The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do

by Jeff Goins

Many are called, but few are chosen.

Awareness Apprenticeship Practice Discovery Profession Mastery Legacy

You don’t “just know” what your calling is. You must listen for clues along the way, discovering what your life can tell you. Awareness comes with practice.

Frankl learned there are three things that give meaning to life: first, a project; second, a significant relationship; and third, a redemptive view of suffering.

What we all want is to know our time on earth has meant something. We can distract ourselves with pleasure for only so long before beginning to wonder what the point is. This means if we want true satisfaction, we have to rise above the pettiness of our own desires and do what is required of us. A calling comes when we embrace the pain, not avoid it.

Most people waste the best years of their life waiting for an adventure to come to them instead of going out and finding one.

A calling is what you have when you look back at your life and make sense of what it’s been trying to teach you all along.

Our ears can only take us so far before our hands have to do the rest of the work.

Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.

Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Western Europe. The reason for this is its “dual system,” which involves young adults enrolling in vocational schools that allow them to split their time between study and work.

“Leap, and the net will appear”

Always do more than is required of you.

“Talent means nothing like what we think it means, if indeed it means anything at all.”5 Citing

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

“eminent performance,” when a person goes “beyond the knowledge of their teachers to make a unique innovative contribution to their domain.”

Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get.

The epiphany was not enough.

Go big or go home,

determination led to wisdom. They

The path to your dream is more about following a direction than arriving at a destination.

Stop talking and start doing. Don’t

The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.