What is your career purpose?

Yesterday, at the beginning of a call with my leaders, our VP surprised me with a remarkable question, “what is your career purpose?”

Reflexively, I answered something to the effect of, “to find ways to use existing investments to make work easier, improve customer experiences, and help achieve organizational goals.” I admitted that this was simply an expansion of my previous mission statement to “find ways to use existing technology investments to make work easier so workers can better serve customers.”

Unfortunately, my offer was dismissed.

“That’s not a purpose, that’s an objective,” I was told warmly. My VP went on to share about his last three days of discovery of his career purpose, and that led me to start thinking seriously about my career purpose, well beyond the bounds that I have thought of it previously.

This introspective inquiry has led me down a rabbit hole of self-discovery and research. I have literally been up since the middle of the night thinking about his question. Obsessive? Perhaps. Bothered? Not at all. Inspired? Markedly.

To determine my career purpose, beyond what I thought it to be, I knew I would have to look far and wide, and deep into my soul. So, I turned to the first place that anyone else in this predicament would go: YouTube.

It was there that I found a wonderful story from Oprah Winfrey about her discovery of her own purpose through the journey of her career:

“Your real job in life is to figure out what it is you are called to do and you use a job until you can figure out what the calling is because a job is necessary to survive…” 

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah’s early career development seemed so familiar to me. Sure, I haven’t worked as a news anchor and I, a straight white male, have no idea how difficult it must be as a black woman in broadcast journalism. However, I have experienced and know what it is like to try a job that you later realize isn’t the perfect fit. It’s these experiences that have helped me to learn, grow, and pursue other things more suited for my strengths and desires.

They say you know you’ve found your purpose when you find the thing that, even as Oprah says, “you would do for nothing.” But will we all find that thing?

It turns out that what we are supposed to do, and our purpose can be two entirely different things. What you’re supposed to do, that, according to Merriam-Webster, is simply something you lay down tentatively as a hypothesis. Your purpose though, that is defined as “an end to be obtained.”

Until you find your purpose, you’re left with nothing but what you suppose you should do. The only dilemma then is you have no end to march towards. So, how are we supposed to find our purpose?

Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why, shares his perspective from the TEDx stage:

It turns out, according to Sinek, inspiring action all starts with sharing your vision and beliefs. So is finding your purpose just as simple as articulating your beliefs?

What is your career purpose? How did you discover it?

Leave a comment below.

Buying the Best Tools for Remote Workers

Shifting from working in a co-located office to working from home is a liberating and alienating experience. You quickly learn that limitations of the traditional office are non-existent and then much later that you’re the office manager, IT support, caterer, and receptionist.

As a technology enthusiast, one of the first changes that I embraced was the ability to choose which tools I wanted to work with. However, this comes with a catch: the upgrades would come out of my own pocket.

Not wanting to be constrained to a laptop display and a boring mediocre external display, I sought out the most capable, well designed, and high fidelity monitor I could find. For my keyboard and mouse, nothing less than ideal would suffice, so there too, I sought out the best of the best.

“The best investment is in the tools of ones own trade.”

Benjamin Franklin

While these tools may be seen merely as objects, and my pursuit of them as unnecessary consumerism, I instead saw them as a reflection of the value of my work and myself. I believe we are all worth more than a $20 keyboard and mouse combo. I believe we should have a monitor with enough real-estate and pixel density to help us do our work fluidly. I believe we should have a listening experience that helps us tune out the distractions and achieve flow. I believe we’re worth the investment of premium technology to do wonderful work.

Because of those beliefs, I invested in myself and I’m so glad I did. Now when I sit (or stand) at my beautiful desk in my ergonomic chair, or my thoughtfully chosen area rug, my hands flow across a beautifully designed and delightful to use keyboard built for creators. My right hand drapes over a precise and ergonomically designed powerful mouse. My eyes soak in pixels saturated with color from a curved display. My ears are enveloped in rich bass and my desk is clear of clutter due to the built in USB-C dock and port replicator in my monitor.

I’m not wealthy and my work didn’t reimburse me, but these were investments that have empowered me to do my best work and feel more value and confidence each day that I tackle a new project or stakeholder. I saw value in myself and my work, and knew that I also needed to assign value to the tools that help me do that.

Just as a chef needs a sharp knife, an artist the finest paints, a knowledge worker should value the tools and technology that will lead them to their best work.

What tools do you use in your office on the goal that help you to be successful? Leave a comment below.

Here’s what I bought:

HP ENVY 34 34-inch Monitor

$899

Logitech Craft Keyboard

$199

Logitech MX Master Mouse

$99

QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones II

$249

Pottery Barn Pittsburgh Crank Standing Desk

$799

Steelcase Think Chair

Gift

Microsoft Lifecam Studio

$59

How to be productive while you’re sick.

There’s nothing fun about having a cold, and certainly nothing funny about the flu. But sometimes these things happen while you’re in the middle of a busy time at work. Despite your best planning, nature can hand you an unsuspected surprise at what seems to be the worst time.

Toward the end of last week, I started feeling low on energy as I went through the day. I wasn’t sleeping well and woke up feeling fatigued. It was hard to concentrate during meetings and impossible to find energy, motivation, or focus to dig into complicated projects. I was getting sick.

On Saturday morning I woke up optimistic that a trip to grocery store would start the day right. It felt great getting showered and heading out the door, but by the time I returned home an hour later, I was completely devoid of energy.

For the remainder of that day and all day Sunday I stayed in bed. No laptop, no work e-mail, just rest. Each morning, I awoke feeling a little bit better. By Monday, I was able to stomach some breakfast, attend a few calls, catch up on e-mail and update some pressing files, but I wasn’t able to be much more proactive, and didn’t try. That night I hit the hay as early as I could.

The next day I woke up refreshed, clear-minded, and mostly recovered from my debilitating weekend. Total recovery time? 4-5 days.

Sure, I could have “plowed through” and sniffled and groaned through a few more slides or notes. I could have stayed up later, woken up earlier, but to what end? My recovery time could have easily doubled.

So, how do I stay productive when I’m not feeling well? I don’t.

When I’m sick and out of energy, my body is telling me it needs the time to do what it only it can do: recover. That’s not something that can be sped up, hacked, or improved. It’s just a process that takes time, and the sooner I yield to it, and the more time I allow for it to happen, the sooner everything comes back to 100%. Then, and only then, can I come back and be 100% me and 100% productive.

Reaching New Heights

I didn’t plan on climbing the wall at at The St. James during our recent team off-site meeting in Northern Virginia. However, after many of our team members had climbed up and down several times, my Vice President yelled out, “Hey Peter, you’re up!”

Now, a hardworking new father in my mid-thirties, physical fitness had not been my primary focus for 2019. Alas, I had been challenged in front of a group of peers to do something that others had jumped the at the chance to do, some more successful than others.

My hands quickly sweat, my heart raced, and the apprehension of failure pumped adrenaline through my veins. My fight or flight had been activated, and I had nowhere to go but up.

It had been 20 years since the last time I climbed a wall, and the only advice I remembered from that boy scout retreat was “use your legs, not your hands.” Armed with only that advice and 30 of my closest leaders and colleagues standing behind me, I strapped into my harness and took my first step. I glanced up and down, quickly finding my next foot and hand hold. With each move forward, I analyzed which foothold would give me the most upside, worrying not where I’d hold my hand next, but how I would allow my legs to propel me up the wall.

In less than a few minutes, I had ascended to the top of the 40 foot wall with nowhere to go but down. From here, it was a leap of faith and a lot of slamming into the wall as I awkwardly twisted and repelled down like a flopping fish tired after a long fight with a talented fisherman.

According to Newton’s law of universal gravitation, every mass attracts every other mass in the universe. Therefore, if my fears weren’t strong enough to pull me down, there must be something much greater that I’m reaching for.

On Trying Something New

Today I played my first game of racquetball with my friend Alan. Neither of us had ever played, but after a few views of videos on YouTube, and reading the rules, we thought we’d give it a try. We had no idea what we were doing, but we had so much fun doing it, we might just try it again.

Streaming Providers Need a Holiday Music Toggle

Whether you prefer Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, or otherwise, the frequency in which you listen to songs and the actions you take to identify what you like drive what these services recommend for you in the future. When it comes to selecting genres of music, particular styles, or artists, this can come in real handy though algorithmic recommendations. No longer must you rely on the programming director of your local terrestrial radio station. Now, your music is curated to match your tastes and preferences.

While it’s great to have a computer suggest, or automatically play next, there is one type of music that can really throw you off your groove: out-of-season holiday music.

If you’ve ever been jamming along to Empire of the Sun in mid-January, only to be bombarded by Mannheim Steamroller, you know what I mean. Immediately, you feel regret for every “liking” that song, or even placing it on your “Holiday Playlist.” This morning, I learned that a friend refuses to play holiday music from his personal account to prevent this very scenario from unfolding.

Like other music, though, we do have preferences. Brian Setzer’s Christmas Spectacular may not be for everyone, and others may not be into Wrapping Paper by the Waitresses. We have preferences for our music during the holidays, just as we do during other times of the year. So, these algorithms for suggested programming should be helpful then, too. But what about in the off-season, the other 10 months of the year?

To solve this, I propose that all digital music contain a binary filter in its meta data: “Holiday Music.” This will allow listeners to toggle between “Holiday Only, No Holiday, and Some Holiday” as the wish, confident that Lizzo won’t interrupt their Christmas cocktail party, and Nat King Cole won’t crash their beech vibe the following spring.

What do you think? Does holiday music ever invade your music queue at the wrong time of the year? How do you cope? Leave a comment below.

Making Your Bed in the Morning

My older brother once taught me this well before Admiral McRaven published his book. It may not be the most glamorous task of the day, but this one habit ensures one thing: no matter how bad your day, you will always have something to look forward to at the end.

Blowing the Dust off of the Blog

So much has changed since my last public entry here over a year ago, and even then, I was interrupting a long hiatus, or drought of content.

It’s now 2020 and the abundance of platforms for sharing photos, thoughts, and articles makes it difficult to focus on something so distant from the masses. However, as we are overwhelmed by these diversions and distractions, I think we are finding their value diminishing, and instead the value of long form, focused content, from people we admire and trust to be worth so much more than clickbait and cat GIFs. Although, perhaps that is just an idealistic assumption.

For the last few days I have been reflecting on the path of my career and how my recent advancement in education will propel me through this new decade. As a newly minted MBA, I feel that I owe it to myself to somehow apply these knowledge and skills in a way that will benefit me and whatever team or organization that I support. While I continue to grow in my strategic planning role, I’m curious what lies ahead and how I can best prepare myself for the next time I am met with an opportunity.

Tonight, inspired by our VP who committed to blogging at least once a year, my goal was to clean up this site, install an SSL certificate, and post something to show that I am still committed to this medium.

Perhaps, in the following posts I’ll update readers on my experience completing my MBA, growing at work, building a house, and starting a family. It’s been a crazy, but rewarding couple of years and there’s a lot that I’ve learned that I’m excited to share in hopes that it may be relatable or helpful to even one person reading this. Until next time…

“People come in and out of our lives, and the true test of friendship is whether you can pick back up right where you left off the last time you saw each other.”

Lisa See

My Latest Collaboration with Microsoft

Last year I was asked by the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals to share my best practices in using Microsoft Teams to effectively collaborate with other sellers to win business and respond to customers more quickly. Here’s the video that they produced:

A Year Without Blogging

2017 was an incredible year for me. During this time, earned an incredible promotion, bought my first home, partnered with Microsoft for my first commercial, and finally graduated with a degree in Marketing Management.

While I spent this time focused on so many other things, I really missed the opportunity to share through long-formed posts. Now that I’ve accomplished many of the goals that I set out to achieve, I hope I can find time to come back here and share some of those stories in the hope that they might inspire others.