I have been amidst a major career decision the past two years, year, four months, 6 weeks, 2 weeks and finally day. What a ride, trying pick from two very different destinations whose journeys would contrast in almost every way. It is a blessing is to have options. I am grateful to have them as well as having to learn from myself what I want, what I was made for, where I want to go. In many ways (as I was reminded by my lovely wife), it was a return to who I was and who I wanted to be when I was young enough to not realize that the world is challenging. As a person of faith, we should continue living in that world, with requests and hope that God will help us overcome the challenges of the world.
You are tempted to write out a scorecard, to list all of the positives and negatives of the differing job options and tally them. But a calling is not a comparison between options, it is a matching of an option to who you are.
What is important to me? The most thorough answer would involve traversing years of journals and seeing what they say back to me. But that takes too long, and I am sleepy, so here are my tent stakes, the items that hold in place who I am.
- Work needs to be important and valuable to the world and works of God.
- I want to work with like-minded people - those who view the job as a service to others.
- Flexibility based in performance success - if I prove myself trustworthy, then I want to the room to act independently.
- I do not want to be an administrator. I was fooled to believe that leadership was administration. That is wrong, and it disagrees terribly with me.
- People are first. When faced with a decision between business, profit, reputation, perceived success... give the individual priority, whether that be your client, coworker, boss or wife. If in doubt, the person deserves the benefit over the object.
- I will not lie, cheat or steal to accomplish my, my company or my client's goals. I am willing to lose my job before my integrity.
- I am a leader. I have spent the last few years attempting to abdicate myself from this reality, and it is like trying to cut out a part of my soul. I need to embrace this part of who I am, who I am called to be, in a manner that vitalizes me and those I am with.