Enjoyable Job = 1. No bad + 2. Good

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By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.

Reading time: 3 mins

Summary: 

  • “Success without fulfilment is the ultimate failure” - Tony Robbins

    • Success = often defined as financial success

    • Fulfilment = often defined as having meaning 

  • “Success with fulfilment that is done unenjoyably is a tragedy.” - DA

  • For myself: Job Enjoyability = Enough money (no money will make you sad, lots of money won’t make you happy) + Meaning + No deficiency Areas + All growth needs met :). 

Deficiency Areas vs Growth Needs

  • We can talk about 3x main groupings of happiness:

    • Unhappy

    • Neutral (ie not happy, but not unhappy either)

    • Happy

  • Some things are adding upside ie. making happies.

  • Some things are removing downside ie. eliminating unhappies. 

    • Removing downside usually sets you back to neutral. 

  • Deficiency area = if present you will be unhappy. However if not present you will neutral ie not unhappy or happy

  • Growth needs = if not present you will be neutral ie not unhappy or happy

  • Enjoyable job = 1. No deficiency areas + 2. Growth needs met

    • Unenjoyable job = 1. Some deficiency areas + 2. Growth needs met

    • Unenjoyable job = 1. No deficiency areas + 2. Growth needs not met

    • Enjoyable job = 1. No deficiency areas + 2. Growth needs met

  • Jingle: I don’t just want a job that is good. I want one that isn’t bad either ;)!

Details of Deficiency Areas & Growth Needs

  • Deficiency Areas

    • Financial stress = eg is the business viable or eg have you bitten off too much personal debt. 

    • Time pressure = constant worry about being behind where you should be

    • Key person risk = if you lose one person do you eg not get the project done on time?

    • Draining people = working with draining people is the pits

  • Growth Needs

    • Meaning = a connection to how what you are doing is making the world better

    • Energising (ideally inspiring) people 

    • Self actualisation = you have the space to level yourself up and apply these new abilities in your work. Some jobs have very set boundaries of what you can and can’t do. 

    • Transcendence = you directly helping others self actualise. 

      • Transcendence is helping people you physically work with vs Meaning is helping humanity at large. 

  • Comment

    • For myself: Job Enjoyability = Enough money (no money will make you say, lots of money won’t make you happy) + Meaning + No deficiency Areas + All growth needs met :). 

    • Rearticulation: Good job = Success (enough money) + Fulfilment (meaning) + you enjoy it (no deficiency areas + growth needs met)

You make progress in the areas you consciously try to make progress in - AKA hope is not a strategy

  • I’m not hoping to have a good job. I’m systematically trying to build a great job for myself and others. I... hope that each year I systematically get better at this. 

  • 22 year old Duncan’s job strategy was “work hard and stick your hand up for all opportunity”. 

  • Slowly I’ve been able to understand more about myself and the world and develop frameworks through which I can figure out what areas to focus on. 

    • When I’ve realised that ‘Key Person Risk’ is stopping me from enjoying then I’ve been able to systematically address it.

    • In the early days of Edrolo 7 years ago I was all ‘focus on progress for the business’. Now I have some of my focus on ‘transcendence (aka assisting others to self actualise). It gives me such joy. 

  • Unescapables

    • Sometimes you might be in a situation where Deficiency Areas are not a choice. 

      • Eg. if you start a new business that you’ve put all your personal capital into, you will of course have financial stress for at least the initial stage 

    • So in some cases, the Deficiency Area is part and parcel of a job for a period, and you accept this, and do what you can to shift this. 

  • Corporate jobs prior to Edrolo

    • Firstly I’m grateful for all opportunities that have been afforded to me. 

    • If I look back I’d say that I had ‘little to no’ Deficiency Areas but also ‘little to no’ Growth Needs met. 

    • I got bored very quickly. 

  • Edrolo

    • I’d say that for 7.5 years I’ve had Definiciny Areas at medium+

    • But also that I’ve had Growth Needs at medium+

    • Edrolo has been life with the volume at 200%. Never a boring moment... but also rarely a calm moment :(. 

    • IMO my Growth Needs are more than met... but also I have Deficiency Areas galore! I'd like to bask in a warm glow from Edrolo, not get burned from being too close to the fire. 

    • IMO the core focus for me at Edrolo is getting Deficiency Areas to be <small on average. IMO it’s fine to have a Deficiency area at Medium / Large every now and then, not ideal to have one or more Deficiency Areas are Medium / Large for 7 years in a row! 

If you only take away one thing:

  • You want financial success with fulfilment done enjoyably :). 

  • OR you want no Deficiency Areas plus Growth Needs met. 

  • It doesn’t matter how many dealmakers (Growth Needs) a job has, just one dealbreaker (Deficiency Area) can make it unenjoyable :(. 

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Addendum: this is an adaptation of Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs

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