Loving What You Do: The Unfair Advantage

Monday mornings are Freakonomics podcast days. This morning, I heard the most interesting and inspiring podcast. The host, Stephen J. Dubner took me along on a magic show and then Steve Levitt spoke about 'The bagel man' and about loving ants.

The podcast was titled, 'Think like a child'. It talked about how kids ask so many questions, how they are able to observe everything, and how they think out of the box to solve problems. Many ideas discussed in the podcast took me back to my old blog post, 'What children can teach us about learning' and how their curiosity and observation helps them learn so many things so quickly. 

There were many great ideas and concepts but the most powerful one that resonated with me was all about having fun and loving what you do. Infact, the entire post and the title was inspired by a single sentence that I heard in the podcast:

Steven Levitt said:

"Enjoying what you do, loving what you do is such a completely unfair advantage to anyone you are competing with who does it for a job."

I love my job and love doing what I do. So, I do believe I have an unfair advantage over someone who thinks being a learning consultant is just a job.
 

To add to this powerful idea, here's something more. Not from the podcast but a related idea.

Ron Culberson talks about his two step approach to success: do it well and make it fun. This totally makes sense. It you don't do your job well, just having fun at it won't cut it. For humor to work, you need to be excellent at work. In this article, Ron shares some of his tips on what if you can't find a job that you are excited about. 

Do you have an unfair advantage? Are you in a job that you are excited about? Do you #loveyourwork?