If you live here in the UK, you will know just how bad the weather has been for the last week.

Snow, blizzards, icy roads, we’ve had it all, and as I write this, the weather-man is saying that the worse is yet to come. It’s just as well we don’t shoot the messengers any more!

I was in my local health food store this morning, buying some over priced calories after my work out, and I couldn’t help but hear the guy standing next to me talk on his mobile to who I assume was a work colleague.

“Yeah mate, quite a few of us actually got in to work today”

Listening….

“Oh, really, you made it in too? “ I didn’t expect that. Not from all the way up in North London.”

I stifled a laugh. We were in Soho, which for those of you reading who don’t know your North London from your South, officially we were standing in North London, as anywhere North of the Thames is classified as such.

I’d taken the tube that morning to get there, I was aware that there were minor delays on the Northern lines and various other lines, with the Hammersmith having been suspended. As far as I’m aware, the buses were still running.

So my fellow shopper was expressing shock that his colleague had made it in from maybe a mile – or at it’s most- five miles away. I just wondered if he’d received a round of applause as he entered his work place that morning.

The call also set me to pondering about the headline on a free tube paper this morning; apparently the snow would cause the UK economy to lose fourteen billion pounds or so in various chill affected revenues.

I felt compelled to ask myself, how many of the people who had decided to stay at home instead of going to work, really, truly, whole-heartedly love what they do for a living?

How many of them would have made an extreme effort to get to work if they knew that there was a ten thousand pound bonus cheque waiting for them that day?

I can only imagine that it would be most of them.

What about a one thousand pound cheque? Or a one hundred pound cheque?

What about no money but instead, a day of feeling valued, encouraged – moved even- to being the best at what they do each day?

I in no way blame people for wanting an easy day at home with a perfectly valid excuse (if everyone else is staying at home then it’s valid, right?).

After all, it’s quite likely that many of the people sat in front of their TVs all day are treated by their companies in ways that are antithetical to being inspired, excited and engaged.

I know, because I see it almost every time I go into a company to shake things up a little, or a lot. People are often bored and they feel powerless to make decisions at the level of their position in the company. Routines and patterns have been created that individuals feel compelled to stick to. There’s often no Juice in their daily work; nothing to make them feel alive or motivated to be the very best at what they do.

For many people, having a career they Love is a fantasy. You turn up (or not, if it’s snowing) follow your pattern that was probably set in your first week or two. Keep your head down all week, especially if the boss is in a bad mood and (drum roll… this is what it has all been for….) collect a cheque at the end of the month to keep all of the other patterns and routines running in their lives and running smoothly.

One of my favourite Poets, the Persian, ‘Rumi’ says :

“Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground”

And oddly, I’ve always remembered this next quote from a book (on hunting with ferrets of all things) that I read as a thirteen-year old kid:

“Work should be your love made manifest”. Anon

Maybe it was something as simple as this quote that has always driven me to live the life that I choose. Not a life based on fear of not being good enough or not surviving unless I take the 9-7 options.

How do you get the job of your dreams then?

I’ll elaborate in a future posting…