Work advice that aims to reduce risk is all too common. We’ve all heard it. Stay safe. Be practical. Be reasonable. It translates into: Don’t do what you love. Don’t do what moves you. Don’t do what rocks your world.
When Tama Kieves told her family she wanted to be a writer, nobody said mazel tov. It was as if she had said she wanted to sell crack or sell her body to the night. “My mother would have heard it all the same way,” she said. Druggies, prostitutes, and creative people were all going to end up under the same bridge. “You’re gonna write?” her mother said. “You’re gonna starve, you’re gonna write.”
Kieves absorbed the message to play it safe. She followed the rules. She went to Harvard Law School, graduated with honors, and got on the partnership track. She was living the American Dream, right?
Downside of playing it safe
But she felt empty inside. “Is this all there is?” she wondered.
Much of the time, we’re so focused on what’s going to sell, what’s hot, or what somebody else wants that we don’t listen to what’s inside us. If you find yourself wondering whether you should open up more to what turns you on or take the safe route and shut it down, Kieves has one bit of advice. “I really do not think it’s safe,” she said, “to play it safe.”
One thing leads to another
After she woke up and realized she felt empty, she looked within, and quit her corporate law job to write poetry. That led to writing essays about career transitions and how to stay inspired when you’re scared. She realized she was writing a book. One thing led to another. Because she wanted to be around other people in transition, she started a group and began running workshops. People liked what she was doing and asked if she would help them find their dream work. Back then, coaching wasn’t considered a career. She wondered if it was legal.
Fast forward. The author of Inspired & Unstoppable: Wildly Succeeding in Your Life’s Work, Kieves is now a career/success coach with a growing information empire.
Follow the energy
Instead of playing it safe, Kieves recommends that you stay in touch with what’s calling to you in this moment—even if it doesn’t make sense—and follow it. What has energy for you? “What I want you to know is that your creative ideas, those extraordinary things that come to you, they’re not coming to other people in the same way,” she said. We have a competitive edge when we stay in touch with what we love and commit to staying on fire with something. For a time Kieves tried to be a journalist. But when the rejections came in, she didn’t have the energy to keep going, because it wasn’t what she really wanted. But when it’s something you really want, she said, you’ll have the energy to keep going.