Category / vocation

by Nathan Coumbe

Stop telling people to avoid the arts

How many of us have told someone that she should choose a real major, one that is applicable in today’s job market, rather than pursue something creative like art, music, or literature?

(RAISES HAND)

Why do we do this? It is well-meaning enough, I suppose: we don’t want them to struggle financially, we don’t want them to fail, we don’t want them to get hurt because it is so hard to live as an artist…

Let’s just stop, shall we?

What if the person to whom you gave this advice is actually quite talented as a writer? What if she has spent so much of her free time drawing, painting, and sculpting that she has become a fantastic artist? Do you really feel comfortable telling her that she should go get her MBA, work in middle management, collect her benefits, get the 401(k) match, and just worry about “all that artsy stuff” in her off hours, because she can’t make real money in the arts? Why is that good advice (especially when that last claim is bogus)?

Handle Money. Fail often.

Why don’t we teach her instead? Let’s make sure that we are teaching our children how to handle their finances, how to live on a budget, spend less than they make, save money, make money, and how to avoid debt at all cost (this is the real reason so many of us starve these days). We should most definitely teach her not to go $100,000 in student loan debt for her MFA in painting, but that does not mean we should tell her not to pursue her passion – those are not the same thing.

At the same time, we should also be teaching her to fail and fail often. Have her start trying to sell her art online. That doesn’t work? Should we tell her that she should quit and go get a real job? No! You don’t tell a child to stop trying to ride a bike because she fell off and scraped her knee; you tell her to get up and encourage her to try again.

Do the same thing with your creative child or friend. Encourage her start teaching other people what it is that she knows. She can make online videos of her work so that others can see it and her ideas will spread. Find whatever avenue works for her.

Encourage

There has never been a better time to be an artist than today – the market is wide open, the possibilities are limitless. You can be an artist in anything at which you are talented; it does not have to be a traditional “art”. Let’s focus on teaching our family and friends the right skills they need to survive and thrive – let’s teach creativity, leadership, personal finance, marketing and storytelling. Then let’s send them forth to pursue that which they most truly enjoy.

If we can teach them to handle money well, and to learn and grow from failure, they will all be fine.

We will all be just fine.

by Nathan Coumbe

Leave a legacy

What calls you? What pull do you feel in the pit of your stomach when you think about it? What is that something that fires you up, fills you with passion, excites you at the thought of contributing?

“You vocation will leave a legacy.”

– Dan Miller, 48 Days to the Work You Love

Vocation, career, and job are three different things, and vocation is the one on which you must focus first. Your vocation, your calling – that is what will leave its impact on the world.

I have been gifted with an insatiable curiosity all my life which has made me the consummate student, and the best teachers are always lifelong students. My calling, the pull I feel in my stomach, is to leave the world a better, more informed, more educated, and more beautiful place because of the knowledge and wisdom I hope to impart to others. Whenever someone talks about educational reform, or better ways of learning and teaching, or how to truly prepare others for the real world outside of an outdated, industrialized classroom, I feel called to contribute.

You see now that this calling can cover a variety of different careers: teacher, coach, politician, entrepreneur, musician, artist, writer. So many different titles could fulfill this calling as long as I use that career to leave the legacy for which I am striving.

So today, sit for a few minutes and listen to what your life has to say to you and about you. Recognize those moments when you feel truly inspired and truly tuned in to something going on around you or something to which you are listening. Ask yourself what you want to be remembered for when you are gone from the world.

What legacy do you wish to leave?

by Nathan Coumbe

Don’t bury the gift

My inspirational reading this morning as well as the podcast to which I was listening on the way to the gym both spoke about gifts and talents. All of us have at least one; mine happens to be music. I started taking violin lessons when I was 7 years old and caught on very quickly. Throughout my entire musical career, things related to music came naturally to me, whether it was music theory, the history of music, or picking up new instruments and quickly learning how to play them.

Then I auditioned for college – it was in that audition that I realized natural talent would only carry me so far. As a child and young adult, I rarely practiced – it all came so easily to me, I didn’t feel like I needed to do so. Halfway through my college education, I realized how much I really did have to learn and talent wouldn’t carry me any farther without disciplined, dedicated practice and lots of sacrifice.

I quit.

I suppose it was fear – something which came so easily to me was suddenly difficult, it was work, it took time to develop.

I buried my gift.

For a couple of years, music was absent from my life – I neither played nor listened to music. I shut it off.

Nurture yours

After a lot of reading, listening, thinking, and rewiring, I realized that I had been gifted with an affinity for music and had to nurture it in some way. I was no better than anyone else, and certainly much worse than others, it was something that simply came naturally to me and needed to be developed (imagine how much further along I would have been had I taken the raw talent when younger and practiced). But I finished my music degree and brought music back into my life.

You have a gift.

There is at least one thing that comes easily to you. Some people may tell you that it isn’t a talent or a gift, but I say it is. Perhaps it isn’t an obvious one, or a gift over which others ooooh and aaaahhhh. Maybe you speak very well, or understand electrical systems, or the inner workings of cars, or have a deft hand at puppetry! It doesn’t matter – if you have an natural inclination towards something, develop it.

Do something with it. Get better. It may not bring you money or riches, but nurture it anyway. Practice the one thing (or more than one thing) at which you were uniquely gifted, however seemingly big or small the talent.

Get better at it. Develop your gift, and when it gets difficult, keep going.

Don’t quit.

by Nathan Coumbe

What would you do all day?

If you had all the money in the world, or if money was not an issue, what would do all day?

Cats on stacks on stacks!

In the search for a meaningful career, most everyone has been asked the question, “What would you do if money was not a factor in your decision?” I have been wrestling with that question ever since I had to declare a major in college. 

For the past year, I have been struggling not to define a career, but to understand my vocation, my calling in life. This question was one I asked of myself over and over again, with rather disappointing results. The answers are always the same: read books, learn new skills such as jiu-jitsu or computer programming, study history, play music, increase my education, spend time exercising…countless other hobbies and passions could be added to this list, so I will not bore you with them. The problem I have with that question is that money is a factor in this sort of decision, so I have never really been able to take money out of the equation. 

This idea took on new life for me when somebody added a twist to the question. A friend of mine named Lindsey Strahan, who is a fantastic artist and up-and-coming graphic designer, had this same discussion with me. However, she added something to the question: if money was not an issue, what would you do all day long to help other people? The moment that she asked the question a switch flipped in my brain. 

Serving other people is what a person does with his or her calling; we cannot work or exist in a vacuum without others. We live in an interdependent world, to take a word from Dr. Stephen R. Covey and his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Therefore, our callings, and by extension our careers and jobs, must serve other people in some way. I am not saying that we must all be involved in customer service, but to be viable in the market, our ideas and passions must help another person. 

With that in mind, I started brainstorming about what I would do all day. I realized that while on the surface all of the ideas I listed above seemed unrelated, they had a common thread weaving through them: I would spend all day learning and researching new things, new ideas, and new passions. My DISC personality profile, my StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment, and every other aptitude or personality test I had ever taken all become much clearer. I already knew my strengths, and I have always known my passions, and so I had a clearer answer than I had ever had before: I am called to be a fountain of knowledge for other people. 

This simple statement could be satisfied by so many different careers – I could be a teacher, a professor, a researcher, a librarian, an information broker, a consultant for people who need to learn how to combine this skill with that area…the possibilities are seemingly endless. There is no need to be tied down by a specific job title or role. I now know “who I want to be” instead of “what I want to be,” an idea presented to me in Dan Miller’s 48 Days to the Work You Love. Now I can make decisions on how I will make money based on my newly refined idea of my own vocation.

I hope that my struggle to answer this seemingly easy question will help others to find their vocation. So I will pose the same question to you, the reader: if money were not an issue, what would you spend your time doing to help other people? Think on that, write it down, and please feel free to let me know. I would love to hear what you’re called to do in this world. 

Until next time, keep digging!

P.S. If you would like more help finding your calling, I highly recommend Dan Miller’s book 48 Days to the Work You Love as further reading. One of my college professors referred it to me, and it has radically changed my life! It’s one of the best things I have ever purchased. Also, I really encourage all of you to follow Lindsey Strahan on Instagram @very.lindsey. She is a great artist and a wonderful friend. You will love her work!