Too many people are choosing a career path simply because of how much it pays. Young people entering college are sold a “future” in nearly the same way a direct sales representative sells snake oil. The “career counselor” directs the hopeful student to the financial possibilities and the prestige and recognition a career offers.
Sadly, good, old fashioned questions like, “What are you naturally good at?” and “Is the market in demand of your desired career choice?” seem to have been long forgotten.
What is being lost are the innate talents, gifts and abilities we are born with. The Bible calls it a “metron,” which is a measure of our sphere of influence. It is within this metron we will find our greatest strengths and our best career choices.
The goal is to find our metron, then decide how to best use it. Unfortunately we’re not even asked what we love anymore as youngsters. Teachers spend more time keeping classrooms quiet while students fill out the blanks in their workbooks than they do creating the next generation of innovators and geniuses. We have lost that idea of finding our God-given talent and then empowering the next generation to do the same, preferably early on.
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Imagine if schools were to teach children how to not only identify but to reach their greatest potential. One doesn’t even have to believe in God, heaven or hell to know that operating in one’s strengths is always the most rewarding choice of all. You’ll never find an Olympic athlete who just picked a talent out of a hat because he thought it would be a good career choice. No, athletes develop their natural design and inborn talent to the point of mastery above all others in the world.
The youngsters of today are bright, fast and many are computer literate by the time they’re only 4 years old. Have you ever noticed that when you hand a little one a tablet very few of them need to be taught how to make it work? How is this happening? We now live in a world when children in the first and second grade know how to operate an iPad better than most of their grandparents and the genius coming out of the womb in most hospitals is smarter than any of us planned for.
So what does this have to do with whether or not you are doing what you are designed for in your career? Everything.
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Were you ever given a chance to identify, grow and master your own personal metron? Imagine if you were. It’s more than just a writer taking a natural path to writing. It’s everything in between that those who seek their highest potential must overcome. In his best selling book The War Of Art, Steven Pressfield says the person who rarely wrestles with their potential, power or art is not the one we should focus on. That’s typically a sign of someone living his or her life according to the status quo. But the one who steps onto the path of mastery, their ‘art’ if you will, they will encounter doubt, fear, attacks, worries and more. This person must take their faith to work with them every single day, every single hour, in order to truly fulfill their highest ability and potential.
It takes faith to go beyond what our relatives have “always done” or to press past the voices in our head and around us. It takes enormous courage to find out if we are pursuing a career that we are not only made for, but that we were designed for. Wealth follows those who do such things. Chasing wealth is actually the path to many times losing one’s financial security. But when you do what you are naturally gifted at, everything changes. I built my first million-dollar corporation 17 years ago going against the grain and am currently a millionaire because I refused to go the path that everyone else thought was best for me.
Will you rise up and find your God-given path and career choice? The entire world will benefit if you do. Because in the end, it’s not about you and it’s not about me. It’s about us. As we operate at our best together, bringing faith to our work, reaching our highest potential, we all win.
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