Hobby, Job, Career, Vocation - what are you doing with your life?

The work-life balance might be easier to find if you know the difference between hobby, job, career and vocation.
Jeremy & Gillyanne chat about Jeremy's new blog post, based on a video by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love.

• What our hobbies are and why I discovered I was messing them up
• Why a job isn't a career, and what the real purpose of a job is
• Why I was worrying (needlessly) about my lack of career and how I discovered I already had one
• Why people working in the arts get confused about their vocation, and why it could be deadly for your job
• And how we've been helping people on our Singing Teacher Accreditation programme discover their skills & strengths as teachers, and how changing direction can help you find satisfaction in your vocation

Jeremy's article is on the Vocalprocess website here https://vocalprocess.co.uk/hobby-job-career-vocation-your-life/

Karin's interview on how she changed direction due to the Accreditation programme is here https://youtu.be/_lhh90lyCtE

Elizabeth Gilbert's original video/post is on Facebook here (text) https://www.facebook.com/GilbertLiz/photos/a.356148997800555/948792035202912/
and video here (TikTok) https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMNMSSuV1/?k=1

If you want to have a 1-1 vocation advice session with Jeremy, click on my calendar or drop us an email

Transcript

Jeremy: 0:11

This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. Hello, and welcome to this is voice season five, episode five.

Gillyanne: 0:25

The podcast where we get Vocal about voice.

Jeremy: 0:29

Okay. Now this one's a really interesting one. I read an article two days ago, a blog post two days ago, and then wrote an article on it. And now we're doing a podcast on it because I think it's so important.

Gillyanne: 0:39

Can I just chip in here, picture this Jeremy bounces into my room yesterday morning when in fact I'm moldering cause I'm not feeling very good at all. And um, he says I've written an article. Do you want to hear it? And I'm thinking, do I really want to hear it? I've just started my first cup of tea. Well, Um, I did hear it. And actually we both got pretty excited about this article. And this is, this is something that happens with you, isn't it? That you get these kind of creative moments. Mm-hmm. So do you want to tell us more about how that created moment came to be?

Jeremy: 1:12

What are we talking about? Okay. We are talking about an article that I wrote, it is actually a blog post from Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Big Magic, and Eat, Pray, Love that was made into a film with Julia Roberts, called What Are You Doing With Your Life? And in the article, she describes the difference between a hobby, a job, a career, and a vocation, and how it can help you define your life. And I loved this and I sat down and I wrote an article in one go. And then as I usually do, I'm like a dog with a bone, bounce into the room and go, can I read you the article? so, uh, the article is now up on the Vocalprocess website. Mm-hmm um, but we're gonna do a podcast about it because we think it's really important.

Gillyanne: 1:50

And this is a blog that people can share. Isn't it?

Jeremy: 1:52

Absolutely. Yes. Yes. And also comment on it if you like it as well, please, the link will be in the show notes. The reason I think it's important is because if you work in the arts and if you work in education, which we both do, then you really are told a lot you must have a career. You must, you must do this. You, you know, singing is a vocation. Teaching is a vocation. Performing as a vocation. Working in the arts is a vocation. And I think it's really interesting when I read this article and I went, oh, is that what I've been doing wrong with my life? That makes sense. So here we go. She talks about four things, hobby, job, career and vocation, and I wanna break them down. And these are her ideas. Plus my notes. Plus my filter.

Gillyanne: 2:36

And my thoughts.

Jeremy: 2:37

So a hobby is something that you do that gives you joy, but you don't earn a living from it. You don't need to impress anyone. You don't need people to know about it. It's yours. And it refreshes you. I mean, actually in my list, in the article, I missed out a hobby, which is really important to me. And that's reading. Mm, reading is almost the biggest thing that refreshes me and I read, um, frankly, I'll read anything, but, uh, the thing that works the most for me is actually books I've read before. So there's a sense of familiarity and then I can just get lost. And I am the captain on the Starship Enterprise. You know, I go straight there. I just fill the whole thing where I, wherever I'm sitting.

Gillyanne: 3:14

Mm. Uh, if I talk to Jeremy while he's reading, he literally doesn't hear me.

Jeremy: 3:20

Can't hear a thing. It's really fascinating. It's a, it's a really very, very fine focus into the words and the life that I'm living while I'm reading.

Gillyanne: 3:28

So reading is, is really quite a big one, but, um, you know, during the time that we've been together as a couple, I have seen you sort of change your hobbies. So do you wanna talk about that?

Jeremy: 3:40

Well, um, the ones that I listed in the article are baking, knitting and very recently sewing and I bought myself a sewing machine and an overlocker and that's been quite interesting.

Gillyanne: 3:49

And you made yourself a waistcoat, which has appeared on these podcasts.

Jeremy: 3:52

It is. If you're watching on YouTube, it's not the one I'm wearing today, but I, it has been on podcasts. Yes. The interesting thing about all of them is that I've always wanted to be as basically to be so good at what I do, that I could sell it. And it was when we were running courses here, um, which we're no longer doing. Mm-hmm then I was doing things like, I mean, this is gonna sound bizarre, but I was knitting slippers for people to wear in the house and they were very good as well.

Gillyanne: 4:20

And people wanted to buy them. Actually.

Jeremy: 4:22

They did. They wanted me to hand make them for them. Um, so somehow I incorporated my hobbies into my job mm-hmm and what I've discovered reading the, the article is that is not a good thing. So we'll come back to that.

Gillyanne: 4:34

I think that explains why, you know, you have this incredible burst of creativity and, and I'm just amazed actually by the high level of, um, product that you do when, when you, um, go into a new hobby. And then I think what happens is there's almost that pressure. and then suddenly you stop. Do you think that's that's fair?

Jeremy: 4:56

That's absolutely fair. Yes. And I think it is this business of, I, I somehow unconsciously start to make my hobbies feel like a job. Yeah. Yeah. And it is interesting by the way you mentioning product, because every hobby that I've had except reading, which I forgot in this article, mm-hmm, Every hobby that I've had has to have a product at the end of it.

Gillyanne: 5:15

Yeah. You, you want an outcome don't you?

Jeremy: 5:17

I definitely want an outcome.

Gillyanne: 5:18

Yeah. Yeah. That's very interesting. And actually, when we were talking about this yesterday, I said, Hmm, I've kind of never really got hobbies. This makes me sound really, really dull. You know, I haven't really had hobbies. Um, and Jeremy said gardening and I thought, yeah, yeah, gardening is a hobby. And actually for me, walking is a hobby as well. Yeah. Yeah. I don't mean walking to the shops. You know what I mean? Don't you walking in nature. That's very much a hobby. Yeah.

Jeremy: 5:49

So moving on to a job, a job is something that you do to earn money, to pay your bills. It's an exchange of energy in the form of actions for payment. It supports your ability to live, and it's not connected with your creativity. It's a job. That makes it very interesting because, um, you know, a singing teacher, Vocal coach, the whole thing is that our job is connected with creativity, but the definition of a job, isn't, it is an exchange of energy for payment. That's it.

Gillyanne: 6:19

This is so weird for me, because I think we should both fess up and. we've hardly ever had jobs. actually both of us have hardly ever had jobs we've hardly ever been employed.

Jeremy: 6:34

um, yeah, that's, that's true. I've always been employed if I've been employed on shows, I've been employed as a freelancer, so yes.

Gillyanne: 6:40

Or it's been contract work or, um, you know, zero contracts. The last time I was employed was actually as a researcher at the university of York and that was a six month post. Yeah. Um, and, uh, that was fun, actually. I really enjoyed that.

Jeremy: 6:54

And what I've said in the article is how I earn my money has changed recently. Um, because for nearly 40 years. I've been a freelancer and that's been the over, over, I mean, freelance something or other, but I've always been a freelancer and that's how people employ me. And I have now gone full time as a director with Vocal Process. And that might surprise some people because Vocal Process is now 23 years old. Mm-hmm mm-hmm um, but it's only this year that I've gone full time.

Gillyanne: 7:25

So we're now both on salaries.

Jeremy: 7:27

We are, which is just bizarre. Having never had it before. Mm-hmm, um, but I think what's also interesting and this is all part of the whole same process I've lived for my job. And it's defined me in the past. You know, when, when people say, you know, hello, who are you? And I always give my job, uh, or what I do as the sort of, this is who I am. And I think this has changed in the last year. And the pandemic has, uh, from that point of view, been really interesting. Because even before the pandemic started, we were doing deep dives to find out what it is that we want to do and who we were and how that the whole business worked.

Gillyanne: 8:02

And where we were going. And that actually takes us very neatly to the next category.

Jeremy: 8:08

It does. Career. Career is longer term than job. You build your career with stepping stones. You don't have to love your job, but you do want to love your career, otherwise, why would you waste the time building a career. And the point that she makes in the article? Um, Is re this is Elizabeth Gilbert, is really interesting, but she says careers may include sacrifice for longer term gain.

Gillyanne: 8:33

So that might be something like you would need to move location. Yep. Or you'd be away from your family a few days a week. Yeah. Um, Or, you know, other sacrifices like working at weekends or working, you know, in evenings and so forth, if that is appropriate.

Jeremy: 8:49

I think this is one of the places that, um, what I think of as vocational people, singing teachers, performers, coaches, I think this is one of the things they confuse. Because they take a job. And then that includes sacrifice and that job may not necessarily be in their career line. And the question is, do you take the job for the sacrifice or do you look for something that will support your career. And this is, it's a really interesting question. And it also depends where you are in your career age wise.

Gillyanne: 9:22

Um, I'm just kind of drawing on that. So an example of that for someone in our industry might be someone who's working at a performing arts college you know, they're paid to do a certain number of hours and they're paid for weekdays and during the day. But in fact, what happens is the demands are greater than that. You know, they are expected to do other things for which they are not paid. Um, and that then starts to impact on family life, um, or perhaps health people move into burnout. Mm. And that is confusing, I think, career and possibly vocation with job.

Jeremy: 9:58

Yes. So I've had several jobs, author, performance coach, audition pianist, arranger, career advisor, accompanist, conductor, all of the above. Mm it's always worried me that I didn't have a clear cut career. I didn't have a ladder. There was no ladder that I could climb up. As a, as a freelance musician, um, in whatever form that is, there's no ladder that you can go, you sort of either have to build your own ladder or you just drift where the wind takes you, which was most of my career.

Gillyanne: 10:26

Yeah. That that's the danger. Isn't it? That you just go wherever the contract calls. Yes. And. It might not be a contract that you're actually that happy to do.

Jeremy: 10:35

Well, this is the other thing and it's the bane of the freelancer, which is you don't turn contracts down. Mm-hmm because you never know a, it could be the last one and B you dunno where it's going to lead. Do you know? I had the mentality that I carried my passport around with me for 20 years in case I got the last minute call? Genuinely. I only ever got it once , which is fascinating. And that was, um, would I go and MD a show tomorrow night in Germany that I'd never seen. Uh, that was a fun job.

Gillyanne: 11:02

And I think this impacts on, um, the small business singing teacher as well, that you feel you must take every student. Yes. Even if they're not really that suitable for you. Yes. I can remember, you know, years ago when we were living in London, that what would always happen, you know, when you got to the Christmas holidays was that, first of all, people went off and had jobs. They were in panto and all the rest of it. Then they disappear, and then Christmas and it had no money and every year you'd be thinking are these people gonna come back, have they all disappeared? And they always did come back. But I mean, that is a real challenge for people. It is. And what they then do is they drive themselves and work themselves through the whole, excuse me.

Jeremy: 11:48

Morning!

Gillyanne: 11:49

Yeah. Well, I did say I've had a thing. I'm still having a thing. They drive themselves and work themselves through the holidays and cause burnout.

Jeremy: 12:01

And now this was an interesting one about the whole career thing, because what I realized was that I was essentially, because I was looking for a ladder to climb. I was really looking at the business model of a career, which is, you know, you go from this, to this, to this, to this, this, and there's a very clearly defined ladder that goes all the way up the corporate structure. And as a musician, you don't really have that. And it wasn't, it was only fairly recently that I came across the term portfolio career mm-hmm. And actually, when you sit back and you go, my portfolio career is extremely wide ranging, but it has always connected with me with music, performance and collaboration. Those three things are there all the way through pretty much everything. And it's really interesting because when I saw that, I thought, oh, I quite like this career. That's quite fun. And I do have one. I do have a career.

Gillyanne: 12:53

And we both have portfolio careers. Don't we?

Jeremy: 12:56

We do.

Gillyanne: 12:56

I mean, I've done quite a lot of contract work in the past for drama schools, including being, um, head of singing and voice quite a while back at the east 15 acting school. Um, So that kind of shaped a lot of my work, but I always had private clients as well. And then what happened was that I got invited to write a book. Um, I got into a situation where I was running public courses. We were both organizing public courses. So suddenly it was this really multifaceted career. Yeah. Which was sometimes quite hard to juggle. I mean, I would say, you know, when we go on to look at vocation, for me, there's very, uh, definitely a link between vocation and career. So you can sort of see this interface between my passion for voice. And how it's shaped my career, you know, including deciding to go off and do a PhD. Yes. Which, um, I did, you know, I started my PhD when I was 50, after almost 30 years of not doing any academic study and it was a big deal.

Jeremy: 14:02

Mm-hmm. So let's talk about vocation. And this is a very interesting definition. Uh, Elizabeth Gilbert says it's about the relationship between you and God, and, um, or universe or energy or power or whatever, whatever word you want to put in there. And this is really fascinating because essentially your career is your, your relationship with other people or your relationship with business or your relationship with whatever and vocation is your own personal relationship inside mm-hmm . And I think, again, people conflate job, career and vocation into one. If you are in a vocational type of work, which singing teacher are, performers are, you know, Vocal coaches are, all of these people.

Gillyanne: 14:46

Medics, obviously.

Jeremy: 14:47

Yeah. That we work with are in vocational careers. It's very interesting. When you separate the vocation out of the career.

Gillyanne: 14:57

Can we say vocational professions?

Jeremy: 15:00

Sure.

Gillyanne: 15:00

Would that be alright? And the only reason why I'm saying this is that, especially for people who live in the UK, there was a whole thing at the beginning of the pandemic that some of us working in the performing arts were sort of doing it for kind of pleasure. Yes. And as a vocation yes. And that we should give up and all go off and learn IT.

Jeremy: 15:20

Yes. I remember those

Gillyanne: 15:21

ads. Okay. Yes. So I just wanted to sort of put that in there, and we're not talking about that kind of vocation.

Jeremy: 15:28

But no, this is the interesting thing. It doesn't actually fit. Okay, because what she talks about as a vocation does not have to be your career. It doesn't have to be your profession. Ah it's so that's how you separate out career from vocation. Vocation could be the thing in which you contribute to the world. Yes. And that could be charity work, which is nothing to do with your career.

Gillyanne: 15:53

Uh, that's so important. Yeah. So the vocation is, I mean, you know, you talked about God, I didn't know she talked about God. Um, it's your relationship with your higher self. It's what kind of drives you? Yeah. Yeah. That makes total sense to me.

Jeremy: 16:10

And the interesting thing is, having gone through these four, four things, uh, hobby, job, career vocation, what I realize is there's a lot of what I do lines up. And in fact there were a couple of things that had got confused. But my vocation, if you like, is music. Hmm, it's helping people understand what music is and how it works. Now. That goes, it's, the interesting thing is it's not just music because as a musician I've been trained in rhythm and phrasing and, and, um, unspoken meaning. Uh, because there, unless you're a singer, there are no words. If you're an instrumentalist, there are no words that you can use. And so I hear and see patterns and melody and rhythm in conversation, in presentations, in voiceovers, in I even see them and experience them when I read stuff. I will read, um, a blog and I'll hear it in my head. And I'm looking at pauses and, and, you know, turns of phrase. So I can see the way, the rhythm with which an article is constructed. And it's very interesting because my passion is clarity. I want people to be clear with what they do, and it was really fascinating. There is one, I wanna share a story with you because it was so clear to me what was, what happened and how I was reacting. I was playing for a set of auditions years ago for an opera company and people were coming in they were singing different arias, but they had to deliver the same spoken piece. That's right. It was the same piece of script and the arias were fine. You know, everybody was doing what they were doing. And then they delivered the script and I kept thinking, it's not right. It's not right. It's not right. This is not working. It's not working. Everybody was coming through going. It's not working. It's not going. And at one point I. I'm gonna have to say to the panel, please, can I just get up there and deliver this script in a way that I know works? It was that strong. And then somebody walked in, delivered the script perfectly, and I just went, thank God for that. Now I don't have to do it. And I think it's really revealing that. I mean, that's gonna sound really weird as a story, but what it reveals is that I have a sense of energy of some thing. And if it's off, if it doesn't work, I get very, very frustrated about making it work. And then when somebody comes in and makes it work and sometimes in a way that I've not even thought of, I go, that's brilliant. That's it. I can relax. I don't have to do anything. Mm-hmm , it's like, that thing has been expressed in a way that works for it.

Gillyanne: 18:44

Okay. You're talking about manifestation.

Jeremy: 18:47

I am. Mm. Um, so if you like, that is my highest vocation is, is that I want the things around me to work.

Gillyanne: 18:57

Absolutely.

Jeremy: 18:58

And that includes people as well, by the way.

Gillyanne: 19:00

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I, while you were speaking about it, I was thinking that, I was kind of going right back through my, um, you know, into my childhood and singing and, and, you know, winning all those festivals and having photographs in the local newspaper of me with all these cups. Yeah. Um, put a lot of pressure on me actually is not really the best thing, but that how music has been a joy in my life. And I think for me, that music is the vehicle. And voice is, voice is the passion. That's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And helping people to find their voice and find their best voice. Yeah. I think that's what really works for me and also to understand about their voice. So to kind of take away the fear and all of that. That's really shaped the, um, my career over the last mm 45 years. I would say.

Jeremy: 20:05

I know the singing teachers are really gonna resonate with that. It's the idea that you're helping people find their voice. And, um, as often happens, I have that as well, but I have something that's slightly different, which is I want people to find themself, um, which is a slightly wider brief. And, uh, this is also. I mean, I, you know, I write a whole chapter in successful singing auditions called the FOAL process, falling off a log. Mm-hmm. And that when you find, when you discover or recognize you are falling off a log areas, then you work with those and you live with those. And actually life gets easier because they're so innate for you, they're so easy for you that you go, surely it can't be this easy. And the answer is yes, it can because that's where you resonate.

Gillyanne: 20:51

I think this is really important, Jeremy, because, um, when we were running our accreditation cohort 21.

Jeremy: 20:58

Who have just finished their year.

Gillyanne: 20:59

Yeah. And one of the things that they said in their final session was the thing that made the most difference to them was doing the training session that we did on values and goals. Yes. And it allowed them to reevaluate their career, um, reevaluate the way that they were working and the amount of time they give to work to rebalancing life and family. Um, and also finding out this, this whole FOAL area. Mm. Because. if we are vocational people and we start to get confused, and you write about this in the article, we get confused about the job parts of our business, the career, and the vocation, we are giving the same level of energy, and I'm talking mental, spiritual energy as well as physical, yeah, to each of the tasks. And you know, when you're running a small business, some of those things are just jobs. Yes. You have to do them. Social media is a job. In fact, that's a job that we've largely outsourced.

Jeremy: 22:02

Hurray! Admin is a job.

Gillyanne: 22:04

And then what happens is you burn yourself. And you miss out on that fall. Yes. And then what happens is you're kind of treading water, constantly treading water, you know, you can't advance and those career desires that are part of your vocation, you may not be able to fulfill. You're actually stopping yourself. Yeah. It took us a long time. Didn't it?

Jeremy: 22:26

It took us a long time

Gillyanne: 22:27

to really get through this one.

Jeremy: 22:28

And it's working better and we're still working on it. Mm-hmm um, the interesting thing now, I found that I needed somebody else's view from outside me. to go, here are four things that you need to think about. Mm-hmm and I went, oh, that's really good. And, and, um, because I now have these four things and they're very clear mm-hmm I can now rework what I do. And also weirdly... it's a kind of reframing, isn't it? Yeah, it's a reframing. And it's also reframing of my past where I go actually, my past hasn't been "mixed events", there has been a trajectory through it that I just haven't recognized because I've conflated four things and I've been going, you know, why haven't I had X career? And the answer is because that wasn't my career to have. Yeah. And, and I was believing something that I thought I ought to do. And in fact, wouldn't have suited me. And there's a lovely, um, we do have, uh, Karin, one of our accreditation people on video talking about this it's on the YouTube channel.

Gillyanne: 23:30

Yes.

Jeremy: 23:31

Um, where she said, I never thought that I wanted to work with this particular group of, of clients. And then I sort of had. She had an epiphany moment sort of thing. And then went well, of course, that's exactly what I want to work with.

Gillyanne: 23:47

I'm working with the clients I love to work with.

Jeremy: 23:49

Yes, it's abso we will put a link in the show notes to, um, that particular video, because it's absolutely worth watching.

Gillyanne: 23:56

Um, there's something else. And I actually want to read, uh, a short paragraph from the article you wrote. Yes. My takeaway from Elizabeth's separation of these four things. Hobby job career vocation is that I have all four, but I didn't realize it. Now. I do realize it it's helped me see the successes in my life and how the journey has got me to this place.

Jeremy: 24:20

Yeah, absolutely.

Gillyanne: 24:21

Yeah.

Jeremy: 24:23

And I think you need some, I mean, some people are able to do this, just, you know, read a sentence and then go in front, go inside and go, oh yes. And all the building blocks, it's a bit like Tetris all the blocks just go and then fall into place.

Gillyanne: 24:36

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy: 24:36

Um, other people need help. And it's one of the things that we've been doing in the accreditation program just in the last couple of months is helping people to identify. they're FOAL process, their FOAL area, their falling off a log areas, their areas of expertise.

Gillyanne: 24:49

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy: 24:49

The ones that I always think of a full area as being an area that you don't realize you are good at

Gillyanne: 24:56

mm-hmm.

Jeremy: 24:57

It's so innate for you that you simply dismiss it.

Gillyanne: 25:00

Mm-hmm you often don't acknowledge it.

Jeremy: 25:01

Yeah. And people go, oh, that you, but you're so brilliant into that. And you go, what, what, what? I don't understand. Yeah. Why can't every doesn't everybody do that. And the answer is no.

Gillyanne: 25:08

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy: 25:09

So one of the things we've been doing is helping people to find their full area. And then to apply it into their career and then to apply it into their jobs. And most people have more than one job to see whether that job is either a good job for them right now, or if it could be a good job, but it could be just changed very slightly. Or if their attitude to the job isn't quite right. And if they change the attitude, the job then supports the career.

Gillyanne: 25:38

Yeah. Which is okay, it's five o'clock. This is the end of my, um, end of my working day. And, and that's it, you know, that's what I'm paid for. I've done the job. I've done the job to the best of my ability during the time I'm being paid for mm-hmm and I don't need to do more.

Jeremy: 25:55

I can say that people are gonna find this very, very challenging.

Gillyanne: 26:00

People, particularly from our, um, end of the profession.

Jeremy: 26:03

Because what you, and, and if you like, if you want to be that person who works 15 hours a day and gets paid for five, that is actually your choice. Mm-hmm um, and you are very welcome to take it. What I think is interesting is when you realize that it is a choice and that you can then decide whether you're gonna do that or not, that's when life gets interesting. Mm. Um, hopefully that's been interesting for you. Uh, if you wanna see the original post by Elizabeth Gilbert, I've got the Facebook link and in fact, she, there is a somebody else's TikTok account where she talks about it. So I can link that as well. That's where you first spotted it. That's where isn't it. It's actually on Facebook. I first spotted it. Um, and, uh, We will just put extra links in the share notes. So, um, if you've been interested in this, let us know. Mm-hmm . If you wanna find out more about the accreditation program, we're starting we are gathering, we're gathering our cohort. Yeah. For 2022, 23. Yeah. Drop us an email, send it to Gillyanne @ vocalprocess.co.uk. Yes. And, um, I'll talk you through it. Yes. Or message us. And if you'd like this podcast, please review it. Um, or go to the, uh, article itself, that's on the Vocalprocess website and review that as well. So we'll see you soon.

Gillyanne: 27:20

Okay.

Jeremy: 27:21

Bye. This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher.