Something wise(-ish)
Years ago, at a conference, I met a borderline obese doctor who smoked a pack a day. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. But there he was, hitting the buffet hard and puffing on Camels between talks.
Since then, I’ve met unstable therapists, undisciplined coaches and uncreative copywriters. People who, in a variety of ways, didn’t live up to the substance or spirit of their professions.
And it always bugs me.
Whatever field you’re in, whatever you devote yourself to, whatever you want to succeed at — you gotta walk the walk.
You have to live up to the basic standards of your profession.
You have to be in a meaningful relationship with the subject of your work.
You have to be a model for your clients/patients/customers.
Obviously, this is about credibility.
You wouldn’t trust a coach who doesn’t live and breathe their sport, a therapist who isn’t interested in their own mind or a writer who doesn’t love words.
But it’s also a question of integrity.
How can you successfully treat/guide/deliver for other people if you aren’t truly committed to the principles of your profession?
In my view, you can’t.
Does that mean you need to be “perfect” (whatever that means)?
Of course not.
We’re all allowed to have challenges, limitations, shifting feelings about our work.
This isn’t about being a perfect model in every single way.
This is about having a sincere and consistent connection to the work.
This is about maintaining a certain baseline of functioning.
This is about celebrating the joy and benefits of your chosen field.
When I think about that doctor now, I see a guy who was flagrantly disregarding the science he spent years mastering and failing to enjoy all the benefits of modern medicine.
I also see a guy who might’ve been using medicine to justify his poor choices — who probably felt immune to the consequences because he was a doctor.
Which reminds me of something that came up on Feedback Friday recently.
You have to make sure that you’re not engaging with your profession in a way that allows you to avoid doing your own work.
It’s tempting to pursue certain careers to sidestep difficult but necessary work in your own life.
By being close to that work in other people — and sometimes even projecting certain aspects of ourselves onto them — you can enjoy a false sense of achievement and gratification.
It’s a way to be part of the process without really being in the process.
That’s how a medical doctor justifies trashing their body, how a management consultant avoids being responsible for a company’s results, how a copywriter neglects the great novel sitting on their bedside table (or, more tragically, the one half-written on their hard drive).
It’s perfectly fine to be called to your profession by these interests/conflicts/struggles. That’s beautiful.
The pitfall is in using your profession to avoid them. That’s where things get tricky.
And if you’re interested in hearing how this idea played out in a listener’s life…
Check out episode #1179, where we took a question from a military service member who was being blocked from becoming a military chaplain due to his own mental-health struggles.
In our response, we explored how ministering to other people might’ve been a way to avoid taking good care of himself. And how pursuing a calling for complicated reasons can become a form of “vocational therapy.”
I would also check out episode #1196, where we talked about the difference between pursuing vocational therapy and pursuing a field because you have a personal connection to it.
These two letters offered a fascinating glimpse into very different relationships with the work. They reminded me how important it is to walk the walk, and to have a good handle on our reasons for doing what we do.
As always, the key to avoiding these pitfalls is cultivating as much awareness and intention as possible.
Have you found this principle to be true in your world? Struggling to make use of it?
Hit reply and tell me about it. I’m all ears!
On the show this past week
1204: Chris Dalby | The Criminal Infrastructure Beneath Modern Sports
1205: Minor Accusation Major Threat to Reputation | Feedback Friday
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