This post is from my latest newsletter.
As I’m working on my book (round 2), I have begun to focus my efforts and my writing over at Prolificate.com.
I still plan to post here now and then, but this site is reserved for whimsy, random musings, and other inanity.
Meanwhile, I hope you’ll head on over to Prolificate and try my newsletter. You’ll be the first to get book updates, and you’ll have the opportunity to weigh in with your thoughts – you may even make it into the book. If you think I’m a complete idiot, tell someone! You can both have a laugh at my expense. Seriously, feel free to share.
I post about once a week about things like The Journey, Figuring out what you are really here to do, and tapping into the soul of your business to really make it great.
Here’s the article. Enjoy.
“Question: Is it better to stay in my soul-sucking job for the money and the security? My family is counting on me, and I do have some friends at this job and people that I like there–or should I quit and feel better, but give up the security and the money? Which is better–soul or security?”
I ask you the same question. Which is better–soul or security?
I left a six-figure salary almost 2 years ago for exactly this kind of reason. This year, I’ll be extremely lucky if I earn more than fifteen thousand dollars. The book I was writing turned out to be good practice, but the manuscript just wasn’t good enough or focused enough, so I threw it out.
Now I’m working on the chapter outline for a new book: Startups with Soul. It’s about the real secret to success–that secret sauce that some organizations just seem to have. That secret is soul. Just like an individual can have one, so can an organization. If fact, all organizations do have one. The best ones intuitively know this and embrace it.
Like my friend on social media, I knew that the jobs I’d held in the past weren’t me. They were perfectly good jobs–great even, at times, but while I made the big salary and the decisions for someone else’s company–someone else’s dream, I found that I was too comfortable. There was always a gnawing in my gut and a little voice in my ear that I tried hard to ignore. I filled my life with a hectic schedule, luxuries, and as many distractions as I could muster, but every now and then, when I was alone with myself and the background noise died down enough, I would hear that voice. The voice would say things like: “Come on, man, you’re better than this.”, and “Andy, the world needs the whole you–not this sanitized bullshit version that spouts off the same things everyone else spouts off about.”
I didn’t weigh in on my friend’s dilemma. I started to, but backspaced and deleted my response. It would have been just more spouting off about how important it was for him to listen to his inner voice and follow his dream.
Instead, I just read his post and smiled a knowing smile.
I can’t tell him what to do. Part of the process that I call finding your soul is about deciding when to fight like hell for your dream–for your vision, and when to just swim with the current and marshal your strength. He’ll figure it out for himself. I hope he does at least listen to that voice and hear it out. He can then make a conscious decision about how he will live his life. That–the conscious decision part–is the essence of the journey.
I’ll be rooting for him and cheering him on from halfway across the United States either way.
In the meantime, I’ll keep writing until the savings runs out or I crack this particular code. Either way, knowing you’re along for the ride with me is so very cool.
Someone please remind me of this when I’m on stage (Hopefully in the slot right before Seth Godin) giving my TED talk about Startups with Soul, Business with Soul, or how I lived for 2 years on rice and beans.
-What is your soul here to be?
-Andy
p.s. My friend later deleted that post. Letting the world really see you is a scary thing.
p.p.s I do also enjoy the occasional cold beverage in addition to rice and beans. A man’s got to retain some semblance of dignity, no?