The Wright Stuff: Lead Uniquely, Live Purposefully

Editor’s Note: The Wright Stuff is a series of practical, actionable articles meant to help us grow and navigate our lives and careers. The author hopes to provide perspective and lessons learned (many times the hard way) that can hopefully be applied by you to find purpose, joy, and meaning in your chosen pursuits.

How can we live and work with passion and purpose?

Have you ever taken a moment to think about this question? Why are you crawling in and out of oil-soaked pressure vessels? Working in this industry? Losing sleep to stay on target with the turnaround? Staring at that spreadsheet full of calculations until your eyes blur? Working 80 to 100-hour weeks? Dealing with difficult people?

What we do is dangerous and challenging, but it can also be very rewarding. The people we work with and for can be difficult to deal with, but they can also become some of our lifelong friends. So, how can we handle this stress and not simply survive but also thrive at work (and, more importantly, at home and in life)?

To do what we do, you have to want it – our profession is one of the most challenging and risky out there. We provide energy to the world, and even if the public perception of our industry is oftentimes a negative one, we ARE needed. It’s worth restating that what we do is dangerous, and people can die if we are not careful and don’t do our jobs effectively and with purpose. As such, it’s not unusual for many of us to derive passion from our line of work because we realize that protecting people is our mission and coming home to our families is the ultimate goal. 

How can we achieve all of this and still feel content, happy, and joyful inside? Is it even possible? I am here to say a resounding YES, but it requires effort and intentionality. We must work for it, both for ourselves and for the people we love. While many of us have not served in the military, we form a close-knit group as we work together nearly every day—a "band of brothers and sisters" with a shared goal.

The work can certainly become a grind, so how do we transform our chosen profession into a lifelong mission where we find joy, passion, purpose, and fulfillment? We can’t look to others for this; we must find it within ourselves.

Many people do not find meaning in their lives or their work. You often hear people say they don't enjoy their jobs or that their lives didn't turn out as they hoped. I challenge you to see it differently and try to live differently. We can find joy and a heart for serving others if we change our perspective and are intentional about this lifelong pursuit. We must learn from our mistakes, which can lead to some of the most dramatic and positive life changes. "Pain-motivated change" can be the most impactful, even though it is challenging to live through.

And so I ask you again: How can we live and work with passion and purpose?

Discovering the answer to this question is the first step in your pursuit of success and, more importantly, meaning, inner peace, and joy.

In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren says, “The only really happy people are those who have learned how to serve others.” At the end of the day, I find that serving others brings me much more joy and happiness than serving myself. 

Here’s another example: Steven Covey says in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “It’s not what happens to us, but our responses to what happens to us that hurts.” and “Of course things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character and basic identity does not have to be hurt at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and inspire others to do so as well.”

We tend to get caught up in ourselves so much that we forget about what matters to us most–the people we love, live with, and work with. Our challenge is to change our thinking and actions so that we look hard at ourselves and what truly matters to us and then change our actions to become better versions of ourselves. No one else can do this for us.

“Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Theodore Roosevelt

A Personal Story

I began my career in a refinery, where I learned many things about the profession, how to work with people, and how to get things done. I failed many times, but I always tried to maintain a positive attitude and work ethic in everything I did (some would say I was a bit too positive). I also tended to be outspoken (loud) and even confrontational at times – especially when under stress. This behavior worked in my favor, but most of the time it simply frustrated people. In fact, I still struggle with this from time to time. I find that when I calm down and try to see others' viewpoints and listen to them, we tend to achieve better outcomes collectively.

When I left the refinery for another job, the two operations shift superintendents I would meet with every morning to pick up the daily “E” work orders for maintenance action presented me with a gift: it was a hard hat with a relief valve screwed into the top of it. The intent of this gift was to poke fun at my outbursts and their tendency to “break” things. But over time, I have come to understand that the underlying notion behind the hard hat was that the superintendents felt that working with me was eventful–and NOT in a good way. My lack of self-awareness at the time caused this behavior to last longer than it probably should have. Over time I have gotten better, but I still must constantly remind myself that my anger and frustrations can boil over with sometimes damaging outcomes to myself and others.

The lesson here is that the sooner we learn from our own internal challenges, the sooner we work towards creating an environment where people feel valued, heard, and appreciated.

Parting Thoughts

Here are a few things I’ve learned (and am still working on!) to leave you with:

• Try and find meaning, passion, and purpose in your life. You ARE here for a reason!
• Be a servant to others, including your family, and those you work  and live with. This will bring you more joy than you can imagine.
• Do good, be a positive influence, and show your light and passion in a positive way. 
• There are plenty of negative people in the world… don’t be one of them.
• You are going to make mistakes. While they can be painful, what you learn from them can be impactful! The sooner you learn from them, the happier and more content you will be (or, you can suffer through 60+ years of making the same mistakes over and over again, which is not fun!).
• Challenges will make you stronger, so you can help others learn from your example.
• Don’t give up. You only lose if you stop trying.

And finally, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite passages:

“…but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope” – Romans 5:3-4

PS. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic, as well as your ideas for other topics. Please share your feedback below or in confidence by emailing me at bwright@twsconsultants.com.

PPS. Thanks to Katy Wright, my daughter, for kicking me in the butt to put the pen to paper and finish this article! She's a much more accomplished writer than me and I expect she'll be contributing her own stories to this series very soon.