Getting High on Recovery

 

 

Business cards are stupid and they may be ruining your life. Go ahead, ask your card the following equation:

100000000000 (100 Billion) x 118 = ?

Bet your card draws a blank, just check the back of your card…

What do the numbers mean?

The first number – 100 Billion. No, it is not Donald Trump’s wealth. 100 Billion is the number of brain cells that you have at your disposal. Or in my case, half of those are already disposed of, but that is for another post.

The second number – 118, is the approximate number of non-work hours that you have per week. (For you math geeks, I found this number by averaging 10 hours per day at work including your commute x 5 days = 50 hours, then I subtracted this from the total number of hours in a week (168 hours)). It goes something like this:

168 hours/week – 50 hours of work/commuting =

118 hours to live your life

I don’t know about you, but Math exhausts me. This is why I am in Human Services instead of Accounting. I can talk to you all day about your feelings about math, but don’t make me add. There is a reason we have a a disorder called ADD:  Anxiety reactions from spreadsheets, taxes and general math equations.

What’s the point?

According to my highly excellent adding, you and I invest at least 50 hours working (and in work related commuting) each week. Amazingly, that 50 hours consumes a huge amount of our energy, our attention and our anxiety.

Have you stopped to think about what percent of your week is actually invested in work? The answer is 30%. I will say it again, 30 percent. That’s right, work gets 50 hours (30%) and you get 118 hours (70%).

Why have we agreed that the 30% (our work lives) defines who we are and what we do for the entire 100%? Is this the best that you and I can do?

Does it make sense that your business card (30% of your week) defines who you are for the entire 100%?

What if you developed a card that describes who you are for the other 118? What would it say?

If you need some inspiration for your a personal title that describes how you spend the other 118, I found a few that you may like:

• Roving Banhammerer
• Restless Nomad
• Professional Expert
• Human Being
• Brigadier Colonel, Army of One
• Email Reader
• Someone You Met
• Internet Rocker
• Questioner of Answers
• I know Karate
• Grand Poobah
• Wonder Woman
• BonVivant
• Fartknocker
• This is my card. Side 1.
• Sean, Etc.

I am ordering some of my own 118 cards through VistaPrint. My cards are going to say:

YodaNinja. Giver of Joy. Teller of Stories.

How about you? Why not take some of the recommendations and adapt them to fit you… or at least adapt them to give you a place to start. Who knows where you will end up?

Take a risk, post your own by leaving a reply below.

“It’s your turn. You are not your career. Your ability to follow instructions is not the secret to your success. You are hiding your best work, your best insight, and your best self from us every day.”

Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception

Keep it real

P.S. For fun, you can check these links out for interesting Job/Career titles. It may make you think… Mashable, Vitamin Q