sound bite or to confuse the hell out of people.
Now my answer to “What do you do?” is, “How much time do you have?”
Most of us have complicated answers to this question. For example, I’m a mom, partner,
researcher, writer, storyteller, sister, friend, daughter, and teacher. All of these things make up who I
am, so I never know how to answer that question. And, to be honest with you, I’m tired of choosing to
make it easier on the person who asked.
In 2009, I met Marci Alboher, an author/speaker/coach. If you’re wondering what’s up with the
slashes, I think they’re very appropriate as Marci is the author of One Person/Multiple Careers: A
New Model for Work/Life Success.^1
Alboher interviewed hundreds of people pursuing multiple careers simultaneously and discovered
how slash careers—researcher/storyteller, artist/real estate agent—integrate and fully express the
multiple passions, talents, and interests that a single career cannot accommodate. Marci’s book is full
of stories about people who have created meaningful work by refusing to be defined by a single
career. Examples include a longshoreman/documentary filmmaker, a management consultant/
cartoonist, a lawyer/chef, a rabbi/stand-up comic, a surgeon/playwright, an investment
manager/rapper, and a therapist/violin maker.
I wanted to share the idea of the slash effect with you because in the blogging, art, and writing
world, I meet so many people who are afraid to claim their work. For example, I recently met a
woman at a social media conference who is an accountant/jeweler. I was excited to meet her, because I
had bought a beautiful pair of earrings from her online. When I asked her how long she had been a
jeweler, she blushed and said, “I wish. I’m a CPA. I’m not a real jeweler.”
I thought to myself, I’m wearing your earrings right now, not your abacus. When I pointed to my
ears and said, “Of course you’re a jewelry maker!” she just smiled and replied, “I don’t make very
much money doing that. I just do it because I love it.” As ludicrous as that sounded to me, I get it. I
hate calling myself a writer because it doesn’t feel legitimate to me. I’m not writer enough.
Overcoming self-doubt is all about believing we’re enough and letting go of what the world says
we’re supposed to be and supposed to call ourselves.
Every semester I share this quote by theologian Howard Thurman with my graduate students. It’s
always been one of my favorites, but now that I’ve studied the importance of meaningful work, it’s
taken on new significance: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go
do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
DIG DeepGet Deliberate: It can take some time to figure out how to get deliberate about doing meaningful
work. I finally got very specific and wrote down my own criteria for “meaningful.” Right now, just
for me, I want my work to be inspiring, contemplative, and creative. I’m using these as a filter to
make decisions about what I do/what I commit to/how I spend my time.
Get Inspired: I highly recommend Marci Alboher’s One Person/ Multiple Careers. It includes lots of
practical strategies for living the slash. Malcom Gladwell is also a constant source of inspiration for
me. In his book Outliers, Gladwell proposes that there are three criteria for meaningful work—
complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward—and that these can often be
found in creative work.^2 These criteria absolutely fit with what cultivating meaningful work means in
the context of the Wholehearted journey. Last, I think everyone should read Paulo Coelho’s The