Economy of Experience

Living in the business world has opened my eyes to generational differences. I feel that I sit in the middle of the gap between “old school” and “new school”. One difference of significance I see is that while the older generation feels good simply having a dependable job and feels satisfaction working hard to support their family, the new crop of professionals put more value and want into feeling good about the type of work they are doing and being recognized for their contributions.

Okay, maybe I fall closer to the “new school” of thought. I definitely want to see people happy at work, and hopefully finding a sense of purpose. That certainly isn’t easy, and that’s a big reason people do not stay at the same job for a career any longer. We’re either looking for something that fills our need for purpose or passion in our job, or what we thought was our passion has changed so we need to change our direction. One recommendation I have for everyone is to always follow their passion. Live your life so that when you look back you can smile because you tried. You never quit trying to live your dreams.

I recently finished a book by Richard Y. Chang called The Passion Plan. While I can understand both the “old” and the “new” perspectives, this book touched on something else that makes a whole lot of sense. Let me know what you think…

“Because we have so little time for ourselves we have come to value economy of experience. In other words we want to make the most of our time because we have so little of it. This doesn’t mean that we’re not subject to bouts of television-induced vegetation, but we do seek to be judicious in juggling our limited amounts of this precious commodity between the gym, the office, and living room. If we’re going to make the effort to get to the gym, we’d better put in a good workout. If we’re going to burn the midnight oil to complete a project on time, we’d better be recognized for our work. If we’re going to read a book, it had better be a good one.” (Chang)

Spend your time wisely my friends. Enjoy life.

Coach Randal Suozzo, CPC, ELI-MP