Category / work

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reform, or better ways of learning and teaching, or how to truly prepare others for the real world outside of an outdated, industrialized classroom, I feel called to contribute.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

Take the pressure off

Seth Godin said something in his podcast “Pizza & Sushi, Joy and Mediocrity” that really resonated with me today. One of the listeners asked him a question about whether he should find a job while he pursues his art or just dive straight into creating. I’m paraphrasing his answer here, but in essence his response was that sometimes less-than-ideal work allows you to create your art unhindered.

Let’s think about this for a moment: what if the only source of income, of survival that you had was your reliance on producing your art, of developing your craft? How much pressure would that put on your shoulders? How stressful would your art, that thing you love to do so much, become if it was the only difference between feeding your family and going to bed hungry? How generous and authentic would your art be if it was the only thing keeping you from losing your home?

There are plenty of creatives that I know who would be just fine eating beans and rice and living in a van. For some of them, that is the life. But for me, with debt to pay off, a roof to keep overhead, and a wife who leans on me (and I on her) for financial support, it is too much stress.

So get a job.

Do something, anything, to keep the wolf away from the door. Drive for Uber or Lyft; deliver pizzas; wait tables; work in retail. It will not be glamorous, and it might be boring and tedious to the creative mind. But it isn’t forever, especially if you start down a path to your dream job.

If you can take the financial burden off of your art, whether it is visual art, speaking, music, theater, or writing, it will be that much easier for you to produce meaningful work. You’ll also learn a lot of useful skills you might not otherwise gain working on your art, such as leadership, communication, planning, business skills, and countless others. You also will make a lot of contacts with other people who might someday benefit from your art.

More than anything else, you’ll worry less about survival and focus more on creating and making the world a better place for us all to live.

Again, I am not advocating working in something you don’t want to do forever; I certainly don’t plan on doing that. So get to work, make some money, and make your art without worrying about where your next meal will come from.

If you would like to start down the path to your dream job or start your own business, I recommend going through the 48 Days to the Work You Love Seminar and joining the 48 Days Eagles group, a community of creative, like-minded individuals supporting each other in finding and creating work that is meaningful, purposeful, and profitable.