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

a religious sense, as in a call to the priesthood. And for
centuries, people thought of it as just that—something
reserved for an elite group of people, for those special few
who were lucky enough to be called.
But what if that isn’t true? What if a calling is something
everyone has?
In this book, I will try to recapture that ancient
understanding of vocation as something more than a job.
Through stories of everyday people, I will argue that much
of what we think about calling, if we think about it at all, is
wrong. The way to meaningful work doesn’t always look
like a carefully crafted plan. Sometimes the route to our
purpose is a chaotic experience, and how we respond
matters more than what happens to us.
Each chapter tells a different person’s story, illustrating a
major concept—one of seven stages of a calling. And
although the stories differ, they all share one similarity: each
person was in some way surprised by what he or she found.
This, I think, is a story we don’t hear enough of today—one
that just might help us understand our own personal
journeys better. And where do we see this more than in the
story of a five-year-old boy who beat brain cancer and went
on to race in a triathlon?
In his eighteen years of life, Garrett Rush-Miller has
completed a half Ironman, climbed Machu Picchu, and
earned the rank of Eagle Scout. When he’s not at school or
working at the local climbing gym, he spends his free time
volunteering with Wounded Warriors, a charity that supports