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Purpose...or Money-Why Not Both?
The headlines no longer even startle us: General Motors is eliminating 30,000 jobs; Chrysler is reducing their workforce by 6,000; Enron, WorldCom and others are dumping entire workforces back into the job market.
What do these workers do after 25 to 30 years of faithful service to one company? Is it possible to duplicate that kind of work position again?
We must recognize that American work models are changing. We can no longer depend on pensions, retirement funds and Social Security. Unless Congress acts soon, Social Security trust funds will be exhausted by 2042.
When Social Security was created in 1935, the average life expectancy was 63 years. Today, the life expectancy in the United States is 79.6 years.
The math tells us that we cannot depend on receiving those once-expected funds. Even healthy companies are looking for ways to eliminate "employee" positions, choosing to compensate for results rather than time.
Judging from current trends, by 2008, only 50 percent of the American workforce will be "employees." The rest will be consultants, temps, contingency workers, independent contractors, entrepreneurs, etc. The only way to move forward with confidence is to be willing to see opportunities with "new eyes."
The changes may be unwelcome and unexpected, but they are real nonetheless. We now know that 10 years after graduation, 80 percent of college graduates are working in something totally unrelated to their college major.
The average job length for a person in his or her 20s is now 1.1 years. We've seen a dramatic change from "production workers" to "knowledge workers." And the newest trend is to reward "concept workers." If you are working in a job that can be reduced to a system, you are vulnerable.
Even high-level financial analysis and medical expertise positions are being outsourced to other parts of the world. Suddenly, we are seeing right-brain characteristics providing more job security than the last phase of prestigious analytical and technological skills.
The new job security may be found in displaying empathy, caring, compassion and creative and artistic skills. Those cannot be outsourced as easily and are giving rise to a new kind of valued work.
Any unique purpose God has given you can be embraced and applied in meaningful work, but the work model may differ from what you have been accustomed to. There may not be a company car, guaranteed salary, health care and a 401(k).
In fact, your new boss may be you. Approximately 24 million Americans have chosen to start their own businesses. Tired of the corporate bureaucracy and politics, they have chosen to identify their strongest areas of competence and simply provide that to a receptive market.
Finding a way to make your purpose pay requires that you look at multiple work models. Keep in mind that the "employee" model is a relatively recent American phenomenon.
Henry Ford developed the concept of paying people for their time, thus the concept of "employee." One hundred years ago, if you wanted to purchase a wagon, you would not have guaranteed the laborer $15 an hour or $30,000 a year.
You simply would have agreed on a price for the completed wagon; how much time it took was entirely up to the craftsman building the wagon.
Guess what? We are now seeing a return to that healthy model of compensation. Once you grasp that basic concept, it frees you up to explore many alternative models of work. Keep in mind that as an employee, you must create three to five times the income you are being paid.
Consequently, moving toward being a consultant, independent contractor or business owner opens the door immediately to increasing your income while lessening your time commitment.
And while we are exploring ways to make our purpose pay, we might as well recognize that 74 percent of American millionaires own their own businesses. There is no other category of employment that is rewarded so readily.
Don't buy into the limiting theology that pursuing life balance and living out God's purpose in our lives necessitates a life of poverty. There are many times where good stewardship of God's best gifts to us is more likely to produce unexpected financial gain.
But good stewardship will require that we "see" the multiple options available rather than just accept the first available job.
What are those dreams you have buried in the daily pressure to be "practical" and "realistic"? How could you tap into and release those for higher levels of success? In Good to Great (HarperBooks), author Jim Collins says there are three essential components that must be present for a great business or great work: (1) What are you deeply passionate about? (2) What can you do with excellence? (3) What is your economic model?
If you make a lot of money but hate your work, you'll never build a great company or a great life. If you become the best at something but it doesn't generate enough income to provide for your family, it doesn't meet the test for greatness.
Just doing a job cannot justify doing something unethical, immoral or dishonest. The guards in the German concentration camps, after becoming friends with the prisoners, would often justify walking them to the gas chambers with, "I'm just doing my job."
Is there anything in your current work that you are trying to justify doing just because it's part of your job? Please recognize that just because having the ability to do something well is not enough reason to continue doing it—if it violates your values and common sense.
The measure of a man is not what he does on Sunday, but rather who he is Monday through Saturday.
We are in a culture that separates work from the rest of our life. Even American Christians seem to live by the premise that being Christian affects what we do on Sundays, but the rest of the week—well, that's just our work. This is an artificial dichotomy.
Our work is a dynamic component of our life and a clearer expression of who we are than what we do for 58 minutes on any given Sunday morning. Our work is perhaps the most visible form of our worship.
If your work doesn't express your values, you're setting yourself up for deceit in other areas of your life. And that deceit can manifest itself in ulcers, migraines and cancer as evidence of a less than authentic life.
In the movie Cool Hand Luke, a guard says, "I'm just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that." And Paul Newman responds: "Nah. Calling it your job don't make it right, boss." I agree.
"Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you" (John 6:27, NIV). Is your job an expression of worship for you?
If not, what can you do to change it? Commit now to moving toward the release of freedom, peace and income found in an authentic expression of God's purpose for your life.
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