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Finding My Dream Job
Press & Media > Finding Your Dream Job: Nick Williams on BBC Oxford...
INTERVIEWER: What job are you doing now? Is it a job that you’ve dreamt
of doing for years - that naturally fits with your skills - or was it just a
job that you fell into? One man has been 15 years teaching people how to turn
their passions into profits. He is Nick Williams, author of “The Work
We Were Born To Do” and he joins me. Hi, Nick! Good morning! How are you?.
NICK WILLIAMS: Good morning, I am very well indeed. Thank you!
INTERVIEWER: So is that the case? Do we normally just end up - kind of - accidentally
in jobs that aren’t ideal for us?
NICK WILLIAMS: I think the majority of people do. Yeah, then there are the
apparently ‘lucky few’ who end up doing something they truly love
- and getting paid for it - and the rest of us kind of ‘get by’
but are not particularly excited about our work. Also, there’s a good
percentage of people who are in totally the wrong jobs - who just drifted in
- and perhaps have a very negative attitude towards work in general…
INTERVIEWER: I guess there are very few people who can honestly say they are
doing their dream job – work that they’d always dreamt of doing
- and that they were ‘born to do’?
NICK WILLIAMS: That’s right, that’s why I’m on a mission,
because I think most of us grew up with a couple of limiting beliefs around
work - one is that we have to do something that’s intrinsically unpleasant
in order to earn a living….
INTERVIEWER: - that’s work!
NICK WILLIAMS: Yeah! …the work ethic - sure - it’s a common negative
idea about work that pervades our thinking. It teaches us that work must involve
suffering - and I find it all around the world - it’s not just a British
thing. But then there’s the other extreme - the second belief is - if
you want to be defiant you can go off and do something you love, and
is meaningful to you, and is creative - and that you are inspired by - but the
price you’ll pay is you are probably not going to earn much money out
of doing it. So I think most of us have a dilemma which is: do we have the love
or do we have the money? …I am very much about a ‘third way’
which is about having the love AND the money - finding what it is that you’d
would really love to do, and then figuring out how to get paid for it! You know,
it’s not rocket science, but most of us just aren’t educated to
believe it’s possible - and I realized how lacking that is for most people.
So I feel like I am a man on a mission to help and inspire people...
INTERVIEWER: That’s great - if it works - but surely it’s almost
impossible just to be able to pick your dream job and then to find a way to
get well paid for it?
NICK WILLIAMS: Well, I think there are two parts to this problem. You may
find your dream job working for somebody else as an employee - but what I find
is that people who are very passionate and inspired often end up being entrepreneurial
- you know like the ‘Dragon’s Den’– so they have ideas
that they’ll create a business out of. Or also they could be intrapreneurial
– which is the idea that you can be entrepreneurial but within an organization.
So it is almost like being self-employed but somebody else actually pays you
to do it. So, yeah, you know, people who are passionate and love what they do
tend to be more resourceful, tend to be more creative, and they tend to actively
create work around them rather than just taking a conventional job.
INTERVIEWER: So ideally we should all want to be our own boss?
NICK WILLIAMS: I think we certainly need to take more responsibility for our
work and our career - yes. In the past it used to be that you trusted an organization
to look after you as long as you are a good employee – but that’s
all changing now. I think part of my mission has to do with the fact that so
many of us have such low expectations of work - we don’t think that work
could be something that could inspire us - that could grow us – and that
we could go home at the end of the day feeling fulfilled. Most of us think that
only a few special people get to do this - whereas I am out to teach people
it is possible and that they can do it…
INTERVIEWER: So you’ve been advising people via your books and seminars
on how they can achieve this…. What kind of jobs have they discovered
that they were ‘born to do’?
NICK WILLIAMS: Often creative things - things that are meaningful. Things
like coaching or healing - actually helping people ‘unblock’ themselves
and become who they truly are. Some people are very creative as artists - whether
that’s on canvass or jewelry. Also, I have coached a lot of people in
conventional careers - but to become leaders - to take more of an authority
role - not just via their position, but also in terms of seeking more influence
and wanting to make their organization a better place. I coach people on personal
leadership, so that instead of complaining that ‘things aren’t right’
they can become one of the people who’ll actually start making things
better.
INTERVIEWER: Most of the people that you’re talking with - I wonder
if they’ve been attracted to your message because they secretly know inside
what they were ‘born to do’ – but they’ve just haven’t
had an opportunity to do it?
NICK WILLIAMS: That’s a very interesting point. I believe that when
we’re growing up most of us DO know what we would love to do – but
either we get talked out of it by family or teachers - or somehow we scare ourselves
and never follow through because it’s not what our friends and family
are doing. So, I think many of us do secretly harbor these dreams, and know
in our hearts what we would like to do. One of the things I help people with
is something I call ‘resistance’. Often the more important something
is to us, the more we talk ourselves out of it, procrastinate - put it off -
and avoid it. Because when something is so important to us we can get scared
that if it didn’t work out – or if we failed – we’d
be devastated. So we don’t even allow ourselves to risk the disappointment!
INTERVIEWER: But also I guess for those of us with mortgages and families,
it takes a lot of courage to be able to say - “That’s it! I am going
to throw away the job. I know what I want to do - I know it’s going to
work - forget the money! Forget the salary!” That takes a lot of courage…
NICK WILLIAMS: Yeah. It takes great courage, but I don’t suggest people
take that route to be honest. I don’t say “throw it all in”.
My suggestion is always that people should discover work they’d love to
be doing - and then just start doing it – in very small ways to begin
with. I know that many people have big ideas that they’ve never done anything
with - so one of the first things I would coach people to do is to ask themselves
how could they take their idea and produce their first bit of income from it.
How can you get your first client - just to prove that the idea works –
and then how can you build upon that success? Then you can continue to build,
and build, until it becomes a regular income - and then you can transition away
from your full time job in a safer way. I think one of the things people struggle
with is that they’re so busy in their day-to-day lives that they don’t
feel that they have spare time and energy to invest in huge long term projects.
So I am a great fan of the idea that you can build your dreams gradually - because
for most people it need not be a big leap - it should be a gradual transition.
INTERVIEWER: Would you describe yourself as an author, a business development
coach, or as a life coach? How would you define yourself?
NICK WILLIAMS: All of those! But a phrase I have been using more and more
is “work philosopher” because I espouse the philosophy that work
is something that we can enjoy, and that can enrich us as human beings. But
for most people this is not their experience – so I try to offer support
in the form of writing, coaching, broadcasting, talks and seminars to help people
on their journey.
INTERVIEWER: What job did you dream of doing when you were a kid? Surely was
not a work philosopher? Like most of us I guess you wanted to be a train driver
or a rock star?
NICK WILLIAMS: I guess I did want to do what I am doing today! But I got waylaid
- I went into computer sales - and got caught up in the rat-race like most of
us do... When I reached my late 20s - I knew I wasn’t happy - I knew that
in my heart what I wanted to do was to help and inspire people, to help people
achieve their potential, and help them be the best that they can be. So yeah,
as a kid I dreamed of doing what I’m doing today - and I am very blessed
because I get to share this message around the world.
INTERVIEWER: Nick - you sound like an inspired man! Nick Williams, many thanks
for joining us!
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