Do you love your job?
Unfortunately, not many people do, which explains the support for universal income to end bullshit work. But even though there might be things about it that you don’t like, you can still take the advice of Vikram Seth in A Suitable Boy (one of the best books I read last year and also available on Audible):
One must work hard; everything else is not in one’s control.
For more advice, here are my favourite Seth Godin quotes from his 2021 posts, together with a recommended title from Blinkist.
What are you doing today that only you can do? What would happen if that’s all you did all day? ~ Outsourcing
Learn more: Overworked and Overwhelmed
We need teamwork. But we also need people who can master their tools and ship the work. ~ Show us your work
Learn more: Hustle
Today, we get the chance to lead, to connect and to do work we’re proud of. Work we can describe before we begin, and work we’re confident is worth doing. That might be enough. ~ Not impossible
Learn more: Smart Work
For skilled information workers, job mobility has never been easier or more profitable. And yet, countless people stay where they are, without ever considering why. ~ Sunk costs at work
Learn more: Start, Stay, or Leave
Show your work. It’s a good way to demonstrate that your decision isn’t based on fear alone. ~ Fear and footnotes
Learn more: Anxiety at Work
It’s possible to create a life where we only perform tasks when we feel like it. More likely, though, we end up with commitments. Commitments require us to do work when they feel like it, regardless of whether we do or not. ~ When you feel like it
Learn more: Workstyle
If office gossip is benefitting you and the people you work with, good for you. But if office gossip is leading to stress, turnover or low satisfaction, it might be time to do something about it. ~ Office gossip
Learn more: The Cactus and Snowflake at Work
The pressure we put on ourselves for every project to be “the best ever” experience creates a shallow race for bling instead of a deeper, more useful focus on what’s actually possible. ~ Best [insert] ever
Learn more: The Next Rules of Work
Jobs aren’t a bureaucratic niche to be filled. They’re the opportunity for value to be created. Find the value and you will find the job. ~ Where do jobs come from?
Learn more: The 2-Hour Job Search
Emotional detachment helps us remember that we are not our work, and that feedback is useful, not an attack. ~ Detachment and commitment
Learn more: Build For Tomorrow
As knowledge work has shifted to a remote-first setting, organisations have generally done an astonishingly bad job of bringing any intent at all to how they will build a culture that they care about. Forcing people to show up so they can hide behind a screen in the office is lazy. ~ Management with intent
Learn more: The Long-Distance Teammate
When someone rejects you for a job, they’re not rejecting you. How could they be? They don’t know you. Instead, they’re rejecting their story of you, the best approximation they had combined with the complicated story they (all of us) tell ourselves about our needs, dreams and fears. ~ Our stories are all we really know
Learn more: Get Hired Now!
Whether it’s splitting a check, getting a project done or making an impact on the culture or a cause, if you want things to get better, the only way is to be prepared to do more than your fair share. ~ More than your share
Learn more: The Refusal of Work
You’re not irreplaceable. No one is, not really. But if we work at it, we might become indispensable. The linchpin, someone who would be missed if they were gone. ~ Indispensable or irreplaceable
Learn more: What Colour is Your Parachute?
Instead of the reassurance that comes from someone else telling us what to do and then rewarding us when we comply, we each have the chance to show up and contribute. And, if we can, do it again. ~ Opportunity is now disorganised
Learn more: Start-up of You
It’s worth thinking about the beliefs of the person you’re talking to before you try to suggest making things better. And it will help you understand the feedback someone else is giving you about your work as well. ~ The way it’s done
Learn more: Can We Talk?
Quick money pales in comparison with money earned over time for a job well done. ~ All the marbles (and quick money)
Learn more: Dying for a Paycheck
We spend most of our lives at work. And yet we don’t spend much time talking about the opportunity to make it worthwhile. ~ The best job you ever had
Learn more: Designing Your Work Life
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