The Work You Keep Doing When Nobody Requires It
Would you still do what you do if nobody paid you for it?
There's an old piece of career advice that says, “If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.”
I think that's crap. I've loved plenty of work that was still work. Teaching a great class still requires hours of preparation. Writing something I'm proud of still requires staring at sentences that refuse to cooperate. Running a marathon may be something I genuinely love, but nobody gets through 26.2 miles—or the months of training beforehand—on love alone.
Loving what you do doesn't make the work disappear. It gives you a reason to keep doing the work. Maybe the better question isn't whether you love your job enough that it stops feeling like work. Maybe it's this: What would you keep doing even if nobody required you to do it? I've been thinking about that question a lot lately.
Three Words
When I was starting my radio career, I listened to a lot of Tony Robbins. One exercise that stuck with me was the idea of choosing three power words to describe who you are. I've revisited that idea periodically over the years, and unsurprisingly, my words have changed.
Four months ago, three of the easiest would have been: Marketer. Marathon runner. Mother. Then I was laid off and suddenly I realized how complicated three little words could become.
Mother was easy. That identity wasn't going anywhere.
Marathon runner was more complicated. I've completed 14 marathons, but running has taken a physical and logistical backseat since my son was born. I want to get back to the fitness where six miles feels like an ordinary day's run, but there's also the practical question of finding those miles somewhere between daycare, work, teaching and everything else life requires. I'm still a marathon runner. I just don't always feel like one.
And then there was marketer.
When a Professional Identity Loses Its Home
Intellectually, I knew getting laid off didn't mean I stopped being a marketer. It didn't always feel that way. So much of my professional identity had become connected to the places where I practiced it every day. The Slack conversations with coworkers stopped. The website, campaigns, content, workflows and systems I'd helped build were suddenly behind someone else's login. I hadn't had the foresight to build a proper portfolio while I still had access to everything.
One day I was in the middle of the work. Then I wasn't. I still had the experience. I still knew how to do the work but I had lost some of the places where that identity lived. That's a strange thing about careers. Our job titles are supposed to describe what we do. Somewhere along the way, they can start describing who we think we are.
The Giver
Yesterday, I wanted something to play in the background while I worked and landed on The Giver. In its carefully controlled society, young people don't have to spend years wondering what they want to be when they grow up. The community assigns them a role.
That's what they'll do. That's their purpose. Watching it this time, I couldn't stop thinking about job titles. Marketing Manager. Professor. Product Marketer. Director.
They're useful shorthand. They communicate expertise, responsibility and where someone fits inside an organization. But they're also assigned to us. Someone hires you and gives you a title. Someone promotes you and gives you another. Sometimes someone restructures an organization and suddenly you don't have one at all.
Your skills didn't vanish at the same moment your title did. So what happens to your professional identity when nobody is assigning you the work anymore?
What Did I Keep Doing?
Once the initial dust from my layoff settled, I realized something. I still had a lot to say. So I started saying it.
I began publishing Story Behind the Strategy consistently instead of waiting until I had the perfect plan for what it might eventually become. I launched my website and started building the portfolio I wished I'd created years earlier. I've been rebuilding the professional community I lost with those daily Slack messages through LinkedIn, EM Circle and the Product Marketing Association. A surprise free consultation with my friend Shaun helped me look differently at some of what I'm building. I've returned to a book I've worked on periodically based on common themes I've seen while teaching. There may be a consulting opportunity taking shape. I may be back in the classroom next semester.
I don't know exactly where all of it leads yet but that's almost beside the point. Nobody assigned me these projects. There isn't a manager checking whether I published this week's Story Behind the Strategy. Nobody is paying me to work on the book. Nobody required me to build the website. I kept doing the work anyway. And maybe that's telling me something.
Loving the Work Doesn't Make It Easy
This is why I don't particularly like the idea that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Passion isn't a substitute for effort. Sometimes passion is the reason you're willing to make the effort.
I love teaching. Preparing a good class is still work.
I love running. Getting back into running shape is still going to require consistency on mornings when staying in bed would be considerably easier.
I love writing and thinking about marketing, communication and why people make the decisions they do. That doesn't mean every article magically appears fully formed.
The things we care about can be difficult precisely because we care enough to do them well. That's why I think there's a better test. Don't ask whether something you love feels like work. Ask: Would I still choose to do some version of this if there weren't a paycheck attached?
Not forever. We have mortgages, groceries, daycare and lives that require actual income. Passion doesn't pay the electric bill. But remove the transaction for a moment.
What work keeps pulling you back?
What do you research because you're genuinely curious?
What do you make when nobody assigns it?
What conversations do you keep finding yourself having?
What skill do you practice even when nobody is evaluating you?
Those answers might tell you more about your professional identity than your current job title does.
Maybe I Need Three New Words
Four months ago, I might have described myself as a marketer, marathon runner and mother. Those things are all still true but I'm not sure they're the three words I'd choose today. Maybe the next three shouldn't be titles at all. Maybe they're things like:
Curious
Communicator
Teacher
Or maybe I'm still figuring them out. I'm okay with that because I'm starting to think the most useful words aren't necessarily the ones someone can give you—or take away. They're the patterns that keep showing up in what you choose to do.
The Story Behind the Strategy
This week, I've been writing about thought leadership. On Monday, I wrote about the people who may be quietly paying attention to your ideas long before you know they're there. On Wednesday, I explored the difference between building credibility for a corporate brand and developing a professional point of view that can travel with you.
But maybe there's an even more fundamental question underneath both: What do you actually have something to say about? Not because it's in your job description, or because someone assigned you a KPI or because LinkedIn's algorithm supposedly likes it.
Because you're curious enough to keep learning about it and passionate enough to keep doing the work.
I don't particularly want to become a LinkedIn influencer but once the dust settled after my layoff, I realized I wanted to keep writing. I wanted to keep teaching. I wanted to keep learning. I wanted to keep talking about how people think, communicate and make decisions.
Those things existed before my last job title. Apparently, they exist after it too. Maybe that's the point.
So What?
If you removed your job title and everything someone currently pays you to do, what work would you keep doing anyway? There might be a clue in there about who you are. To your success.
