Transcription
Several years ago, there came a comment, and let me just throw this down, that the comments that come, and I read every one. I don't answer them anymore. I just can't, but I read them, and I'm uplifted by them, and I'm confused by them, and I make new friends by reading the things you have to say.
But a comment came that has provoked more interaction and more replies than any other comment to date that I know of. And it was something like this: It was a young man in the Southeast, maybe Florida, who essentially said, "Look, I've got, I've got a do-it-yourself handyman business." He had a handyman business, I think, small carpentry renovations. And he said, "I've got lots of work, and I've got decent clients, and the work pays enough, and I make okay money, and I have some discretionary time, but I'm just not motivated to do this anymore. How do I stay motivated?" Asking me, i.e., through me, the whole channel, "How do you stay motivated to continue to show up and do your job? How do you stay motivated to continue to work when the honeymoon phase of the job is over?"
Well, like I said, it has now hundreds of replies. It touched a chord because there are plenty of us, and I'm one who knows exactly what it feels like to just not want to do it, not want to get up, not want to go out the door, not want to face that boss or face that miserable assignment that you know that you're going to have, or once I was a contractor, not deal with that client anymore. It's gone bad, and it's uncomfortable, and I know what that feels like, and you do too. That question of, "How am I going to make myself continue to do this?" Not just for today or this week, but "Is this really what I'm going to do for the next year or 10 years or 30 years?"
I've thought a lot about that. I've thought, "What has it been, really, when I boil it down as far as I can boil it, that motivates me to work? What has it been that has made the pain and discomfort and frustration of work worthwhile? What has it been that has kept me on the job for all these years?" And it is a nuanced and complicated answer. And I'll throw this out: it's different for every person. We are not the same people, are we? But we are more similar than different. And so maybe there will be some value for some of you in hearing what it is, really, that has kept me on the job for now about 47 years, I think, something like that.
For the past period of time, once my life began to be, as you get older, life gets easier, usually, in terms of finances. The wolf is pushed a little further back off the doorstep, if you have any good luck and if you stayed on the job. The wolf is not there every single morning like it was for me for the first 30 years. The wolf is a powerful motivator. The wolf and the demands of the wolf and the expectations to pay your bills and be a responsible member of society will keep you on it until you burn out on that and you begin to ask yourself, "Well, why do I care if my credit rating falls? Or why do I care if I have something repossessed?" And you start going down that rabbit trail of declining self-worth and throwing away integrity, and there's no end to that. And so I never did that. I let the wolf motivate me, but that sometimes isn't enough.
Being motivated by fear is nowhere near the same thing as being motivated by love. And love can be focused on a lot of things, but as soon as the love dies out, referencing your work, man, it gets harder to show up. So at least that's how it's been for me. And before I go a little further down the rabbit trail of sometimes it's time to quit a job because it's no longer a good fit, or sometimes the risk-benefit analysis, the cost-benefit analysis, leads you to the conclusion that I need a new gig, or before I do that, I want to talk about the two-year-old in each inside of each one of us. And I can only speak to the two-year-old inside of men, being a man, or let's say four-year-old, the little kid inside of each of us that is always in contest with the gradually, imperceptibly maturing man that we hope we are, or that we've become, or that we are becoming. Because the mature guy and the three-year-old are radically different people, and yet coexist.
Here's what I mean: Little kids are quickly bored, right? Little kids are attracted by new and novel and shiny and unexplored. Little kids are attracted by what feels good, never mind what that feel-good experience is going to bring. We can still feel that, can't we? Think of the new truck. It's the little kid in us that wants the shiny new truck. Now, there's nothing wrong with new trucks if you can afford it, but a little kid wants a new skateboard or a new set of Legos or a new, new, whatever's on the checkout aisle, and he drives his mom crazy begging for it. He wants it so bad it aches. We all continue to feel that. And a little kid won't hang in there with an assignment until he earns the money, will he? So part of overcoming the two-year-old is learning the delayed gratification of some work today for some reward tomorrow. All right, everybody gets that.
But after a while, and I think the guy that commented was saying, "I have what I need for my toys," and yet that motivation is wearing thin. The reason for that is the urge for toys is not the kind of love that's going to keep you on the job. It's going to keep you motivated, keep you becoming a good hand. So there have been a lot of things that have helped me stay motivated through different stages of my life: 20s, 30s, 40s. And they varied from being more productive and making more money, to doing better work, um, within the time budget I had, to impressing somebody that I wanted to be mentored by. And those motivations are all good as far as they go.
But the thing that has stood me in the best stead is really learning to think of myself less. And it's not thinking less of myself, but thinking of myself less and thinking of the people around me more. Now, C.S. Lewis articulated that better than I just did, but the idea is that the two-year-old only thinks about himself and his own welfare, and he's doomed to always remain too. And you've met 40-year-olds who are just like that, and boy, are they miserable. And so intentionally spend some time thinking of yourself less and thinking of the people you're interacting with more, and it's going to become clear why you should continue to be productive.
So here is what's done it for me: taking responsibility for the welfare of other people, shouldering a commitment. I'll go back to the Jordan Peterson quote that I have loved and quoted before, and that the secret to living a fulfilled life is to pick up as heavy a load as you possibly can and walk straight uphill with it. I'll tell you what makes a heavy load, and I tell you what brings fulfillment, is a family. There's nothing like it. There's a reason it's been the model of society from the beginning of time, and that's a, there's a reason it will be the model for society as long as societies are successful. It's because nothing grows the four-year-old inside of us up into a man quite like being responsible for the welfare and happiness of his wife and his kids.
Now, some of you just clicked off, and I'm sorry to see you go. And if you haven't clicked off, don't do it yet, because I'll acknowledge that there are plenty of stigmas and biases and recent objections to family life, and they're all flawed, they're all short-sighted, because nothing else will make you a man other than being a husband and a dad, or at least not in the same way. That probably just made some of you mad. It probably hurt some of you who have not been able to have that experience through no fault of your own, and it's one of life's most profound inequities that not everybody finds that person, or not everybody learns to be that person. But we can work at that.
And if the young guy who was wondering why his handyman business has lost its luster and why it's so hard to go pursue that paycheck, if he's still listening, go find the right woman. Let me emphasize, go find the right woman, and then get busy and have some children, and pick up that burden. That will give your work cosmic meaning. That will provide maturity and enrichment and fulfillment in your life, and frustration and opportunities for compromise and growth and development in you that can come in no other way. For the rest of your life, does it include disappointment? You bet. Does it include breathtaking vistas of your own inadequacy? You bet. Does it include the clear reason that you should get up in the morning and grab those work boots or whatever your job entails and go hit it harder? You bet. Does it provide the motivation to, "I'm not getting anywhere working for this guy. I'm finding a new job," or "I'm going into business for myself"? Yes, yes. Does it provide the incentive to take a risk once in a while in order to not just make your situation better and maybe buy that new truck, but make their situation better because you love them? And love is a motivation that will inspire our very best efforts.
So let me hit pause right here, because clearly I'm speaking to you from my experience, and it may not be your experience. What does it look like for you if you just don't have a wife? If I'm speaking to women right now, what if you haven't found the right man? That's a circumstance. It's hard for me to speak to, but I know people with that circumstance. I know people with that circumstance who have continued to find motivation in love because of their attachment and connection with other people, maybe extended family, maybe a really worthwhile service organization, maybe a school, maybe your church. So whatever it is that will accept your efforts to move something forward without any direct benefit to yourself, that's the thing that you can approach with love. That's the thing that can be capitalized on in order to provide the motivation that you've got to have to keep doing it.
You know that poem by Rudyard Kipling, "If"? I've read before, and I've almost got it memorized because it, it's so powerful in this regard. "If you can fill the unrelenting minute with 60 seconds of distance run." We all start these races, but the only thing that is going to give you the determination to provide every minute with 60 seconds of distance run is something that's larger than yourself. Gratification finally bores every two-year-old. It's why every kid you ever ask, "How are you?" they will say, "I'm bored." Because we become bored with satisfying our own appetites, and we become energized and fully human, and men, if we can commit ourselves helping satisfy the needs of some of the people around us. And nothing else will do it.
Thanks for watching Essential Craftsman. Keep up the good work.