How can work fill your soul and give you stability? Should you even try—or just burn it all down?
It shouldn’t be this hard to find a job that pays you well, fulfills you, and keeps your values intact. But when disillusionment and burnout strike, it can be hard to deal with workplace tradeoffs. Is the answer simply to strike out on your own?
Navigating uncertainty, building your identity outside of work, and juggling passion projects: this week, Sara and Jen tackle dilemmas from folks looking for ways to align work with their values—without going broke.
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Got a work situation eating away at you? Send it to us! Submit your dilemma at
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:00 It is not about finding some perfect, mythical way to have all your values met all the time, and your wellbeing perfectly attended to, and make a ton of money. It is about navigating where tensions arise between those things and continually holding yourself accountable to doing your best with those tensions.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:38 Oh my god, Jen, did I tell you who I ran into the other day?
Jen Dionisio 0:40 No. Was it someone famous?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:42 It was somebody that maybe should be famous.
Jen Dionisio 0:44 Oh, who was it?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:46 It was Maria T. Who wrote our theme music.
Jen Dionisio 0:49 In the wild.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:51 I ran into her at the pool. Yeah, I know. Doesn't that sound fancy? It's not fancy. It's Philly's free community pools. They're so good though. Just like feral kids running around, and then me cooling off from the 90-something degree heat. I love it.
Jen Dionisio 1:04 That sounds incredible. Oh, shoutout to Maria T.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:08 Her theme music has been so good for this show. And I love her so much.
Jen Dionisio 1:13 Speaking of shows, let's do the intro. So hello, and welcome to Per My Last Email, the show about what to do when work gets weird. I'm Jen Dionisio.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:25 And I'm Sara Wachter-Boettcher. And, Jen, what kind of weird are we talking about today?
Jen Dionisio 1:30 Today's questions are actually really close to my heart. They're all about trying to find both meaning and stability in mission-driven work.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:40 I cannot wait for these. I used to think that I'd end up working in a grassroots mission-driven nonprofit type place.
Jen Dionisio 1:49 What changed?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:50 Well, I actually worked at one. And, it changed a lot of things. Yeah, I worked at a rape crisis center in college for several years, for three years or so. And it was really meaningful. But it was also really hard. Of course. I mean, thinking about the subject matter. But it was also hard because there was just a lot of drama. And it felt like a roller coaster. I was working there part-time, like three days a week or so, and I mostly worked in their education program. I did all these presentations at middle schools. But I was also writing the volunteer newsletter, answering crisis line calls. Because I was there for a long time, I really got to know all the staff, and I saw how hard it was for them to make ends meet. I mean, people were making very little money. I was making very little money. But you know, I was working part-time. I was in school. But I saw what sort of the future looked like in that kind of organization. You know, this was Eugene, Oregon, in the early aughts, so the numbers maybe aren't going to translate very well. But, like, their entry-level salaried roles were $19,000 a year.
Jen Dionisio 2:51 Oh god.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 2:53 $19,000. And I will tell you that during the time that I worked there, I actually got a second job at a call center because I needed the money. And so in my other job at the call center, what I was making there, if I had worked there full-time hours, would have been more than what I could make working full-time as an advocate for people who have experienced an assault who are trying to navigate a legal or medical system. And I was like, "Gosh, that is rough."
Jen Dionisio 3:24 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 3:25 And I don't know that I can really sign up for that.
Jen Dionisio 3:27 It really shows how income is very rarely tied to the actual importance of the work you do. I mean, when you talk about having a second job, I worked in mission-driven organizations until my early 30s. And for most of that time, even though it was my full-time adult job, I also had a side job so that I could make up the difference and have a life beyond paying my, what was then, very cheap rent, living with five to ten people at a time.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 3:59 Yeah. And I think, you know, these kinds of compromises, they're not necessarily the wrong choice to make. I wouldn't tell anybody not to go do nonprofit work. But I also think that when we start talking about mission-driven work, people sometimes really get it stuck in their head that there's, like, this fantasy about being in a nonprofit and being able to have all their values intact. But there are a lot of tradeoffs. Sometimes it's the financial ones in these are like underfunded organizations. But the other thing that I hear a lot about is nonprofits with a mission you support in theory, but in practice, they still exist within a capitalist structure in the sense that they are beholden to rich people and corporations that give them money, the way that they have to bend over backwards to get funding. And also they're still made up of humans, and those humans don't always behave in necessarily the most healthy ways. And so I feel like the conversation around choosing mission-driven work versus choosing the money maybe needs to be complicated a bit because they don't think it's actually that straightforward.
Jen Dionisio 5:03 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 5:03 So I'm excited for this.
Jen Dionisio 5:05 Me too. And I agree. I can talk about the money, although that's not the case in every nonprofit job that I've had friends work in. But also, when I think back to those early jobs, like, the reason I became a content strategist is because some of those places gave me so much freedom to recreate my job based on the things I was interested in and kind of supported me in getting the training and skills I needed to do it. So there really are two sides. And even though I can often be like, "Nonprofits. Be careful," you know, that's no different than what I would actually say about tech.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 5:40 Oh, sure.
Jen Dionisio 5:41 So Sara, you want to jump into our first question?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 5:43 Yeah, let's do it.
NU 5:44 As a designer who left a corporate life to seek recovery, I am now a contractor for a non-profit where I feel holistically aligned with their mission. And this month, the organization has decreased our team size in response to a lack of funding. As of today, I still have my role.
When you’ve left the corporate design world and found a mission-led organization you feel aligned with… how do you navigate the uncertainty of non-profit organizations as a contractor without returning to corporate life?
Jen Dionisio 6:12 Let's call this listener NU for "Navigating Uncertainty." And so Sara, what do you suggest they do to navigate all this?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 6:22 Well, you know, the first thing that I really noticed in this question is that NU is expressing a lot of worry about uncertainty in their nonprofit. But I just want to flag that that is not just in this particular job. It is in a lot of jobs. I mean, probably all jobs, there is a level of uncertainty. And right now, I think there's a lot of people who are feeling uncertainty in their industries as a whole. And so because of that, I would really caution you against thinking of this as a choice between stable and not stable, because I feel like that might be a kind of a false binary that's showing up here, that's like, "If I stay in this kind of role in this kind of organization, it's not going to be stable. It's going to be uncertain. And if I went back to where I came from, then it would be stable."
Jen Dionisio 7:05 Yeah. Sara, you can really hear that binary in that core question that was asked: "How do I navigate uncertainty without returning to corporate?" So like, if that's a false choice, how would you approach this situation?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 7:20 Yeah, what I would do here is really look at this as a question about safety. How do I create safety for myself? And to get at that, what I would ask NU is, "Well, what does safety mean to you? What makes you feel safe?" I think for a lot of us, when we're talking about our jobs, we jump to money first, right? Financial safety as being the first or maybe the only aspect of safety. But I would actually recommend that NU start out by thinking about their own physical and emotional safety. Meaning, how do you ground yourself? And how do you calm your nervous system?
Because right now, it sounds like you are feeling pretty anxious. You might be in a place that feels a little panicked. Fear seems to be pretty strong, because you've seen this instability start to happen in your org. And so I'm wondering, what helps you calm yourself in those moments? And how are you taking care of yourself day-to-day? Because if you are not, then you may be spending time really letting that fear take over, which can lead to spiraling thoughts, that can lead to extreme thoughts, that can lead to knee jerk reactions. And that prevents us from slowing down and really assessing the situation, and really being able to say, "Okay, what's going on here? What are the risk factors for me? How likely is something going to happen to me next?"
All these other questions that we start to be able to ask when we can calm ourselves down. So I might start there and just say, "Okay, knowing that you are really worried about uncertainty, how do you build some calm for yourself? And how do you give yourself a sense of physical safety in the moment, so that you can approach things with a little bit more space and a little more intentionality?" Then, practically speaking, I think I would also suggest NU think a little bit about the specific risks that they have in this current environment. Which is probably related to loss of income, right? So if they lose this job, there'd be a loss of income there. That's what I'm guessing they're getting at.
Jen Dionisio 9:19 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 9:20 And so I would ask NU to think about, well, what are the things that they can do right now to try to protect themselves as much as possible from income loss? There's, of course, the obvious things that's like, "Well, you should save money," which, you know, I know that that's also the kind of thing where like, that's not useful to be told that right now if you get laid off right now, and you don't have that money, because you can't go back in time. And I don't know what your financial picture looks like. But really thinking about what you can do to save, what you can do to maybe deal with the resources that you do have.
If you built out a plan for what you would do if you lost your job suddenly, what would you put on that plan? Are there expenses that you could cut? What would those ones be? What are some different things that you could do to survive and to kind of get by, and how long do you have? I always recommend that people really take stock of how long their runway is. And maybe some different lenses on that too, which is like, how long can they go without touching savings at all? Or how long can they go assuming that savings needs to be touched? How long can they go if they really cut back and tighten the belt? What if they don't change their lifestyle?
And I say this because it's helpful to get this, like, better picture of what the reality is because oftentimes, again, panic brain is so good at telling us that we need to freak out that it'll make it feel like, "If I lost my job, I would be completely screwed tomorrow." And I think it's healthy to kind of really assess that like, well, is that true? How true is that? What does the actual picture look like?
Jen Dionisio 10:51 Sara, this is making me think of when I was considering leaving my job and moving into coaching full-time and worrying like, "Oh my god, what if I lose my house?" That's exactly where my brain went, until I really actually started looking at my finances and realizing the kind of window I had.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 11:08 Right, and that's the thing—I'm not going to make any assumptions about what kind of window NU has. I don't know, it could be small, it could be huge, I don't know. But I think sometimes we lose sight of the real size of our own window because we are in such a state of panic. So I think that slowing down, figuring out how you can be calm, and then approaching those questions from a calm place will make a big difference. Also, I don't think it's just about financial safety here because one of the other things I noticed is that NU mentioned that they left corporate life to seek recovery. So that makes me imagine that they were in a bad place when they left that corporate job, like mentally, emotionally, you know, they were burned out, toxic environment, whatever it was. If that's the case, then probably when NU was leaving, getting out was their priority. Getting to a place where they could heal and recover was the number one thing they needed to do. Makes perfect sense.
But it might mean that now that they're out, they're not necessarily well-grounded in this new place that they're at. It's kind of like you flee corporate, but have you settled into nonprofit? And so what I might think about there is like, "What does it look like for me to be more ingrained in this community or this industry?" Because if you don't know a lot of people in the field, and you don't feel like you have a sense of peers, you don't really have a sense of community around this part of your professional life, if your whole professional community is back there in corporate, then that can really influence how safe it feels where you are versus how safe you imagine it would be if you went back.
So what I might suggest is for NU to think about things like their network, and do they know the lay of the land in this industry, the players? Are there potential peers out there that they should meet? Are there potential organizations they might want to work with in the future that are also aligned with them from a values perspective? What are those? Where are those? Because I think that the more connected you feel to peers who are in this new space that it sounds like you want to be in, the more that you might feel like you have solid footing in the field, even if you don't necessarily have a ton of certainty in that job itself.
So I might ask NU to think about where do their potential new peers hang out? Like, are there meetups, events, conferences that all of these people go to? What kind of online spaces are they in? Is it just you need to connect with them on LinkedIn or follow them on a social network and start having a different sense of people in your feed? Is it about setting up coffee dates with some of these people and just getting to know them? My sense is that doing some of this legwork to really build that community and that sense of connection in the space where you are now living professionally, might make a big difference in how uncertain this particular moment feels to you, NU.
Jen Dionisio 14:01 Sara, I really like that you were suggesting that NU kind of focus on the field as opposed to the job because I think you're really onto something which is that lack of rootedness makes it feel like, "Well, if it doesn't work out at this one single place, then I have to completely rethink everything."
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 14:21 Yeah.
Jen Dionisio 14:21 And I get the sense that like you, like, NU doesn't want to return to corporate. So as kind of a wrap up, like, how can NU really kind of root down in where they are, not necessarily the company, but in the world they're now inhabiting?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 14:38 Yeah, you know, what I think I would say is, remind yourself what brought you here. It sounds like there's something really important to you that brought you to this mission-driven organization, that led you to make a pretty big change in your life. I would reconnect with those values and some of that vision that you had for yourself in making that change, and what I might do from there is really look at how do I expand that? How do I expand beyond, "Okay, I got this one job," into more of, "I am part of a new industry or a new community now," and really say, "I need to make the ground around me feel a little bit firmer, so it doesn't feel like this is my one lifeline," because I get a little bit of that sense from NU's letter.
It feels like there's one lifeline. And it feels more like, "This is my first job in this new space that I am now living in professionally." I think that that might help NU get to a place where they feel a little bit more of that sense of belonging and a little bit more of that sense of like, "If something were to happen with this job, I have somewhere else to look besides just backward. I can look around me, and I can look forward to all of the places that I'm interested in going next." And that will help them, you know, get another job in this field and in a mission-driven organization they want to be in should that become necessary.
Jen Dionisio 15:57 Yeah. NU, reach out if you want help building that network. I know some great people in the nonprofit world who I would love to introduce you to. And I'm guessing your current colleagues might have people that can help you connect with as well.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 16:13 All right, NU, thank you so much for writing in. Let us know how it goes.
Emily Duncan 16:17 Hey, it's Emily, PMLE's producer. You've probably heard me reading some of our listeners dilemmas. But have these got you thinking, "Dang, I wish Sara and Jen could help me work through my dilemma in real time." Say no more. We've launched a new offering called Strategy Sessions. Sara and Jen have opened their calendars to offer 90 minute coaching calls meant to help you get clarity on your most pressing challenges in a single deep dive session. Do you want to redesign your career, get intentional about a transition, or unpack a hairy problem that's been weighing you down? Sara and Jen have got you covered. Want to learn more about strategy sessions? Go to https://www.activevoicehq.com/coaching. Again, that's https://www.activevoicehq.com/coaching.
Jen Dionisio 17:06 All right, Sara, are you ready for our next dilemma?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 17:09 I sure I am. Let's go.
Jen Dionisio 17:10 So this one is from a listener who asked us to refer to her as "Emily."
Emily 17:16 I started my career in nonprofits and government consulting, pivoted to UX and enterprise tech, and am now considering switching back into social good or spaces for activism. I originally left government because the Federal business development process is a total slog and I burned out. Currently, though, I’m like many others seeing through the capitalism and empty DEI promises in the private sector while our way of life in the US continues to be dismantled or threatened daily.
Are there any tools you’d recommend to help (re)assess one’s values? Or what one wants out of “work”? I’m a new mom, and after years of identifying myself as a hard-working feminist whose identity is built around work, I’m realizing now that “work” (and other stuff in life in general) doesn’t have to mean the same thing to me now. Or from season to season.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 18:04 "A hard-working feminist who had an identity built around work." Uh, Jen, does this feel resonant to you at all? Because it does for me. Except for the mom part.
Jen Dionisio 18:14 Yeah, yeah. It's funny, I have had a really, like, windy journey in terms of my identity and work being tied together. In my 20s, I actually had an entirely non-work-related identity in place. But the thing is, it was also really strongly tied to my social networks and my romantic relationships. And so when I felt like none of that was moving me forward or bringing me happiness, it was like, "Okay, well, let me build an identity around my career. Like, that's mine. That's me being an adult. That's me really investing in myself." So unsurprisingly, eventually, I realized, like, that was kind of looking outside to have an identity also. So I will say my 40s are now a real adventure in like, what does it mean to be me outside of work, inside of work, and not tied to anybody else?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:18 Oh, my gosh. I so feel that. I worked really hard to kind of like build a professional profile in my 20s, which is a little different, right? Like, I kind of was like "I'm gonna get in there." And I don't know that I could have told you exactly why, except that I really wanted to feel like my work was meaning something or leading up to something. And so it felt important to me to, like, push to try new things, to talk about it, to write about it because then it felt like I wasn't just going into work and doing stuff, but that there was some, like, bigger purpose or meaning behind it.
Which I still really believe in, in a lot of ways, but I think that the way that I approach that is a lot different now because I realized in my 30s that led me down a path where so much of my identity was really tied up in work. And so many of the kind of, like, fun side projects I did were also tied up in work. And I needed to kind of think about a broader sense of self beyond that. And that's definitely something I think I'm still working on, but I think it's something that has gotten a lot easier and now feels a lot more natural for me than it used to.
Jen Dionisio 20:21 Yeah, and I think, I don't know if you feel this way, but now that my focus, as is yours, is really sort of values-oriented, sometimes that line gets a little blurrier, because there is less of a, like, a distinction between work and self. And so as Emily is kind of thinking about how to get back in touch with their values and their identity, where do you suggest they start?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 20:50 Yeah, I want to get to that. But actually, Jen, before we get to Emily's values, I actually want to highlight something that she said in her letter, which is that she said she burned out due to working in federal government, and it just being a total slog. So Emily, before we talk about your values, I might actually encourage you to revisit that story. Now, of course, I believe you that working in government was a total slog. But I'm wondering if the real root of your burnout then was actually what you named later, which is having built your identity around work. Because when we build our whole identity around work, it's really impossible to set boundaries. It's hard to keep work at a distance, or kind of close it for the evening.
And what happens then is, it's not just that there's the pain of bad process or bureaucracy, although you know, that can be challenging no matter what, but it's that that pain and that bureaucracy feels all-consuming, feels like a burden that you have to personally fix, feels like kind of the be all, end all of your existence. And so in that circumstance, I'm wondering if the bureaucracy and the sort of slog of it is actually the core cause of the burnout, or if the core cause of the burnout is your relationship to that, and you internalizing that a lot.
Jen Dionisio 22:13 Yeah, Sara, this was actually really my experience. I wasn't quite getting the love, or appreciation, or validation that I needed from some partners who I had really bad breakups with. And I kind of felt like, "Okay, well at work, I'm in control." But like, that was the thing. It's like, the company or the team was just actually like another partner I was trying to get to like me, or love me, or appreciate me, or value me. And so like, the same thing happened, where yeah, I became really successful at work. I really advanced really quickly, which to some degree felt good as somebody who always considered themselves a late bloomer. But ultimately, like, I still hadn't done the work that I needed to do and became the work that led me into coaching, which was, "Who the hell am I if I don't work here, or if I'm like, just so-so at my job and not crushing it all the time?"
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 23:18 Yeah. So, the reason I really suggest that Emily start with who she is outside of work is so that work does not become the defining feature. So that work is not at the center. Because I think if we started, right, with work values, it would be very easy to put work right at the center of life again. But now that Emily has explored herself outside of work a bit, we can turn to work with a bit more of that context, and maybe a little less pressure that, like, work has to do all of these things for us. And so to look at work values, what I like to do is a little bit of a look back and look ahead process.
We do this a lot in workshops where we look back to look at those moments in the past to identify where our values showed up to either guide us or to let us know that something that was happening in our lives was not right. And then we use a look ahead to really have some visioning of the future and what we hope happens in it to get a sense of what really matters to us and what is satisfying to us. And so to do these kind of look ahead and look back questions, what I recommend is doing some free writing first, this is always a suggestion of mine is like write messy, dump out words, don't worry if they're meaningful or not.
Just explore some, like, self-reflective prompts. And then go back and look at that afterward once you've gotten it all out, and start looking for what feels important and starting to note the meaning that's in there. So for that messy bit, there are some things that I would recommend asking yourself, and I think the lookback questions that I like to use are things like, "Think of a time when you felt good about stepping up or speaking up. What did you do? What made that important to you? What was your 'why' there? Then, think about a time when you felt pressured to act in a way that made you feel uncomfortable at work. So what made you feel uncomfortable about it? What was upsetting about it?
And then think about a moment when you felt really satisfied or fulfilled in your work. What were you doing then and what felt meaningful about it? And counter to that, think about times when work felt pointless. What led you there? What felt pointless or meaningless about it? What was missing?" So for all of these questions in the look back, what I'm going to suggest is that you pick specific and concrete moments. So for example, if you said like, "Meetings feel pointless," that's too generic. Think about specific meetings that felt particularly pointless. What was going on in those?
Because when we genericize it, we start to lose the detail that's most helpful for figuring out what our values are in those situations. So that's our look back. Now, once you've done that, it's time to look ahead. So when you start looking ahead, then it's really about envisioning some things that are different than they are today. One thing I would suggest thinking about is what is the impact that you hope that you have on the people around you? In other words, how do you hope that working with you changes them? And then imagine it's five years from now. What do you hope that your colleagues today are saying about what it was like to work with you?
Jen Dionisio 26:35 Yeah. God, Sara, I wish you had been around to ask me those questions when I was really going through it. But I think Emily really did ask a question that can help with getting more in touch with who she is outside of her relationships to others, which is like, "What are those core values that really tell you what you would do whether you were getting paid for it or not because it's just stuff you can't help but love to do?"
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 27:03 Yeah, I find them really, really valuable, both that looking back and looking forward, and just getting a big mess of information about what has worked for us, what doesn't work for us, and what we hope people remember about us, or what we hope people's experience of us is. That tells you so much more about your values than just like staring at one of those lists of value words and picking things that sound good, like "integrity." This is actually going to tell you more meaningful stuff about how it shows up in the real world. So once you've answered a bunch of these questions, and again, let yourself just write whatever, you don't have to use all of it.
But once you've answered them, then you can start looking at themes and patterns. And you can really zoom out and you can say, "Okay, what has seemed meaningful to me? What feels important here? What stands out? Are there particular words, or phrases, or feelings that you notice in more than one spot?" Those are going to be really good guides to where your values are. Same thing when you're looking at the more negative stuff, if you notice, like what's felt pointless, what's hurt you, things where you have felt uncomfortable, that's going to tell you that you were hitting up against a value that wasn't being upheld in that scenario.
And so as you start to do this, you can start to name some of the specific values that are really important to you and your work, the ones that you need to uphold because that's what you need to do to take care of yourself. And then you can start applying those things to your work life: "What does it look like for me the best live out those values? What kinds of organizations might be the best fit for my particular set of values right now?" And the other thing you can ask yourself is, "Okay, how might I live out these values within a corporate environment, within the belly of the beast of a capitalist system? But also, where would they get challenged?"
And then the same thing in something like government or something more social good: "What would help me uphold them in these spaces? And where might they get challenged?" One of the things that's important to remember here is that we're all living in systems that we don't control and that we can't fully escape. So whether you decide to go toward more social good work or not, I think that there's always going to be some level of reckoning with this gap between our values and how we want the world to be and the reality that we live in. And I think that once we start naming our values, we can be more accountable to ourselves about upholding them even when it's hard.
But the other thing that we can do is we can start being more specific about the things that are actually challenging them and allow ourselves to kind of like process the pain of not being able to uphold our values. And I think being able to name that, and talk about that, and then sort of cope with that and heal from that is one of the ways that we build resilience and we're able to keep going even in environments where they're not perfectly aligned with our values and basically know where we ended up is going to be perfect. And so that's something that I would find really useful to just kind of navigate no matter where you end up.
Jen Dionisio 30:14 Yeah. Sara, I feel like if I could kind of summarize all of this great advice you've shared, it's once you know yourself really well outside of these kinds of relationships or external pressures, you have all the tools then to decide season to season, year to year, decade to decade, where you want to put your time and attention, and what you want work to mean to you in those moments instead of just kind of reacting to what's in front of you. So Emily, we're really excited for you to start this exploration of who you are outside of work, and really get connected with these values that matter to you.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 30:59 Okay, Jen, do you have another question for me?
Jen Dionisio 31:02 I do. Well, actually, two questions. I wanted to put these dilemmas together because I think they have a few things in common. Let me start with the first one, which is from Jay who is a UX researcher.
Jay 31:17 I've been in marketing, advertising, and tech for 15 years. UX specifically. Every company I've worked for says they're human-centered and trying to make the world a better place. Once you're inside, it's just a never-ending calendar of compromise where I propose a thoughtful research plan that will help us really understand the humans we're making things for. But then my proposal gets cut because of budget, time, needing a brand anthem video instead, you name it. So we send a survey. And the thing that comes out the other end of the process looks just like all the rest of them...
I'm bored! I'm restless! I want to do good work that is meaningful and will help people live happier, healthier, more connected lives! I know there's a movement right now of people just quitting their jobs and figuring it out, but, like, how feasible is that really? I know there are a ton of people who can't quit their day jobs, so this question is for them: how do we make change toward meaning and connection from inside the corporate beast? Is it even possible? How do we find authenticity when we don't have room to flex our muscles and skills? How do I do work that matches the aspirational things my company says they stand for but that always get sacrificed to timeline and budget?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 32:42 Oh, Jay. I remember feeling like this. I remember when I was fighting really hard for user-centered practices but kept getting asked to, like, put together social media promotions.
Jen Dionisio 32:54 Ugh.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 32:55 And feeling like, "Is this all there is? Is this it?"
Jen Dionisio 32:59 Yeah. God, nothing gets a company prime to abandon its mission faster than money, whether it's like having too much of it or having too little. It seems to just blow the lid off everything.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 33:13 Yeah, I can really hear how fed up Jay is here with that disappointment in the organizations that they work for. Okay, so what about our other dilemma?
Jen Dionisio 33:23 So this one is from a senior design researcher who we will call JB.
JB 33:29 I've struggled my whole career finding the right balance of work that fills my soul and work that is steady, reliable and offers a comfortable living. I once worked at an agency with purpose-driven clients aligned with my interests, but it meant many years of being underpaid and overworked. I left that full-time stable salaried job to build my own company – and while it was successful and extremely fulfilling in many ways, I saw the flip side… Then the pandemic forced me to cease operations. Having a mortgage to pay and two kids during a seemingly never-ending pandemic, I needed to return to work and frankly, after two years running my own company, a 9 to 5 job where I could simply clock in and out suddenly became more appealing.
I accepted a position at a global consultancy that pays a very comfortable salary (a place that I long dreamed of working for), but find myself not creatively or emotionally fulfilled by the work, often in stressful team environments and sometimes questionable ethical dilemmas—not to mention, also biding my time until it's my turn in the next round of mass layoffs. It is the definition of working for corporate America, so I've learned my lesson that pursuing what I'm passionate about *at* work often leads to minimal impact, dead ends, and disappointment.
I find that working on side hustle passion side projects becomes essential when I’m not creatively fulfilled at my job, and I’ve found ways to do this while in my current role, but it can be exhausting… especially as a parent. I always have ideas for creative, self-driven projects, but I'm not sure if I have the energy to pursue them full time again… I've debated if this is the moment to transition to another job, or for a career pivot to pursue more fulfilling, mission-driven work with nonprofits as an independent consultant. I'm afraid to make this leap (again!) and torn between what feels like the sensible, responsible thing to do…and something that feels exciting and full of potential, but likely a big lifestyle/income shift….
Recognizing there are benefits *and* challenges to both paths, how do you decide which is a healthier or more potentially harmful path? Personally and professionally. And when do you decide to just burn it *all* down and instead just go open a juice bar on some remote island far, far away?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 35:33 Jen, does JB stand for "Juice Bar?"
Jen Dionisio 35:35 Yep.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 35:35 Okay. Okay. So JB and Jay. Okay. These are big questions, but something that I hear in both Jay and JB's questions is something like, "How do I find fulfilment, and take care of my well-being, and make a living? Is there a way to actually get all of those things at the same time?"
Jen Dionisio 35:55 Good question.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 35:56 My answer to that is that yeah, I think it is possible to get at least some level of all of those things at the same time, but it's going to be imperfect. You're not going to necessarily get, you know, the full perfect 100% on each of those at once. And that's just because there is a lot of compromise within the system that we all live in. I mean, working and living under capitalism means that we do have to think about, "Well, how am I going to take care of myself? And how am I going to get my health care? And how am I going to get my housing?"
And those worries, definitely don't go away. Like, even if you do decide to move to an island and open a juice bar, you're still gonna have to answer those questions for yourself. And you may have a whole bunch of new ones around your values when you're asking yourself, like, "Who's being exploited in this process? And what does it mean for me as an outsider to show up in this place and open a juice bar? Who might be displacing?" I mean, like, there's always going to be questions and complications. And so the way I look at it is, it is not about finding some perfect, mythical way to have all your values met all the time, and your well-being perfectly attended to, and make a ton of money. It is about navigating where tensions arise between those things and continually holding yourself accountable to doing your best with those tensions.
And when I say accountable, I think that's really important here: you are not responsible for capitalism. That is too much, that is too big. It is not your job to try to live with some kind of purity while within a system that you didn't create and you do not control. Instead, I think it's really helpful to think about, "What are the ways in which I am propping up this system? What are the ways in which I am helping to dismantle this system? How am I treating the people I interact with within this system? Am I resisting exploitation? Am I resisting ways of treating people that dehumanize them? Am I doing my best to not be harmful to others in my attempt to take care of myself?"
All of those things are really good questions. But I think that sometimes when we start talking about, "How do I kind of have it all here," it can start to feel like there's so much responsibility on us and that what we need to achieve is some kind of, like, moral purity that I just don't think is actually possible and can really steer us away from just dealing with the actual mess as it is, and figuring out on the ground, "What are the compromises that I'm making and how do I feel about those? Which ones do I live with, and where are my lines?"
Jen Dionisio 38:28 So what are some of the trade-offs?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 38:30 Yeah, so I think some of the trade-offs they might want to think about are really around, the obvious one is income. But then also things like your kind of time, or energy, or stress levels. Your sense of satisfaction, or growth, or fulfillment. And then maybe also the impact on the world that you have and your sense of doing what's right or not. When you think about those different factors, instead of thinking of like maximizing them, because I think it's where we oftentimes go is like, "I want to have the most impact, or I want to have like the most financial stability," what I would actually encourage both Jay and JB to think about is: "What are my minimum needs for each of these things?"
Jen Dionisio 39:11 Oo MVN.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 39:11 Yeah, minimums, meaning like, "What is my baseline here?" And that can kind of turn into my non-negotiables. Because I can say like, "Look, I can compromise on a lot of stuff. But I can't compromise on these minimums." For example, I had a conversation with a client the other day, who for a long time had set her minimums as being like, "I won't work for an organization that I think has a business model that is actively harmful. But I will work for an organization that has a business model that I see as being kind of neutral." It's like they sell something that people buy and, like, I don't think it's actively destroying the world.
And then actually, what she realized is that that used to be enough, and she's hit a different phase, and that's no longer enough for her. And she's actually looking for something that has a bigger positive impact on the world. And realizing that is helping her decide which trade-offs she's going to make now that are different than the tradeoffs she might have made in the past. And I think that's true for all of us. There are different moments in our life where we're going to need to make different choices. I know that JB mentioned having little kids. When you have little kids, maybe you do have a greater need for financial stability. Maybe it's really helpful to have that clock in, clock out feeling and maybe you decide that that minimum is up a little higher.
One of the things I really recommend to people, though, is to kind of continually check back in with those responses and see where you have a greater need now than maybe you used to and where maybe your needs have changed. So if your kids are getting a little older, they're going to school, home might start feeling a little less chaotic. And then it might feel like it is time to recalibrate around more meaning and growth for yourself. And so I think really kind of looking at what your minimums are in each of those areas, that can help you think about how can you make sure that you get at least those minimums met in multiple different futures? One of those features might be in a corporate environment. One of those might be, you know, a traditional workplace.
And I think it's healthy to also say, "Okay, I'm frustrated with a lot of things in my job. I don't feel like it has been scratching that itch for me. But what might be possible here with regards to expressing my values more fully? Both Jay and JB are researchers. Maybe though in those environments, the way that your values get expressed, the way that you kind of show up, maybe it's not actually about the research, because maybe that's not a very fruitful climate for you to do awesome research. And that sucks. And you can have feelings about that. But one thing you might want to consider is like, what if you let go of that a little bit, and you say, "Okay, I'm not going to look for the research work to be the place that it feels like my passion, or my values really get to come through."
What if you poured more of that into the way you treat the people you work with? In the way that you support and nurture others? In the way that you maybe educate others about the craft or mentor people? Like where are the other places that you could pour some of that energy, and maybe get some of those minimum needs met for a sense of fulfillment, or a sense of like, having good impact? Sometimes doing that can help us make peace with some of the realities of our organizations, and we stop needing to find so much meaning in some of the other parts of our work. That can be fine. It's okay to say, "Yeah, we do some kind of half-assed research here. I wish it were better. And I wish it were different. But I have these outlets that are getting some of my needs met. And that's where I turn to, and I feel okay about it."
Jen Dionisio 42:44 So I hear a lot of disappointment in these letters. So what do you do when you're really struggling to find peace with those sort of minimum viable needs that you're getting?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 42:55 Yeah, I heard that. JB said that they experienced "minimal impact and dead ends" when they tried to pursue their passion and their work. And Jay said that they are bored and restless at having all of their you know, thoughtful ideas get axed. And so the thing I would say is that it might be a matter of redefining success for yourself. Because it sounds to me a little bit like both Jay and JB have maybe defined success as being like, "And then my organization changed." Obviously, that would be great. It would be wonderful if your organization started paying attention, listening to you, and doing research that was truly meaningful to your audiences and felt like the kind of deep craft work you want to do.
But if that is your definition of success, then it sounds like a really easy place to get let down. What I might look at is what is the definition of success you have a little bit more control over? And that might be saying, you know, "I shared something that I feel strongly about, and I shared it with confidence. I don't know if they'll take it up. But I did that. And I feel good about that. And also, I'm sharing a point of view that might shift some people's thinking over time, even if it doesn't happen right away. I'm setting an example for younger people on the team. I am influencing people in ways that I might not actually see directly. But I am going to trust that by simply being here and sharing an alternate perspective and being somebody who speaks up for what's right, that that is meaningful at some level.
And that is going to take root in ways that I won't necessarily know about." I think that that is definitely possible. And I think that it is worthwhile to look at how you can shift how you define success and how you can shift where you're putting your energy to see if that changes how you feel about your job. That said, you know, I said before, sometimes we can make peace with some of that lack of meaning. Well, sometimes we can't make peace with it. Sometimes we can't make peace with a workplace that is failing us and is not changing in ways that we find really meaningful. And so as you go through this process of kind of like looking at how you're looking at success, at shifting your energy, and you're still in the same place of disappointment and disillusionment, then it might mean that it's time for you to look at a different mix of trade-offs.
Maybe it's time for you to start asking, "Okay, am I actually willing to trade more of my financial comfort or more of my sense of stability for the opportunity to have, you know, more pride in the work that I'm doing and more connection to the work that I'm doing?" because maybe the cost of staying where you are is actually too high.
Jen Dionisio 45:40 So if that's how they're feeling, can Jay and JB really leave this all behind and go do their own things? You know, as Jay asked, "Is this feasible?"
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 45:50 Yeah, I think that's a great question. My first response is, yeah, I know, it's feasible because I know people who've done it, and I think we've done it. We've left jobs behind and started our own thing and feel most of the time pretty good about it. And so I think it can definitely be feasible. And I think there's a lot of upsides. So if you do figure out how to do your own thing, you get a lot more freedom to pursue what you find meaningful. You know, we've gotten to kind of like play with our business model, explore different approaches. I know that we've recently had a few conversations about, like, what are different ways to get to enough money to pay everybody's salary, and to keep everybody feeling happy?
And that can look different ways. And you're allowed to, like, try on different stuff. And it also means that we can recalibrate whenever we want to, right? So like, we can work on something and be like, "Oof, that sucked. I don't actually want to work with a company like that or on a project like that again. Like, maybe that's something we say no to in the future." And the other thing that I think is really great when you start charting your own course is that you start connecting with other people who think like you, who share your values. You start building a different kind of network. And I think that that helps create kind of like, more possibility. It's all very generative. And so for both JB and Jay, I would say that, if this desire to do something that is more self-driven, that is more independent, if that is calling you pretty strongly, I want to encourage you to believe that it is possible.
Jen Dionisio 47:26 Yeah. And, you know, I am hearing this assumption, and look, I used to have it too, which is that to have fulfillment at work automatically means less money and less stability. But, Sara, that actually really hasn't been our experience.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 47:42 Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, we are not making the kind of personal wealth that you might get if you worked your way up the ladder in like a large tech company where you're getting large stock grants. But on the other hand, I think we do pretty well. And I think that we are mostly thriving, I would say. Right? Like, for the most part. And so I think that part of the reason that's the case, though, that I do want to acknowledge is that we do make compromises. Meaning like, sometimes we will work with a company that we don't necessarily 100% agree with on everything, probably that's most companies.
It means that, you know, we charge prices that exclude some people that we would otherwise like to work with, but it's not sustainable for us. We think about how to position our services in ways that will make them palatable enough that a company will pay for their people to go through a program with us or get coaching with us. And sometimes that means making our positioning a little less political than we would otherwise make it. And those are all choices. And those all feel like trade-offs to me. But one of the things that I do think is helpful is knowing that we can check in with ourselves on how those trade-offs feel. And we have the power to shift those choices if they don't feel good anymore.
Jen Dionisio 48:58 Yeah. And I know, for me, even making those trade-offs, the impact on the people we get to work with one-on-one, or in groups, or in workshops is like where that meaning comes from. So it really ultimately does feel like those trade-offs are worthwhile.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 49:14 Yeah, I think so too. I think that what I might suggest to both Jay and JD is that they spend some time in that space of just believing that it is feasible, that there is a way to pursue some of their interests and some of their passions in a more independent path, and not immediately jumped to the idea that that would require making less money and taking on a ton more risk. And the reason I'm going to encourage them to think about that is that if they can open themselves up to the idea of it being feasible, they can start getting more generative and creative about what it could look like. What does an independent path look like that is also stable, that is well paid? What are different ways to get there? What are some different models that that could look like? If there's an aspect of what you want to do that wouldn't be particularly lucrative, is there something you could pair it with that would help balance that out? So I think that there's lots of different ways that you can start to like, make the math work, once you open up to the idea that it's possible that the math could work.
Jen Dionisio 50:16 You know, you're reminding me of the floor, you invited me to come work with Active Voice, you know, I was building up my own coaching business. And that's a process. So much of our client work comes from people knowing us, and getting referrals, and being in community with new people who need the kind of help we give. And that doesn't happen overnight. So when I was thinking of striking out on my own, again, back to that, like, progress over perfection lens, I thought, "Okay, well, maybe the first year, I'm spending 20 hours a week on some kind of content strategy contract, or copywriting, or some other maybe less ideal vision of what I wanted to be doing."
But the thing that would give me that amount of base income to cover my minimal financial needs, while also giving me time and space, and protecting some energy to really kind of work on building this business I really wanted to create. And then I imagined, you know, over time, like maybe year two is me only taking on like two content contracts in a year as kind of the number of people coming in grows. And so I also am thinking a lot about how you don't have to have it all figured out immediately to get started.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 51:43 Yeah, you know, I think this might be a great place for both Jay and JD to put on their researcher hats, because they're both researchers. So okay, how would you go answer some of these questions for yourself? A big one I would suggest is: "Who do you know who's already done it? And how are they making it work?" Ideally, identify multiple people who have done it in some fashion that feels resonant to you. And how are all of them making it work? Because then you can start seeing some different models. And you start hearing from people what some of the kind of like tradeoffs look like in the way that they're doing it, and where they get stuck, and how they're working through it.
And you can get a sense of like, "Okay, what are some different ways that I might approach my own future that feel healthy to me and sustainable, and that also feel ethical, that feel non-exploitative," that kind of hit some of these other markers that are important to you? And I think that if you go down that path, some new ideas might open up that haven't really been allowed to bloom yet. And I say that because when I read both Jay and JD's letters, I get the sense that they're both really assuming that they're going to have to take this big financial hit to do something independent and more mission-driven. And then when they make that assumption, their brain is then immediately kind of shutting down the idea, like it's not really taking it a ton further than there.
And so I will say that instead of shutting it down, I'll recommend giving yourself full permission to just explore it and to say, "What if it were possible to have all these things work at the same time?" Paint a picture of that model. Look at all the different ways you might be able to get there financially. Look at the ways that you might be able to get part of the way there and then look at those gaps and say, "Okay, where do I make some compromises in order to fill in those gaps?" like Jen was talking about, right? Like, "I could do some safe projects I know how to do. They're not going to light me up, that's okay. But that will help me fill the gap while I figure this out."
And I say this not to tell you that this is what you should do is ultimately go down this path of quitting your jobs and moving into independent work, and like doing all of these other things you've mentioned. I say this, because I think that you need to explore it. And I think you need to let it breathe more. You know what it looks like to stay within a traditional organization. That's pretty clear to both of you already. I think giving more space to what it could look like outside of an organization and letting yourself inhabit that vision more might make it feel more grounded and more accessible and less of a fantasy. And once you do that, then I think you're in a place where you can really make a thoughtful choice about what feels like the best mix of trade-offs for you right now. And you're going to have an easier time knowing the answer, because you don't have as many question marks for this other side. And you're gonna be able to kind of weigh those things more realistically.
Jen Dionisio 54:34 So true. So Jay and JD, it sounds like you have a lot of imagining to do.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 54:42 Whew. Jen, people have some big questions about their values and how those show up at work. And gosh, I just want to say I think to everybody out there that this stuff is hard. This was a hard episode to put together because I don't think there are easy answers. And so if you're feeling like these answers are hard to figure out, know that that's because they're hard not because there's something wrong with you.
Jen Dionisio 55:04 Yeah, what I've seen from my clients is that even though that work is really hard, ultimately, it has so much benefit for charting the rest of your life and the course you want to take. And that's how it worked for me, too.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 55:26 Thank you all so much for listening today. That is it for this week's episode. Per My Last Email is a production of Active Voice, and you can check us out at https://www.activevoicehq.com/. And you can get all the past episodes, show notes, and full transcripts of every episode at https://pmleshow.com/. This episode was produced by Emily Duncan and our theme music is (I'm a) Modern Woman by Maria T. Buy her album at https://thisismariat.bandcamp.com/. And thank you to everyone who submitted their story for today's show. And thank you for listening. If you've got a work dilemma eating away at you, send it to us. Head to https://pmleshow.com/ to submit your story. See you next time.