Your job title doesn’t define you. I don’t care and neither does the next person.

I’m meeting a lot of people at the moment who seem to be working twelve plus hours a day, and forgetting about friends and family. None of them have any idea why they are working such crazy hours, other than they think they need the next job title.

Guess what? Once they get that job title, they are not happy. Then, when they become CEO, it’s still not enough. There’s then pressure to sit on lots of boards and drink champagne and eat caviar.

Since when did anyone ever meet someone and hear their job title, and be completely wowed and fall to their knees? The answer is never. You’re a human, not a robot with a title, make and serial number.

Here’s what you should think about instead:

A) People are what’s impressive

Meeting a compassionate and kind human being that’s changing the world, will always crap all over any ridiculous job title.

“It’s not what your title says you do, but what you actually do that’s important”

There are a lot of people that have a job title that suggests they do really cool stuff and the reality is they do two-tenths of not much. A meeting here, a meeting there, shake hands there. It all sounds very impressive. The reality of it is anything but impressive.

We all can talk a good game about our career or business. Talk is one thing, demonstrating that you’re on another level and want to serve others is so much harder to prove.

Don’t be fooled by the stars buzzing around someone’s head because of their job title. Get excited by the person instead, even if they clean the bathroom for a living.

B) It’s not about how good you are; it’s about how good you can be

Where the magic happens is when you get to see someone grow as a person. Many people that have hit great job titles are boring as hell because they become complacent and think they’re the top dog.
The people that will add value to your life are the “up and comers” – the hustlers who are still chasing the dream and don’t have an over inflated ego.

I personally think the under dogs are far better than the “C Suite” job titles people get impressed by.

The best feeling in the world is being the person who goes from nothing to someone that changes the game forever. The second best feeling is seeing someone else do that and watching the journey through your own eyes.

C) It’s not about where you are right now

You may not have the job title yet but forget that. Why you do what you do is far more important. Unless you derive meaning from your career, you’ll never get the feeling you’ve been chasing. A better job title does not mean a better life. Spend time working for or creating great companies.

“A company is nothing more than a group of people, organized under a common label, working for a common cause. It’s the cause that will wow people, not the job title”

D) Think about all of those hours

These crazy cats that are working twelve-hour days, staying single and ignoring the people that want to know them for who they are, are missing out. You don’t want to be one of those people.

You can’t buy back all of these hours. You’ll be taken advantage of if you work twelve hours plus to gain a job title and be happy being a workhorse. It’s not about working hard; it’s about working smart. Lots of people spend plenty of time in front of their computer: that doesn’t mean they are reaching any meaningful goal. It’s easy to look busy. It’s easy to look smart and successful.

What’s hard is to do stuff that matters. Really dig deep and understand why you work such crazy hours. Until you know why, you’ll continue to waste your time and it will eventually catch up with you. Time is all you have.

Time with friends. Time with your partner. Time with your family. This time is what you’ll remember when it’s all over. There will be a game over phase called death that will come eventually.

Don’t die slaving away in an office cubicle having never known what it’s like to serve others. Don’t die not knowing what it’s like to work towards a cause that you’ll be remembered for long after your gone.

E) The motivation you need is not in the job title

Do what lights you up and you’ll never need motivation again. This sounds so dumb, yet the best advice often is. The job title you think you want doesn’t come with added inspiration or motivation. You have to be self-motivated and that will never come from a job title.

The way you push through the barriers is by searching for meaning. That process will start with the search for meaning in your career and then ultimately you will get where I am today: looking for the meaning of your entire life.

Once you reach this question, you’ll stop wasting hours on gaining job titles. Instead, you’ll seek a much deeper connection with the people around you. You’ll begin the search within yourself where all the answers you’ll ever need are found.

***My job title journey***

This advice that I am writing comes from my own experience. I too chased job titles for many years. I thought that the word founder or CEO could make me special. I got all the material things that came along with these titles and none of it changed my state in the slightest.

Then I fell off the side of the cliff so to speak and had to come back from nothing. I became the under dog that had nothing (not even a job title). I had to rediscover what everything meant, and I questioned everything I was ever told about business and the workforce.

I met people that had incredible job titles, Each of these people seemed to suffer from burnout. They were expected to work round the clock and never turn their phone off. They were always on and only used their four weeks of annual leave as an excuse to say they did take a break.

As organizational change occurred, many of these leaders I met found themselves out of a job or moved into a lesser role. All of a sudden, what they thought they had was taken away. What they didn’t realize is that no job title is forever. This realization should make you rethink what you do day-to-day.

“Chase forever (meaning), not tomorrow’s job title (a short term label)”

So what does matter if a job title doesn’t?

We’re not robots and we’re not defined by a job title, made up of complex labels that no one really understands. Each of us is special in our own way (y the way your education doesn’t define you either just like your job title doesn’t). What matters is the following:

– Who you are right this moment
– Who you’re becoming
– How you serve others
– What your single mission is in life
– How you treat people

Those five things will define the title people give you.

The title you want is “beautiful human being”

You’re not a robot with a title and serial number that works round the clock, towards a predefined, meaningless program full of performance metrics.

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