How to Find Fulfilling Work Quotes

“If the diver always thought of the shark, he would never lay hands on the pearl,’ said Sa’di, a Persian poet from the thirteenth century.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“What is your current work doing to you as a person – to your mind, character and relationships?”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“Without work, all life goes rotten, but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies,’ wrote Albert Camus.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work: The School of Life

“ZORBA: Damn it boss, I like you too much not to say it. You’ve got everything except one thing: madness! A man needs a little madness, or else… BASIL: Or else? ZORBA:…he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“There is one last way to break with your past and begin a new stage of your career journey, which is to take some advice that appears at the end of the 1964 film Zorba the Greek. Zorba, the great lover of life, is sitting on the beach with the repressed and bookish Basil, an Englishman who has come to a tiny Greek island with the hope of setting up a small business. The elaborate cable system that Zorba has designed and built for Basil to bring logs down the mountainside has just collapsed on its very first trial. Their whole entrepreneurial venture is in complete ruins, a failure before it has even begun. And that is the moment when Zorba unveils his philosophy of life to Basil: ZORBA: Damn it boss, I like you too much not to say it. You’ve got everything except one thing: madness! A man needs a little madness, or else… BASIL: Or else? ZORBA:…he never dares cut the rope and be free. Basil then stands up and, completely out of character, asks Zorba to teach him how to dance. The Englishman has finally learned that life is there to be lived with passion, that risks are there to be taken, the day is there to be seized. To do otherwise is a disservice to life itself. Zorba’s words are one of the great messages for the human quest in search of the good life. Most of us live bound by our fears and inhibitions. Yet if we are to move beyond them, if we are to cut the rope and be free, we need to treat life as an experiment and discover the little bit of madness that lies within us all.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“Imaginary Lives Imaginary Lives is a thought experiment I have adapted from two important career-change thinkers, Julia Cameron and John Williams, which aims to take your ideas a stage closer towards specific job options.55 It’s simple but potentially powerful. • Imagine five parallel universes, in each of which you could have a whole year off to pursue absolutely any career you desired. Now think of five different jobs you might want to try out in each of these universes. Be bold in your thinking, have fun with your ideas and your multiple selves. Your five choices might be food photographer, member of parliament, tai chi instructor, social entrepreneur running a youth education project, and wide-achieving Renaissance generalist. One person I know who did this activity – a documentary film maker who was having doubts about her career – listed massage therapist, sculptor, cellist, screen-play writer, and owner of her own bar on a tiny, old-fashioned Canarian island. Now come back down to earth and look hard at your five choices. Write down what it is about them that attracts you. Then look at them again, and think about this question: • How does each career measure up against the two motivations in the previous activity that you chose to prioritize in the future? If you decided, for instance, that you want a combination of making a difference and high status, check whether your five imaginary careers might provide them. The point is to help you think more deeply about exactly what you are looking for in a career, the kind of experiences that you truly desire.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“One other thing. And this really matters for readers of this book. According to official Myers–Briggs documents, the test can ‘give you an insight into what kinds of work you might enjoy and be successful doing’. So if you are, like me, classified as ‘INTJ’ (your dominant traits are being introverted, intuitive and having a preference for thinking and judging), the best-fit occupations include management consultant, IT professional and engineer.30 Would a change to one of these careers make me more fulfilled? Unlikely, according to respected US psychologist David Pittenger, because there is ‘no evidence to show a positive relation between MBTI type and success within an occupation…nor is there any data to suggest that specific types are more satisfied within specific occupations than are other types’. Then why is the MBTI so popular? Its success, he argues, is primarily due to ‘the beguiling nature of the horoscope-like summaries of personality and steady marketing’.31 Personality tests have their uses, even if they do not reveal any scientific ‘truth’ about us. If we are in a state of confusion they can be a great emotional comfort, offering a clear diagnosis of why our current job may not be right, and suggesting others that might suit us better. They also raise interesting hypotheses that aid self-reflection: until I took the MBTI, I had certainly never considered that IT could offer me a bright future (by the way, I apparently have the wrong personality type to be a writer). Yet we should be wary about relying on them as a magic pill that enables us suddenly to hit upon a dream career. That is why wise career counsellors treat such tests with caution, using them as only one of many ways of exploring who you are. Human personality does not neatly reduce into sixteen or any other definitive number of categories: we are far more complex creatures than psychometric tests can ever reveal. And as we will shortly learn, there is compelling evidence that we are much more likely to find fulfilling work by conducting career experiments in the real world than by filling out any number of questionnaires.32”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“the most emotionally corrosive form of regret occurs when we fail to take action on something that matters deeply to us.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“In a culture obsessed with hard work and career success, it can be difficult to wean ourselves off the work ethic. And we may not want to if we are engrossed in a career that is making us feel fully alive. But if we do seek the advantages of a four-day week, and the space to nurture other parts of who we are, then we might be wise to put our hopes in the virtues of simple living,”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work: The School of Life

“The Personal Job Advertisement These two activities are likely to have encouraged some clearer ideas about genuine career possibilities, but you should not assume that you are necessarily the best judge of what might offer you fulfilment. Writing a Personal Job Advertisement allows you to seek the advice of other people. The concept behind this task is the opposite of a standard career search: imagine that newspapers didn’t advertise jobs, but rather advertised people who were looking for jobs. You do it in two steps. First, write a half-page job advertisement that tells the world who you are and what you care about in life. Put down your talents (e.g. you speak Mongolian, can play the bass guitar), your passions (e.g. ikebana, scuba diving), and the core values and causes you believe in (e.g. wildlife preservation, women’s rights). Include your personal qualities (e.g. you are quick-witted, impatient, lacking self-confidence). And record anything else that is important to you – a minimum salary or that you want to work abroad. Make sure you don’t include any particular job you are keen on, or your educational qualifications or career background. Keep it at the level of underlying motivations and interests. Here comes the intriguing part. Make a list of ten people you know from different walks of life and who have a range of careers – maybe a policeman uncle or a cartoonist friend – and email them your Personal Job Advertisement, asking them to recommend two or three careers that might fit with what you have written. Tell them to be specific – for example, not replying ‘you should work with children’ but ‘you should do charity work with street kids in Rio de Janeiro’. You will probably end up with an eclectic list of careers, many of which you would never have thought of yourself. The purpose is not only to give you surprising ideas for future careers, but also to help you see your many possible selves. After doing these three activities, and having explored the various dimensions of meaning, you should feel more confident about making a list of potential careers that offer the promise of meaningful work. What should you do next? Certainly not begin sending out your CV. Rather, as the following chapter explains, the key to finding a fulfilling career is to experiment with these possibilities in that rather frightening place called the real world. It’s time to take a ‘radical sabbatical’.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“Leonardo da Vinci’s adventurous credo, ‘experience will be my mistress’.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“The consequence is that we often become psychologically paralysed, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. We get so worried about regretting making a bad choice that we may end up making no decision at all, and remain frozen in our current unfulfilling career.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be . . . There will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness and dyspepsia.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“Simply by devoting ourselves to work that gives us deep fulfilment through meaning, flow and freedom (though a fourteen-hour day might be overdoing it a little). Over time, a tangible and inspiring goal may quietly germinate, grow larger, and eventually flower into life.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work: The School of Life

“That’s the way it typically happens: although people occasionally have those explosive epiphanies, more commonly a vocation crystallizes slowly, almost without us realizing it.93”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work: The School of Life

“Life is not easy for any of us,’ she said. ‘But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.’91”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work: The School of Life

“• How were the careers you explored different from what you had expected? • Which kind of work did you find yourself talking to people about afterwards with most enthusiasm? • Which best provides the kinds of meaning you’re looking for in a career? The last question is vital, because meaning is the ballast of a fulfilling career. But we should recognize that meaning is not sufficient for human fulfilment: you might use your talents as a sculptor, but nevertheless feel lonely much of the time as you hack away at the stone. Most of us also want to enjoy our jobs on a day-to-day basis. That prompts another question about the jobs you tried: • Which gave you the best ‘flow’ experience?”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“Even small steps such as these can give you an uplifting sense that you are making change and can be catalysts for re-forging your future. No time? Too tired? Worried nobody will want to speak with you? Then allow Goethe to lead the way. He understood the wisdom of acting now, reflecting later: Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“So what will it be? A radical sabbatical, a branching project, or a conversational exploration? The moment has come to lay this book aside and take action. My advice at this point is as follows: • Brainstorm three possible selves, then think of three ways you could ‘act now, and reflect later’ to test each of these selves. Give yourself half an hour right now and get started. Phone an organization that interests you and ask if they take on volunteers. Register a domain name for a business idea you have. Order a prospectus for a training course you could take. Email a wide-achiever friend and ask if you could meet to discuss how they manage it.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work

“The Map of Choices The first, called the Map of Choices, is designed to enable you to reflect on where you’ve come from, before you focus on where you’re going. You start by spending ten minutes drawing a map of your career path so far. It can take any form – a zigzagging line, a branching tree or maybe a labyrinth. On this map you should indicate not only the jobs you have done, but the different motivations and forces that have shaped your route. If a major career decision was influenced by the prospect of more money or status, show it on your map – similarly if you were driven by your talents, passions or values. You should also add other factors that might have guided you, such as the role played by your educational choices, parental expectations, professional career advice or chance. Even if you’ve only ever held one job, try mapping out what drew you into it. Having created your artwork, now spend another ten minutes looking at it and thinking about these three questions. • What does your map reveal about your overall approach to your working life so far? There may be general patterns you can see, such as the way you never stay in a position for more than a couple of years, or that you seem to have fallen into most jobs rather than really choosing them. • Which of the following motivations have you given greatest priority to in your career choices: money, status, respect, passions, talents or making a difference? (rank them from greatest to least priority) • Which two of the motivations mentioned above do you most want to shape your career choices in the future, and why? Make a note of your responses, ready for the next activity.”
― Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work