All of my students have heard me quoting from Art of Work lately, and I’ve even mentioned here on the blog once. On Goodreads it has 4.3 stars and lots of good reviews, it even hit the USA Today and Amazon best seller lists. Lots of people are talking about this book and very excited. Why all the fuss?
Well, it’s one of the best no-nonsense inspirational and “self-help” books I’ve read in a good long time. The stories within the book are stories of average people who aren’t gloriously bathed in the lime-light. They are average people with average trials. They seem astoundingly normal if but for one thing: They all started following their passions right to their calling.
This is exactly what my low socio-economic students needed to hear. This is the message of hope and possibilities they all needed to hear. Even moreso was the fact that the students gave me questions to ask Jeff, then quietly sat in the background while Jeff and I chatted on the phone about some of the messages of his new books.
Why would Jeff hone in on the average person?
“Because I don’t feel like Elon Musk. I feel like most of us feel like our lives are too ordinary for our own liking, and I thought there was something remarkable in that ordinariness. When I started hearing people’s stories, it became more and more apparent to me. I think that if you told those people that they could live an awesome life, that they would resist. There would be a lot of ‘Yeah, but…’ Instead of trying to convince people that they didn’t have to have those yeah, buts what if there was a thing that was amazing that we uncovered in all of those exceptions.”
Jeff actively sought out the ordinariness in each situation. For example, you can read about Matt McWilliams in the book, and what you read is his real story. His story of how he failed multiple times while finding his path and becoming successful. Matt, like most of us, thought that people want to see awesomeness instead of the full story. It was when he shows his failures that Matt realised that he became a little more accessible. Jeff points out how when you are more accessible through ordinariness, it gives you more hope because ordinariness is not a limitation.
These stories become an inspiration to us, and in that inspiration, we connect them with our own lives. Like fiction, as Jeff notes, the best stories are not the ones where the hero starts out saving the day.
“The types of stories that appeal to our own in-betweenness that we feel are the stories with the lack of resolution right away. If you have a little bit of struggle and failure at the beginning, people connect with that way more than success.”
Jeff talks about when speakers are on a stage, it’s easy to believe that they belong there. They’ve done some hard work to get on the stage, so there is less of a reason to convince the audience that you deserve it. Instead, it’s better to show the audience how they can connect with you. This helps you earn the audience’s trust.
“If you have earned the attentions of someone, you don’t need to tell them you’re awesome, you need to earn their trust. The truth is that all of us are audience members of each others lives when we are on social media and opening up on our blogs, and this struggle that we can connect to is precisely the thing we are looking for.”
The perfect mix, according to Jeff, is when you show enough struggle to show that you’re learning and growing, but not enough to depress. As for hope, there should be enough to provide hope and lessons, but not enough to make the audience disconnect from you.
In the book you’ll see this reflected in Eric Miller and Garret’s story. Garret was diagnosed with cancer when he was 5, and Eric struggled to help him. Fast forward years later, and the two of them are doing things they never really thought about. Jeff quotes Eric as saying, “Because [I’ve] gone through the pain, [I] have authority to speak in other people’s lives. What I learnt from that experience is that somebody is always watching you, and they are learning from the way in which you navigate through life’s trials and struggles.”
Clearly, it’s important to be honest about the struggles, after all. you will be listening to your own struggles as you look for your calling. In the book, look for the story of Judy Nolan, who helped people write letters to those they were leaving behind when they died. She was grieving for her husband who didn’t write a letter to his own daughter, which caused Judy a lot of pain. When someone else called to get the workbook she had used a coaching guide and it helped both families through the grieving process, she realised this was the struggle that was her calling.
“Listening to your life is not just about sitting on the couch and thinking what is this grand picture supposed to look like? It’s not always the most luxurious thing. It’s often looking at the more painful aspects and saying, ‘That was not a good thing, but something good can come from it.’ It’s about paying attention to the pain, and then understanding what life is trying to teach you.”
Jeff quotes Viktor Frankl,“There are three things you need: A project to work on, someone to love, and a redemptive human suffering.” And then he quotes Judy, “I realise this needs to be done. I can’t do it perfectly, but I’ve seen the cost of not doing it. I’ve seen the cost of somebody that does listen to me and somebody that doesn’t listen to me. And I can’t quit just because I might fail. I was no longer afraid of failing, I was afraid of not trying.”
This is the message of The Art of Work, but not what the entire book consists of. There are lots of bonuses available online when you purchase the book to take it from just an inspirational piece to something that is actionable.
What is your life telling you? Share in the comments so we can help you remove the debris from your path.
And if you had any doubt about the genuine ordinariness of Jeff, here’s a very normal picture from his Instagram. Real. Accessible. Ordinary. And yet a best-selling author.
