Blog from the "Ask Mark Series"
THE QUESTION
"Mark, I don't like my job, but I don't hate it either. Should I really stay just to make money?"
MARK'S ANSWER
I thought about this one for a long time and I would answer it like this:
BE A PROFESSIONAL
Stay at this job for now -- especially if you are financially dependent on it. There is no benefit in rage-quitting, and absolutely NO reason to be rash and jeopardize your credit score and fiscal standing. Be a professional and continue to do your very best work. You may not love the job you have, but your co-workers and the business owner is still depending on you to do the job they're paying you for. It's your responsibility to continue to your job well, and it doesn't matter that this isn't your "dream job".
- BUT START LOOKING
Now, you also have to listen to your heart, and if this work doesn't give you passion and excitement to show up every day, you should start listening and looking for a new role.
My suggestion: Take a good amount of time and really be honest with yourself and answer this simple question:
"What's a job you'd be happy to do on a Saturday night?".
Don't misunderstand, I am NOT saying a job that simply requires you to work weekends. What I'm saying is, if you had to work on a Saturday night, what kind of work would you be happy to do?
For me, it took a long time to figure this out, but it turned out to be website work. I just simply love it.
- The creativity involved
- The speed of change
- The technical aspects
- The visuals
I can literally do website work on any Saturday night -- and I fricken love it.
Here's why...
FAILING GUITAR CLASS CHANGED MY LIFE
When I was younger all my friends were playing guitar in bands, having a blast. Ross, Richard, Brent (AKA BEEF), Nick, you name them, they played music. So naturally, I wanted in on that as well.
So, I convinced my mom to pay for guitar lessons at Instrumental Music in Thousand Oaks. I went to a few lessons which started out with Tom Dooley songs, but after class, I set the guitar down at home and picked up my computer keyboard and mouse instead -- building a BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) or troubleshooting Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files to get the audio in my PC games to work just right.
Fast forward a few weeks. I walk into guitar class and yet again, and I stumble through the latest song we were expected to learn. After I finish playing (really badly), my teacher pauses, thinks for a moment, and looks me straight in the eye and says:
“You don’t really want to learn guitar do you? You should do something else.”
HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT (OUCH)
I couldn't believe what he said. Not that he was wrong, or because he was so direct about it -- but because he was right, and I knew what he really meant. I left class that day and really thought about what he said.
I eventually realized that my passion, my real passion, was in technology, computers, software and hardware. So, I asked my mom to cancel guitar class, and I decided to focus my time on that. Computers.
FROM THAT POINT ON
After that happened, I really stopped wasting time on things that I wasn't passionate about. Meaning, all my jobs were computer related in some way. All my free time was spent building and repairing computers. I even created my own PC repair company – “PC Relief” – my first entrepreneurial endeavor. I have the original business card around here somewhere.
All this to say, sometimes clarity can come in unexpected forms like an Instrumental Music Guitar teacher. I wish I still remembered his name, I would thank him for nudging me onto a very different (and correct) path in life.
So yeah, failing guitar class changed my life.
Love. What. You. Do
-M
