Love What You Do: Episode 1 (The Lie We've All Been Told)
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Welcome to the love what you do podcast. I'm Kelly Dugan, former HR executive turned career coach and personal brand expert, and I'm here sharing strategies to help you discover your unique value, uncover your personal brand and take action to create a career you love. Let's jump in.
Today, I want to talk about a lie we've all been told.
I know I've been told it, and I've actually believed it at certain points in my career, and I'm willing to bet you have too. Here's that lie. You're never going to love all of what you do. Work is work, and at the end of the day, you just have to suck it up. Does that sound familiar? I'll never forget the very first time that I was told this in my career.
I actually started my career as a recruiting assistant. And I would do screening, interviewing, um, and pass on qualified [00:01:00] candidates to the recruiters. And I guess my first clue that perhaps recruiting wasn't for me probably came when my perspective after each of those screening calls and interviews was this person can absolutely do this job.
They, with the right training and the right management, they can absolutely do this. I thought that nine out of ten times, probably nine and a half out of ten times. Um, but that kind of lack of discernment long term doesn't really make for the best recruiter, unfortunately. Uh, however, it does make for a really great learning and development professional.
So, uh, This was when I started to switch my career focus from looking into continuing down that recruiting path to understanding what a learning and development path could look like for me. How could I help build training programs and help people be the best they can be in their roles? [00:02:00] And I started a traditional job search, uh, but.
It wasn't long before the opportunity of my career came across my desk, and I had been working at WWE at the time, and they were at a point in their trajectory as an organization where they wanted to build a learning and development function internally for the first time. I still honestly pinch myself that I was given the opportunity to be able to build that learning and development program.
Uh, it was, as I said, a true opportunity of my career. But there was a little bit of a catch. And the catch was that in addition to building out the learning and development program, I was also going to be overseeing compliance. Thank you Yes, good old HR compliance, making sure people have their new hire paperwork filled out, making sure those I 9s are filed, making sure the right OSHA [00:03:00] postings were posted around the building in the right places.
Um, all of the things that get you just so excited to get out of bed in the morning. Um, if you could tell from my sarcasm, it was not something that I was really looking forward to doing. It was not even something that I felt really qualified, um, to be doing. Uh, and I started to voice those concerns. I was really honest that I didn't know that my value lended it's self to managing compliance.
And this is when I first heard the lie, I, I was told in that moment, you know, you've already gotten this opportunity to build the learning and development function. Just be happy with that. You're never going to love all of your job. Basically, just do the compliance work and sit down and be quiet. And I'm really honestly ashamed to admit this, but My first gut reaction was shame.[00:04:00]
Like who the heck did I think I was, that I was just going to expect to love my whole job, especially that early in my career. Of course, I just had to sit down and shut up and do the work. But here is what I started to think. Who does that lie really benefit in the long run? Was that lie told to me or to any of us?
Because. It benefits us, or is it because it benefits someone else? Yeah, you guessed it. It's a lie to benefit other people.
Because when we actually bite into that lie, yes, we are accomplishing something for someone else in most cases. But the true damage of that lie comes in us believing that we are now stagnant and stuck, that work will always be work, that we can't enjoy what we do, and we should just sit down and do what we're told.[00:05:00]
But that's not the truth. Because the truth is that it is possible to love what you do. And we do have agency to take action and improve our careers. We're in control at the end of the day. But we can't take action when we buy into that lie. Because we don't believe that action is going to mean anything to us.
I talk about this with my one on one coaching clients all the time. There is a huge difference between dissatisfied stagnation and showing up doing work you don't like because you feel like that's your only option.
And choosing temporary discomfort in doing work you might not love in that moment in order to help you build something more for yourself. In both cases, there You may be doing an action you don't like, but only in one of those circumstances is that action productive. You're giving those [00:06:00] actions a purpose, but in order to give those actions that purpose, first you have to believe that it is actually possible to love what you do, so that you can make the most out of the work that you might find inconvenient and less enjoyable in the moment.
So what did that mean for me and my compliance story here? I decided to make the most of this work that I truly didn't love. And one way that I did that was by building relationships with leaders across the organization.
Because when it comes to compliance, I had to go back and talk to these leaders around how can I work with you to utilize your influence to get the people on your team up to Filling out the paperwork, you know, doing all of this boring compliance stuff that we needed done so that was an incredible opportunity for me to build these relationships with leaders that I could then utilize on the learning and development side of things, right?
And in the things that I actually enjoyed, the other thing that I did is [00:07:00] I never once dropped the ball. Even though I really did not love working on compliance, I didn't drop the ball on those actions. But simultaneously, I never for a moment saw them as anything but temporary. And that mindset allowed those actions to be just that, just temporary.
Because eventually, I was able to off board compliance. I was able to double down on growing the learning and development function at WWE. And I was able to love everything about what I did in my job. That is until I decided I wanted to go start my own business when I took on more temporary discomfort and actions that didn't feel like something I loved in the moment in pursuit of something more, which is where I am today, getting to run your place at the top, doing coaching, doing consulting, another place where I love what I [00:08:00] do.
And honestly, I have a million examples of this throughout my career that I can share with you. And over the coming weeks, I'm sure that I will share with you. But at the end of the day, that is what this podcast is all about. It is a, it is for the people who buy into the truth that loving what you do is possible.
And I'll be here each episode, sharing tips, tools, inspiration, bringing on some guests to share how they love what they do, to be able to give you what you need to take action and create a career you love for yourself.
So that's our first episode, my friends. I am so excited for what's to come. I completely geek out on this topic, as I'm sure you can tell. And we're going to have so much fun together talking about how we can all love what we do.
Thanks so much for joining me on today's episode. As always, if you're looking for coaching support or would like to submit a question, you can drop me an email at [00:09:00] [email protected]
And if you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review. So this podcast can find its way to other amazing listeners, just like you see you next time.
