You are the product of your work

This year in June, I hit my 10-year work anniversary. Before it hit, I didn’t think much of it as a milestone. However, in the months following, it has started to sink in that I’ve been working professionally for a decade. It has me thinking about what it means to have 10 years of work completed.

I have worked in sales since I started with my company 10 years ago, so there is no shortage of metrics by which I could measure my time. But when I take a step back, each individual goal I’ve hit over the years means less on its own. Starting to fade into the picture for me is this idea: the work has worked on me as much as I have worked on it.

10 years of working consistently towards goals has developed my discipline, focus, understanding of business, relationships, and skills. For 10 years, I thought I was at work to build a great service and product. What I have realized is throughout this time, the real product was me.

This letter is written as a reminder to myself, and I hope you find it helpful as well.

Learning to work

Entrepeneur Alex Hormozi tells a story of himself as an employee (maybe even an intern) early in his career. He was working on a basic task for a project and a higher up walked by and asked him how it was going. He replied, “Working hard.” She laughed. Then she said, “You don’t even know how to work yet.”

Man, this was true of me when I was a new hire. I remember intentionally working late in my first few months out of college to show I was bought in. And it produced… not much.

When I think of myself and the others I see within their early years of their careers, it’s clear they don’t know how to work yet.

Yes, they can do tasks, be in the office, participate in meetings, etc. But learning how to produce something significant takes time. It takes time to even understand what good looks like.

The further I go, I am realizing time and effort develop skills and those skills in turn create value and earn money. In the beginning, you have little skill and all the time in the world. You can’t work smart, so you must work hard.

It requires long days, week, and years. And those early years don’t produce many achievements on paper. But if you work hard, it produces skills and grows your character. It develops you.

Success and happiness

This is where I have gotten off track at times. It’s easy (for men in particular) to fixate on goals and achievements. I believed achievements would bring me fulfillment or validation, so I prioritized those achievements above everything else.

Here’s the problem with that. It leads you to a mindset where the outcome matters more than what the outcome is meant to benefit: you.

In the words of Chris Williamson, host of the Modern Wisdom podcast, “The danger in a world obsessed with succeeding is that we sacrifice the thing we want (happiness) for the thing which is supposed to get it (success).”

It’s a strange paradox because achievements, goals and success are good. But in the trenches, it is easy to get lost. It’s easy to forget that the ultimate outcome, the ultimate product, is you.

I like this way of framing work. I think it brings together two sides of work philosophies. One side is the hardcore productivity group that tells you to push through any pain to achieve all your goals. The other side is the anti-hustle crew that tells you not to work your life away. I’m think there is another way to look at this.

I like working and I think most people need to work harder, so I don’t qualify for the anti-hustle crew. And I think the hardcore productivity group grips so hard to specific achievements that they get lost in them.

However, if you decide the ultimate product is you, you will want to work hard so that you grow. And it’s very likely you will achieve great things along the way without losing your soul.

Here’s how this looks in practice. Instead of saying you want to achieve X, ask yourself if it would be more valuable to become the type of person who achieves X. This will shift your focus to actions. Actions repeated over time form habits and build skills. When you have the right habits and skills, it becomes unreasonable that you won’t achieve X and more, many times over.

In that frame, your focus is higher than just one achievement. Rather than white knuckling it to succeed in one thing, you become the type of person that succeeds in many things over time. You will have the confidence that you have what it takes to achieve something, not once, but may times because you have the skills and work ethic to apply towards it. At the end of the process, you win because rather than just doing great things, you become something great.

Conclusion

To summarize, I am writing this letter to remind myself to keep my focus in the right place over the next 10 years of work (and life).

I am reminding myself of this:

I want to continue pushing myself in fitness, business, relationships and faith. But I want to push myself because I understand what I get out of it: growth and the sense that I am fulfilling my potential.

What I really want to become is not a great salesperson or employee. What I want is to become complete. I want to become hard working, caring, present, and competent. If I do that, I will have achieved my potential.