The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do

put away where they belonged. There was a familiar order
to the place, a pattern that felt like home. They were modest
people, but you could tell they took great pride in what they
had, especially Christine.
Life was tough for them, no question about it. In the past
year, the couple had lost twin baby boys, a wound they
were still healing from. Their son, Augustine, was deaf, and
they didn’t have access to opportunities like specialized
schooling that would certainly make life easier.
Sam was born to a poor farming family in Lira, Uganda,
which is located in the northern part of the country where a
civil war ravaged the land for two decades. Despite his
parents’ limited means, they gave him a plot of land on
which he began farming and raising his family. “It’s rare to
see a man stay after the kids come,” one of the trip leaders
told me. Men in that culture tend to leave once children
come into the picture, but Sam was not that kind of man.
After we visited with the family for a while, Sam showed
me a small shop on the side of a nearby road, where he sold
small items like bags of cooking oil and matches.
I promptly peppered him with questions: “How much do
you make off of each item? What’s your profit margin?
When can you order new inventory?”
He knew all the answers.
I even asked if he had a goal of how much money he
wanted to make. This, I’ve learned, is a question most
people don’t know the answer to, and one that leads to true
success. You have to have a goal, to know where you’re