The one we're after here is to do with acting with conviction; carrying oneself with certainty. Actions carried-out with conviction tend to be attractive because they are positive and pure. Actions that resonate.

'Attractiveness' - Believe it or not, attractiveness has less to do with physical looks than you might think. It is a powerful word. In certain respects it combines each and everyone of the words above. It is about 'believe-ability'. Attractive people possess the truth of meaning and reason. They have done the workings-out. This is recognised in the way events, actions and materials are attracted to them.

'Vocation' - "A strong feeling of fitness for a particular career" is the definition that my dictionary gives me. A person's working identity. The exercising and bringing-together of all the career attributes bestowed upon the individual by nature. It is my heartfelt belief that everyone I have ever met possesses a vocation. My fear is, so few tap into the life-blood contained within. It's about 'fit'.

'Work' - "the application of human effort to a mental or physical purpose". Perhaps this is why, as a result of increasing automation, so many Humans feel purposeless. The truth is that with an ever-growing population and the rapid, vapid mechanisation of the 'workplace', it is no wonder that more people feel redundant and are redundant. Purposelessness is a dangerously unsustainable 'state' to create in the world; a population without meaning will boil. What will all those workless people do? There will always be work needing to be done. It is simply a case of asking yourself is it work that you want to do and for what purpose and how will your effort be recognised? Effort / Reward, you reap what you sow. Life is brutally Darwinian like it or not.

'Capability' - Is a complex balance between actual ability and potential power. Capability is about the potential prowess a person has to combine their skills and their experience of having practised them. Measuring capability implies an ability to forecast 'ability', coupled with effort invested in improving performance that is applied in the present. Get an objective view. Ask an impartial expert.

'Vitality' - is the quickening of the experience of life relative to the amount of energy invested. A vital person is full of energy resulting from their expending energy enthusiastically aimed at a specific cause. Vitality only arises from the imperative of living life positively. 

'Confidence' - is the net result of liking what you be. It results from positive energy reflected back from your environment for good done.

This short article is aimed at prodding your use of language in the context of working and being. The idea is that we extrapolate our own meaning from considering the meaning of the words we might use to describe our own actions. 

Unless we can recognise, evaluate, describe and visualise our output it will continue to be difficult to extract meaning from what we do. If we cannot see value, how will we feel valued. And there is no greater conundrum in life than being able understand that lives do better when contributing to the greater good. Selfish lives, self-contained, inward-looking rarely produce for the greater good.

Happiness is balance. Success is sustainability. 

Job Feed My Soul

For many, many years I was despondent at the complete and utter lack of meaning in my career. And I mean despondent. The expectations of others seem to cloud my judgement. In retrospect, I recognise that I was tetchy, arrogant, unfulfilled and in a constant state of unrest.

As my own story goes I lost my dream job at the age of 32 and slammed into the buffers. I became a resident of ‘Skid Row’ and found myself in an utter and complete tailspin. There were one or two occasions where I questioned whether I could even go on. Life was bleak and the day-to-day outlook did not seem to be improving. I was in a rented bedsit, on the dole, on the breadline, living on baked beans and struggling to cope with being what I regarded at the time as ‘down-and-out’. How damaging we can be to ourselves.


In the depths of my despair someone I had previously regarded as a friend for life, a person I held in hugely positive regard, asked me what felt like being a failure. I thought I’d hit rock-bottom, but I soon found out I was wrong. This kick in the teeth knocked me even further down. I saw my ‘friend’ through a different lens. That was December 1994. I remember it well because I lost my job, reputation and roof-over-my-head on 4th December.


I’ve written about it at length elsewhere, but in the interim period I received my first bona fide career guidance interview with an inspirational Adult Career Adviser called Mike, and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude to this day. His guidance compared to that of an alchemist as he took me from the depths of despair and skilfully guided me towards my renaissance.


By the end of the first week in January 1995 my life started to show green shoots like the snowdrops hale the end of dark winter months. That metaphor still works for me all these years later as I watch for the early Spring. The same way my heart skips a beat when I see the first swallow arrive on my horizon. It is these uplifts that feed our soul. Somewhat ironically, I had been accepted onto a postgraduate diploma in Career Guidance and started the rebuild process and germination of the person I knew, deep down, I had the potential to be.


As my friends who knew me before my transformation will tell you, finding my ‘calling’ changed me deeply. And I emphasise that I use the word ‘calling’ in a completely non-Lutheran sense. (I’m no longer a conditioned Christian, as regard myself far more a Holist in my outlook.) What I mean when I say calling is that I tapped into the innate vocation that lives within each and every one of us. My life transformed because every faculty I possess, every life experience, every career attribute, is drawn-upon and channelled daily in my job and repays me the dividend of meaning and fulfilment.


Having done my year’s postgrad I went on to my Probationary Year as a Careers Adviser, relocating to Surrey and working in three mainstream secondary schools and one special needs school. I tapped into a new-found self belief as young people were mirroring my enthusiasm for my job in some form of virtuous circle that spread the dividend outward.


Gradually, the traction came back into my life. In truth, the traction probably entered my life for the first time! As now I had a vocation my identity and self esteem became more strongly anchored. I found where previously people might have regarded as arrogant and argumentative; I became increasingly comfortable in my own skin, peaceable and contented. No longer feeling hunted and forever in pursuit of fulfilling my potential in some far-flung fantasy. I had tapped into my innate strength and it was feeding me.


Nowadays, I see no greater pleasure in my life than guiding others towards tapping into their inner vocation and uncovering the career attributes that can feed their soul. You can see the ‘before and after’ in their eyes. I know what the experience felt like in my own life; like the dark in a cave and the beach on a summer’s day – total contrast! With and without.


I see the eyes of meaning-filled people sparkle with a perpetual intensity that is infectiously charismatic and nurturing; especially craftspeople building tangible products with their hands. These are especially wholesome jobs – the epitome of ‘Career Sustainability’ – career identities that will last for the long haul of a lifetime.


Whereas, people in dead-end, meaningless jobs, and those unfortunate people not to have any work in their lives, can seem soulless and empty; with tapping into the affirming powers of meaningful work instilling that all-important sense of purpose and virtue being the remedy to our quest for the meaning of life.


Working with what you’ve got within in you is invigorating on every level. It truly uplifts the soul and builds the life. The toughest part is placing one’s trust in others to help decode what your calling is because part of being human is that we’re not always very skilled in recognising what we’re best at. Our filters don’t work this way .


Only the weak and faithless perpetuate their lot by never seeking help. The process of reaching out and connecting builds stronger bonds in stronger communities; the more meaning in the community, the more peace everyone enjoys. Life goes on, sustainably.
Feed your soul and others’ today – tap into your career attributes – help others tap into theirs - purpose feeds all of us and lifts our souls.

How do you recognise your purpose in life? And how to see it in others

My heartfelt belief is that 90% of the population are in the wrong job altogether or not engaged by their work.

 According to the laws of probability, not thriving in the right work for you is likely because we’re inundated with so much choice these days that the probability of landing a job that you love makes it unlikely. Someone mentioned a statistic to me which I constantly repeat: 75% of the goods available to consumers today were not invented in 1975!!

Young people and old are flooded with decision making challenges on a daily basis. So without taking career planning seriously you’re highly unlikely to randomly land in a job that you love. As I frequently point out, people treat their career planning along similar lines to pinning the tail on a donkey.


What is a job that you love anyway?

Well for me it is all about a job that conjures-up a sense of purpose in your life. The alarm clock rings, the duvet hits the ceiling and you know just where you’re going every day. Your working generates a busy hum and everyone around you knows you are on target to succeed. Based on passion, your work is effortless.

Your life is the personification of meaning. You have meaning in your stride, in the tonality of your voice, in your body language and it is actually quite attractive to behold. People experiencing purpose in their lives are more attractive and they have great energy in their lives. So the likelihood is that not many of us benefit from this esoteric aura that earns us a pleasurable living.

Bean-Counters don’t see the value in purpose because they cannot see it and they cannot measure it. However, if they stood back for a moment and looked at the people who demonstrate purposefulness in their lives they’d see it. And probably find a way of measuring it because it a where organisations generate all of their value.

By definition most innovations stem from people who see a problem and want to solve it. The see an obstacle to getting something done efficiently and invent a solution that overcomes the hurdle. They thrive on this kind of purpose and it is this drive that fuels their daily contribution. Therefore, purpose-filled people are value generating people and Bean Counters might do well to recognise them better.

Turning this around, if only 10% of most organisation’s employees are purposeful and yet they are profitable and sustainable businesses, imaging the value that could potentially be generated if more employees were purposeful? Bean Counters might not recognise it, but that bottom line they’re so focussed on all stems from their colleague’s purpose in life.


Turning people on to meaning-filled and purposeful careers is not some esoteric fantasy. We owe it to ourselves, our organisations, our bottom-line but most of all to our employees to turn them on to their purpose and bear witness to the change in attitudes. Sustainability, wellbeing and value and all inextricably linked to well-intentioned focus, meaning and purpose. Get those pillars in alignment and see your stock rise.


So I leave with this thought: If you could measure purpose in your life how would you measure it? And how would you recognise purpose if you saw it?

Responses to: duncanbolam@careerdovetail.co.uk