🎧 5 Career Questions: Can I make my passion project work full-time?
Gary Ware had just returned from leading a retreat in Nicaragua when he found out that he was out of a job. That same day, he learned that his landlord was selling the house – he, his wife, and their infant son had to move in the next 60 days.
“You would think the logical thing would be, ‘Hey, let me go get another job,’” he said. “Sometimes when everything sort of burns down, you get that moment of clarity, of ‘Maybe there’s something else there.’”
Naturally, the first thing he did was take out some Legos.
Why? Take a listen to our conversation, and see below for some of the questions we tackled, with excerpts of Gary’s wonderful wit and wisdom:
Music by AudioCoffee
- (4:35) In your book Playful Rebellion, you talk about the importance of play in our work lives. How did your experiences with improv and playfulness at work inform how you approached the uncertainty of this new phase of your career?
Play, as a practice, “made it a little easier, especially when I’m in this high-stakes situation of ‘I need to find a job, I need to relocate my family.’ And the first thing that I did after all of that went through is I broke out some Legos. … It’s my meditation. And in that, it gave me a sense of calm.”
- (6:35) What did it take to get your company Breakthrough Play going?
“We can’t play if we don’t feel safe. But the interesting thing is, it’s sort of a paradox, because play gets us into that feeling of safety. … Once (we had a place to stay), then I was able to start to relax a little bit more.”
- (8:55) I talk to a lot of people who are really worried, even frightened, about what they should do next in their careers. Could you share what the Compass of Joy is and how you can tell you’re headed in the direction that your compass is pointing?
“There are things that light us up, and a lot of times it’s been there since we were younger. And if we can tap into that…it can really lead us to the places that we need to go.”
- (10:50) What were the early signals that you were heading in the direction of the Compass of Joy?
“Flow is when time seems to just go by, and you’re deeply focused. And to me, that is like play. Think about when you’re playing something, you’re just immersed in this experience. And I found that when I was doing these workshops, I got into my groove and I was like, 'Wow, this is it.’”
- (13:10) If you could go back to burned-out Gary on that day you lost both your job and learned you were losing your home, what would you tell him about what you learned from making this switch?
“I felt broken. I felt like there was something wrong with me, I’m like, ‘Why am I not experiencing joy? Why is this happening to me?’ And the first thing I would say is, ‘You’re not broken. You’re misaligned.’
“Sometimes the things that when we start out doing them, it seems like, ‘Oh, this is in alignment,’ but over time, things change. (A friend who’s a sailor said) sometimes being off alignment by just a smidge can be the difference between you hitting your destination and you being completely off-course.”
Happy navigating,
Bridget