Leider Richard J - Work Reimagined : Uncover Your Calling

WORK

Reimagined

Uncover Your Calling

Reimagined

Richard J. Leider

David A. Shapiro

Foreword by
Jo Ann Jenkins, CEO, AARP

Work Reimagined

Copyright 2015 by Richard J. Leider and David A. Shapiro

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First Edition

Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-62656-558-6

PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-559-3

IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-560-9

2015-1

Cover Designer: Dan Tesser, Studio Carnelian

Text Designer: Lisa Devenish, Devenish Design

Copyeditor: Susan Schmid, Teton Editorial

DEDICATION

To all those who have uncovered their calling to find a living worth living.

by Jo Ann Jenkins

When Richard Leider asked me to write the foreword to this important new book, Work Reimagined: Uncovering Your Calling, it immediately struck me how his request perfectly illustrates a number of the ways in which our world is radically changing.

As the Chief Executive Officer of AARP, an organization of nearly thirty-eight million people 50-plus, I see firsthand how rapidly and dramatically the world of work is changing. It is no longer what it once was, even as recently as a decade ago. More and more of our members want to keep working past traditional retirement age because they want to continue to contribute to society and find meaning in their own lives, and work does that for them.

But, that is having a disruptive influence on the workplace because it goes against old norms and stereotypes. As individuals, and in our organizations, we need to get to the point where we are no longer defined by the old expectations of what we should do or should not do at a certain age, and that means we need to reimagine our lives so we can be open to joy and fulfillment throughout our days. After all, it is not really about aging; it is about living.

AARPs Life Reimagined initiative is all about helping people to realize that we can choose our path forward at any step in our lifes journey. And as a means to that, it enables each of us to connect to a powerful social movement that cuts across traditional distinctions, including age, as we explore together how the future will look for us all.

As someone who has been involved for over a quarter century in the leadership of organizations deeply committed to work that improves the quality of peoples lives, I realize how closely peoples sense of meaning and fulfillment is tied to their work. I have had the great good fortune of consistently doing work that is closely aligned with my own internal sense of calling. I know how vital it is to be engaged in projects that allow us to express our gifts, in support of causes we are passionate about, with people who share our values and aspirations. That is why I am so excited about this book and so pleased to welcome it as a connected piece in our overall Life Reimagined efforts.

In seeking to discover new life possibilities, it is critical that we develop a clearer sense of the kind of work that gives meaning and purpose to our lives. It does not matter whether we are just graduating college or coming to the end of a lifetime of service to an organization or cause; the same powerful impulse to express who we are through what we do remains alive at every point in our lives.

In this book, you will be led through a journey of self-discovery to help you clarify your own gifts, passions, and values in order to reimagine your work and find meaning and fulfillment. Ultimately, you will uncover that powerful sense of calling that gives our lives meaning no matter where we are on lifes journey.

I invite you to experience Work Reimagined: Uncover Your Calling as a means to live with a greater sense of purpose, meaning, and joy at every age.

Jo Ann Jenkins

CEO, AARP

Time flies. You get up in the morning, do your thing all day long, and go to bed at night.

Then you wake one day to find that more than two decades have passedin barely a blink of an eye. Rip Van Winkle himself would be mightily impressed.

The changes that have taken place over the last twenty years or so are staggering: technology that did not even exist in the final part of the twentieth century has come and gone; grey hairs that were only emerging then have achieved dominance and turned white. The external world and its internal counterpart are radically different from then to now as the river of time flows on incessantly.

It is the end of work as we know it. Age-old models of working have broken down in the space of two decades; career paths look nothing like they did in the days before phones got smart.

And yet, there are perennial concerns that have remained steadfast. Questions like What was I born to do? and What is my calling? continue to intrigue us. The ongoing search for answers and the processes by which we explore are as vital and consuming as ever.

As coauthors and friends, we embarked on a journey together more than twenty years ago. Our first book, Repacking Your Bags: Lighten Your Load for the Good Life, represented the initial step in that journey. The central message of Repacking was that each of us needs to develop his or her own vision of the good lifewhich we defined as living in the place you belong, with people you love, doing the right work, on purposeand having done so, must then repack our bags so that the only burdens we carry are those that really assist us in getting where we want to be.

What we did not fully realize at the time was how much repacking would become a vital life skillnot only for us individually, but for us in the broader world of work and relationships as well.

By examining our own lives and asking ourselves the question that started it all in Repacking: Does all this make me happy? we discovered, individually and together, that many of the choices we had made around place, work, relationships, and purpose were indeed contributing to our overall sense of well-being. But some of them needed to be reimagined and repacked. As a result, we have both made a number of significant changes in our livessome external and others of a more introspective kind.