Conscious work = creation
Humans are the only species that have the power to create. To generate an idea.
Work however has been framed around a value similar to what farm animals provided.
We are meant to be well, so we can access our unique gift of creation. I believe this is our biggest challenge as humans and the foundation to solving the widening wealth gap sustainably and to along the way leverage unimaginable reservoirs of ingenuity and intrinsic motivation to solve global warming etc.
It requires us to be well, to be conscious humans of creation.
Today work is probably the most widespread addiction and a global phenomenon. This addiction is socially accepted and even rewarded. From the attention and love, we receive for our successes from parents and teachers to concepts like paid “overtime”. Society suggests that spending a lot of time on work is equal to working hard, to being a good citizen or provider dad.
Beyond the idolization of busyness, there is a strong stigma against laziness / a lack of economic contribution illustrated by our concepts and preconceived notions of “the unemployed”, “stay home moms” or “social workers”.
Busyness and hard work are deeply ingrained in the fabric of our society.
Though are we really working hard? It is hard to solve a math problem, it is hard to come up with a solution to a hard problem.
The work we currently label “hard” is in my experience really just tiring. To continue doing it every day in the same way over a lifetime is a hard challenge of discipline, but to what end?
I am Fabian Dudek and I am a recovering work addict.
I was always aware of my addiction, but for a long time did not see a problem with it.
Now I actively rebuild my relationship with work and am sharing my lessons that keep coming below:
1. Find YOUR game
Work-life balance
I began my journey to design my work game early. Within my first few jobs, I realized that work-life balance was not a logic I wanted to subscribe to. Opposing work to life did not seem like a viable idea with 40+ years of work ahead. It appeared to me that the true challenge was to design my work in a way that seamlessly integrates into my life. That enables my life not only financially but by exposing me to situations, learnings, and experiences I am drawn to and excited about.
Time
Time plays a huge role in our society, especially when it comes to working. Creation is planned and accounted for in a tight corset of governance.
However, every human on this planet from a young age undestands that not every hour or day is equal.
Time used to be a good proxy for production capacity. In the business of creation time is not a good proxy for the value we create. Value is a good proxy for value created.
In order to be incentivized to think about / measure the value you create, you need to participate in it. That is why at GD everyone owns a share of the business, proportional to the value created. Impact or value pay can also be structured in the form of a revenue share, success-based pay, and royalties, just to name a few.
Once you participate in the value you create, it is your responsibility to know when and how you create best. You start to become the guard, the owner of your creative powers and it is on you, how and where you invest them.
2. Play YOUR game consciously
I realized early that I did not have the stamina to study or work as “hard” as others could. However, it is still difficult for me to take time off, to get out of the tunnel. Even though I rationally know I want to, it is the right thing to do. I also have parts in me that feel the need to as a CEO, as a man, be strong as steel — an example of beyond human work ethics.
I also believe that my need to control makes it difficult for me to let go. Even turning off my phone in the evening requires a huge effort.
I push myself to take breaks, gain perspective, make space for deep work. I also watch out not to design a system that imprisons me. Weekly JFs that are spent unconsciously, reducing areas I represent single points of failure in and consciously work on my mini-exits to new tools, better processes, and independent new team-members.
Find your game, the one you play like no one else, and don’t feel shame that it is not difficult or heavy all the time. That it is not the same game someone else is playing.
As I believe it is for parents, I now see it as my first responsibility to create authentically for myself.
Done right, it has the great side effect of modeling for others an authentic healthy relationship to my creation.
Emotions at work
Emotions cloud your judgment, so they have no place at work. A belief many of us live with. Because I have lived with it for a long time now, I know that it is wrong!
Everything you feel, while you create a design, an email, even a line of code is going to be transmitted into your creation and experienced by the “end-user”.
If you do not feel well, you can not create well. Observe how you feel when you work. When you are truly inspired to create and when you are just heedlessly throwing yourself into work to get the next shot of dopamine, stress, anxiety, avoid a different issue in your life or please someone.
The way you feel at work is your guidance system towards finding and playing your full and authentic game.
The true challenge of life and work within it is to find what feels authentic to you. To create because you and you only want to and are called to it. We are all artists that work on parts of one large system — don’t make yourself into another gear in the system — design the system.
