My former colleague
Lisa Woodley recounts her 20-year path from designer to corporate sales leader and back. Like so many who shift their focus in the second half of their career, a health crisis that gave her lots of time to think was her catalyst. Some great, thoughtful guidance here for anyone also on their way back home to their true work.
How does anyone achieve something big? The answer is always, “They worked hard and got lucky.”
Most people emphasize how hard they worked to accomplish something. Others looking at them think they got lucky. It’s never one or the other. It’s both/and. Lots of people work hard and never get lucky. Some people get lucky but don’t put in the work. Those are the folks you don’t hear about.
When you get sucked into our collective fascination with the heroes, champions, geniuses, and creators who have achieved a level of success, don’t forget both the hard work and good luck involved.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
— Khalil Gibran via my friend Sara, whose book about work is excellent.
