Tom Cruise and Don Johnson wanted a picture with me. They each motioned for me to step forward, and butterflies battered the inside of my stomach. Earlier in the evening, I assumed that the crowd around them would not disperse before the night’s end, barring my chance for a photo. That was okay — I felt content to watch the spectacle of their presence from a distance. The convention offered many other fun distractions, and besides, a picture with celebrities was something other people were brave enough to go after, not me.
“Can my daughter get a picture?” My dad flashed a winning smile at the stars’ photographer. The photographer grinned and said sure, though it was late and the trio were on their way from the convention hall.
“Come on,” Tom Cruise smiled at me from behind his aviator sunglasses and put his arm around my shoulder. Don Johnson was too cool to say anything to me, in his trademark tank top and blazer with the rolled-up sleeves (just like he wore in Miami Vice), and guided me between them with an arm around my waist. I checked my dress and my hair — everything appeared to be in place.
The San Diego bay, twinkling in the heat of a summer night, faded into the background as I stepped between the two Hollywood icons. The convention’s crowd had thinned, and we – my mom, dad, brother, and I – were among the last to leave. No surprise there. My parents, “a striking couple,” always arrived home late from my dad’s business functions. They usually didn’t bring my brother and I along, but this time they said that we wouldn’t want to miss it.
The photographer counted down and took our picture. I was impressed by how much these two “celebrities” resembled their true-life counterparts, though more so from afar than up close. My dad joked with them as the photographer pulled the picture from the polaroid camera and handed it to me. I stared at its developing image and smiled as it came into focus. I could definitely fool my friends. I went from feeling embarrassed by my dad for asking for the picture to grateful that he’d pushed me to step forward.
Who Defines Your Work Ethic?
Merriam Webster defines work ethic as “a belief in work as a moral good. A set of values centered on the importance of doing work and reflected especially in a desire or determination to work hard.” Though my dad described his work ethic in simple terms (“I just tried to work a little harder than the next guy”), I knew ‘the next guy’ included everyone else — which meant long hours at the office and frequent travel. My dad’s high-stress job in sales had many compensatory benefits, however, like the convention in San Diego and a business summit in Hawaii that included each salespersons’ immediate family. Most significantly, my mom could choose to be a stay-at-home mom. Today, as a single parent, I have a special appreciation for the stability and abundance I enjoyed in my adolescence, thanks to my dad’s strong work ethic.
When I first started out in my career, I defined my work ethic goals by my dad’s example — diligence, integrity, committing to your employer’s goals, arriving early, staying late, and going for the promotion. My dad said he hired people that were smarter than him, with the intent to learn from them. He supported his employees’ educational goals, and then promoted them. In short, my dad embodied the principle that hard work carried its own virtue and worthiness of reward, but also that work-related stress and anxiety went hand-in-hand with success.
Yet, despite what I admired about my dad’s work ethic, I never wanted to emulate my dad’s approach to his career. Instead, I imagined that I would be naturally good at my ideal profession, whatever it was. I would utilize my originality and creativity, and rarely encounter work-related stress. Like-minded people would gravitate to me, and I would easily earn the admiration of my peers. Until then, if I struggled too much in a job, it would mean that I wasn’t right for what I was doing, and that I should move on. A boring, restrictive, and demanding office job like my dad’s, despite the apparent financial and other benefits, was not for me. But I felt conflicted — if I didn’t adopt my dad’s work ethic, then would I be as successful? Did my daydreams about my ideal job reflect a poor work ethic? Was there a middle-ground mindset?
Choose the Way of a Growth-Mindset Master
Carol Dweck, accomplished Stanford psychologist and author of Mindset, would identify my first thoughts about work ethic as the product of a fixed mindset. In many ways, a fixed mindset explains my quirky career path and, until recently, my overall dissatisfaction with my career. According to Dweck, someone with a fixed mindset believes that their personal qualities — intelligence, morality, and talents — are fixed, unchangeable, and unlikely to improve. This rang true for my past self — I believed that I had certain aptitudes that I could strengthen, but never replace with others. I believed I must find a job that was a perfect fit for me. This led to repeated feelings of inadequacy, and a drive to prove myself, over and over… which led to decreasing resilience, and burnout.
Someone with a growth mindset, per Dweck, believes that the genes they’re dealt at birth (or any plateaus they encounter during their career) are only the starting point. Once I looked at my work ethic through the lens of a growth mindset, I realized that by choice and determination, I could cultivate diligence and resilience and hone my intelligence and aptitudes. A struggle with a task did not indicate my inability, but an area full of growth potential. In a growth mindset, failure is nothing more than the first step toward self-improvement.
I now look back at my career and see that life has been trying to teach me, one struggle at a time, precisely what I needed to learn. What I love most about Mindset is the idea that a fixed mindset is not fixed. We can switch paths and choose the way of a growth-mindset master. The first step is to use this new growth mindset to redefine your own work ethic.
Your Work Ethic is as Individual as You Are
Now that I know about the two mindsets, I find myself consciously switching to a growth mindset several times a day. For example, when confronted with a last-minute catering and planning request for a company get-together, my usual reaction would be: I can’t plan a good event in this short a timeframe! This is going to be a disaster! I don’t even like to attend these things! Now, I let those thoughts drift away, and then I think, okay, this could be fun, and a great chance to network and connect with my co-workers. I’m going to plan this as well as I can, and then let the unexpected happen, and learn from it.
I realize now that my primary work ethic illusion was that my work ought to be perfect. I also mistakenly believed that what I didn’t accomplish at work defined me, and that, in order to nurture a strong work ethic, I must spend a lot of time away from home. Finally, in rethinking the idea of a universal and ideal work ethic, I sought some advice. Carmen Duncan, gifted career coach and head of Mission Accomplished Transition Services, set me straight.
“You’re going to have different work ethics, depending on the job,” Carmen told me. “Your approach is going to differ whether you work for Google, or a museum. You want to be reliable, but even the expectation of showing up is going to differ from one industry to another. I wouldn’t want to generalize it. I’m passionate about having industry-specific conversations.” Once Carmen said this, I thought, of course, your work ethic is as individual as you are.
Therefore, with Carmen’s advice and a growth-mindset in mind, to find and improve your own personalized work ethic, and reach for a higher level of fulfillment at work, ask yourself these questions:
- What influences play a part in defining my work ethic?
- What illusions am I under as I imagine my ideal career?
- What is my career-life trying to teach me through the tasks that I find challenging, and what is my reactive mindset to those challenges?
A final note — even as I redefine and personalize my work ethic, I will continue to employ two significant strategies from my dad’s work ethic playbook: determination, and a willingness to strive. My dad, though an introvert like me, was not a wallflower. Whenever he saw an opportunity to shine, he took it, and pushed me to do the same, encouraging me to reach for the stars – even if they were really just a pair of look-alikes.