Are You Allowing Yourself to Be Defined by Your Job?

Are you letting yourself be defined by your job, and if so, why? The first question most people tend to ask you when they meet you in a social situation, after asking your name perhaps, is “So, what do you do?”

Where does this come from, I wondered? Perhaps it’s a throwback to a bygone era when people chose an occupation and stuck with it until they were pensioned off with the proverbial gold watch.

In today’s modern world though, occupations are fluid. It’s almost gone to the other extreme in that if you were hiring an employee today and you found that their CV showed only one previous job, you’d be a bit suspicious and think, ‘What’s wrong with this person? Why have they only done one thing?’

Don’t get me wrong here, if someone has found their true vocation and stuck with it because it brings them joy, I say ‘Fair play to them’. One of my schoolmates, Steve knew at the age of about eleven that he wanted to be an airline pilot just like his dad and he stuck with that dream. When the airline cancelled the training and admission course he was booked onto, he didn’t give up. He took the long route and started by building up his flying hours as an Assistant Flying Instructor in the UK. He came back to Jersey and landed a great job (excuse the dad joke pun there!) as the Chief Flying Instructor at our local Aero Club. That led to a job as a First Officer with a small airline, then a Captaincy, a bigger airline job, and ultimately, last I heard, he was a British Airways jumbo jet Captain. He followed his dream, aimed for the sky (another pun, sorry, not sorry) and soared like an eagle (Ok, I’ll stop now!).

My Dilemma – How to Answer

When people ask me this question, ‘So, what do you do?’, it always makes me feel uncomfortable to be pigeon-holed and I don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s partly because, at 65 years of age, what I do for a living doesn’t really matter as much – I don’t really need to impress anyone, and it certainly doesn’t define me or encapsulate who I am, but I understand that it’s an innocent icebreaker.

Just for giggles, when I awoke the other night and couldn’t sleep, I made a list of the things I’ve done in my life to ‘earn a crust’. Some might say that I can’t hold down a job, and that has become true, because I don’t need or want to be limited by just one job. And I’m not claiming to be a special case here. As I said, the world has changed and people are now expanding their options and exploring different possibilities about what they do enjoy and what they don’t enjoy doing for a job.

That said, whatever I have done in life, I have always endeavoured to follow my father’s guiding principle that ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.’

I paraphrased his quote for the title of my second book: ‘If Life’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing Well’.

My History of Jobs

Just for fun, here’s my jobs list for illustration purposes, and please skip past it, if it’s not of interest. I’ll explain the point afterwards:

School Job – Junior Sales Assistant (supermarkets, various departments);

Family Business Growing Up – Hotel Barman; Trainee Hotel Manager; Deputy Hotel Manager; Hotel Maintenance Assistant (All in family business from childhood);

College Holiday Jobs – Painter and Decorator; Potato Planter; Gardener; Aircraft Cleaner; Casual Rental Car Detailer;

Adult Jobs in Jersey – Trainee Supermarket Manager (all departments); Deputy Supermarket Manager (3 promotions in 6);

Sponsored Migration to Australia – Retail Management Jobs – Trainee Department Store Manager; Department Store Area Sales Manager (2 promotions in 2½ years);

Settled in Australia Jobs- Semi-franchise Toys Supermarket Manager /Licensee; Financial Planner / Insurance Agent; Life Insurance Agent (2 companies); Sales Manager / Deputy Store Manager – Department Stores (different company & promoted within 2 years);

Temporary & Side-Hustle Jobs – Casual Cleaner; Telemarketer; MLM Business Owner; Leaflet Delivery Person; Strata Building Chairman (3 buildings) & Caretaker;

Back to Retail Management Jobs – Reject Store Manager & Store Manager Trainer (2 years);

Travel Jobs – Traveller; Farm Worker;

Back to Retail Management Jobs – Reject Store Manager (same company as before – another year);

Travel Break –Traveller again;

Past Entrepreneurial Businesses – Backpacker Hostel Business Owner /Liquor Licensee (14 Years);  Short Stay Apartments Business Owner (12 years); Adventure Tours & Charters Business Owner & Tour Guide (10 years) ; Car Dealership Principal & Owner (10 years); Car Servicing Business Owner (9 years); Car Rentals Business Owner (10 years); Property & Office Cleaning Business Owner (1 year); Vehicle Towing / Roadside Assistance Business Owner & driver (8 years); Employment Agency Owner (1 year); Office Furniture Removals Business Owner (1 year); Promotions Business Owner (1 year); Loyalty Card Business Owner (2 years); Film Production Business Co-Owner (1 year – produced two documentary films and several adverts).

Present Businesses – Life Coaching Practice and NLP Trainer (2011 to present); Small Business Coaching & Mentoring Practice (2011 to present); Strata Cleaning Business Owner (2009 to present); Live Music Events Business Owner and Musician (2026 to present); Disability Support Carer (19 years); Author (2 books published, third in progress – 2011 to present)

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The Point of All That!

If you were interested enough to plough through that and you’re good at maths, you probably worked out that some of those things overlapped. In fact, I did run small five businesses at once for many years, which is not something that would appeal to a lot of people, but I found it to be immense fun and an adventure at the time. I still do.

I’d like to quote Sir Richard Branson from his autobiography, ‘Losing My Virginity’:

“Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business, and it has been key to everything I’ve done from the outset.”

He also said, in that same book:

“Some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn’t you have fun at work?”

And:

“I don’t think of work as work and play as play. It’s all living.”

So, when people want to pigeon-hole you to understand who you are or to make some kind of judgement about how you fit into society, they need to be aware that your current occupation doesn’t equal your potential value to society.

There are times in life when you may have to take on some temporary work, just to get by or to pay the bills, while you look for the next opportunity that is more in keeping with your other talents.

I once asked a young lady what she did for a living, as we do, and she gave me an answer I absolutely loved, and I’ll never forget. She replied:

“I’m a creative!”

To be honest, I haven’t used it because it feels like I’m being a smart-arse, so I tend to waffle on about being semi-retired, but still having business interests, blah blah, and watch people lose the will to live! (Just kidding). When I was a child, my parents used to say I was a ‘man of many parts’, because I’d be dressed up as a cowboy one day, an Apache Indian the next, or a professional footballer the day after that.

A Quick Example of Judging People by Their Job

When I owned a tow truck business, my main driver had an accident where he fell off the back of the truck and hurt his ankle, thus preventing hm from driving until it healed. We took on one of our enthusiastic backpackers and I trained him while he awaited his driving test for the heavy vehicle license. Unfortunately, he unexpectedly failed the test at the first attempt on a technicality and had to wait another six weeks for the next test booking. Both my mechanic and my car yard manager could also drive the truck, but I needed them more in their other roles, so I found myself stuck being a temporary tow truck driver until he passed that second test.

One day, I attended a major car dealership to collect a broken-down car and take it to a specialist repair shop. The receptionist at the dealership initially ignored me – wearing my steel-capped work boots and my high-visibility vest that was grubby from grovelling under cars to attach a tow hook cable. When she finally deigned to acknowledge the grotty individual before her, and looked down her nose at me, I explained why I had been asked to attend. She called the appropriate person to come to reception but then felt she could no longer ignore me. When I explained that I was the Managing Director of my company, but I was covering for an injured driver, her whole demeanour instantly changed, and she was then gushingly polite to me. I found the change in her attitude, based on her judgement of my appearance, quite amusing, but also quite insightful.

Create Your Own Definition

In summary, my point today is that you can chase your dreams, but you can also be brave and experiment with different directions. Part of why I became a Life Coach was that when I owned my backpackers’ hostel, I’d be having a chat with a young person over a beer in the back yard and helping them figure out what they wanted to do with their life, and I found that not only was I good at it, but I also really enjoyed the interaction with people and being able to help them gain different perspectives and ‘aha moments’. Those backpackers would do almost any job that would help them to stay afloat financially while they continued their travel adventures.

Don’t let anyone put you off following your dreams; don’t let anyone define you by your present occupation – your current job does not limit your potential as a human being; and beware of judging anyone else, solely by what they are doing today.

I hope that’s of some benefit to you, and I’ll catch you on the next blog. Until then, keep chasing those dreams and being of service to other people.

Cheers,

Tony