Introducing I Do This for a Living

Welcome to I Do this for a Living, the show that questions everything about work culture and asks how we can spend as much time and energy on the things that matter as we do on the things that pay. 

I'm your host, Serenity Bohon, a writer, day jobbist, and sarcoma survivor. After decades in the American workforce, I have a lot of questions about how we view work, what we do there, and how we find meaning in it or in the lives our work supports.

In the intro episode, I let the listener know what they can expect and list the whys behind the podcast and what it's about, including:

1. Aliveness
2. Work
3. Work culture
4. What we do on purpose

Resources:

Serenity Bohon on Instagram

The Thank You Room by Serenity Bohon

I Do This For a Living is independently produced. 

@serenitylive

Transcript

Oh, hi, I am so happy to be here. It's been a long time coming. Welcome to the first episode of I Do This For a Living. My name is Serenity Bohon, @Serenitylive on Instagram. I am a writer, a day jobist, and a sarcoma survivor. I am endlessly fascinated by what we're doing here and how to like it more.

Work is a huge part of that, so I think about it a lot. This is my intro episode so it's solo. That may happen occasionally, but listen, I have been thinking about, reading about, and talking about work for a very long time. And I want to hear from you, from people I know and admire, people who have it figured out, and people who don't. I want this to be...

The show of endless possibilities. I wanna hear you know a million ideas for work and the other things we do for a living in the philosophical sense I'm going for here. A lot, a lot of ideas. That's my goal. But before the guests an introduction, what will you hear if you come back for more episodes of the show? Or I guess it's really, what do I?

hope we will hear because I am not launching this podcast to teach or coach or tell us how to love what we do for a living. This show is frankly so I can have fun with the questions that otherwise haunt me. Here's what I mean. Okay, here we go. Number one, I do this for a living is about aliveness. I was diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma or synovial cell sarcoma when I was 28.

and pregnant. I was already the mom of two boys. The doctors were throwing around the words rare and aggressive a lot, and it seemed really possible that I might not live long enough to deliver the baby, let alone to see his brothers grow up. If you're interested, here's the commercial for this episode. I wrote a book about this experience. I titled it, The Thank You Room.


That title is because when I thought I was dying, I wanted to gather everyone I'd loved. And that list was very long and I wanted to be with them until the end and thank them for making me who I was and for making life great. You can learn more about that book on my website at Serenitybohon.com/thankyouroom. The obvious and awesome possibility that happened instead of me dying is that I have survived -obviously - synovial cell sarcoma for many years now. I've danced with two of my sons at their weddings and the baby who went through it with me is now 20. I can't tell you how I have loved every single lost tooth, school play, football game, musical, and graduation. I love aliveness. Surviving a scary cancer, including a few recurrences, the last one was many years ago, thank goodness has made me put a little pressure on the whole

living on purpose concept. I feel lucky to be here, but also sort of fierce about making it awesome. And unfortunately, when it comes to work and career in my life, I have too often asked myself, I survived for this?

I feel to my core a sense that I was made for more than going to work, paying bills, and sleeping in on weekends. And if I was made for more than that, I definitely survived cancer for more than that. This podcast is for everyone who feels the same way. Maybe we can figure out together what we do survive for.

Number two, I do this for a living is about work. I have a semi-tortured relationship with day jobs. Growing up, I wanted to be a movie actress, a singer, a songwriter, a playwright, or a novelist. I wanted to be something. That's what we ask kids. What do you want to be when you grow up?

I never guessed all I would be when I grew up was a person who gets a job. Several of them. I never guessed and I was ill-prepared for that reality. I think in a world that asks, what do you want to be when you grow up? We are all ill-prepared. I'm hoping to come up with some better questions on this podcast. Things like, what kinds of things do you want to do? And...

What do you like to do? All in all, I have resisted the day job life every day. And I always wanted new ideas for how to make a living, what it takes to do certain jobs, and what any given job is really like. I want this to be a podcast high school students can listen to for extra credit in careers class, and middle-agers can listen to when they're looking to pivot. Like I said, I want to end up with just a bunch of things that people can do for a living and what it takes to get there.

Number three, I do this for a living is about work culture. One of my supervisors knew my day job angst very well and used to say to me, this is our job Serenity, it's not our life. I  loved it when she would say that and I believe it heart and soul and I will talk about that every episode probably. But here's the thing, your work is not your life is mostly philosophical.

In reality, our work is absolutely most of our life. It's most of our day and most of our week. And we will probably be a working adult for more years than the years that came before or will come after. I read once that I may be a bit melodramatic about this because it's really eight hours and a 24 hour day, leaving eight for sleep and eight for the rest of life, which means work is only a third. I think that's cute, but it does not take into account.

the hours we lie  awake stressing about work, the hours we spend getting ready for work, or the emails we read after hours. From the time we start working, and this statistic is frightening, we will spend more time with coworkers than with family. Work is a lot of our lives, and I feel like since that's true, it could use some better ideas. Not just more PTO, although I love that idea a lot. I think we should get frequent and good-sized breaks, and I think our workflow should make it possible to take those breaks without scary catch-up to do when we return. Which is more what I mean by work culture. I don’t want to escape work, I want to fix it. So it’s not - too much - about the time you give me away from work, it’s about how we all feel at work. I think there are great ideas out there for how employees can feel more valued, energized, and engaged, and these ideas are about the workday, not PTO. I’m here for all of them, and I hope they come up often on this podcast.

Number four, this is my last numbered item for my introduction episode. I do this for a living is about what we do on purpose. It is amazing to me. I mean, it's amazing what I have done because it was my job. I became detail-oriented when I did not want to be. I managed projects I did not believe in. I ran meetings I did not think should exist.

Not only that, I have worked very hard to convince people in job interviews that I want to do the things they need done, that I was possibly even born for it. And I'm telling you right now, I was not born for any of it. They say you can find your purpose by asking yourself what you did when you were 10. And not one of the things I did when I was 10 has ever been asked of me in a day job. I did the day job things anyway, and I did them well.

So for the last few years, I've been thinking about all the things I did not want to do, but did because I got paid for it. And I think, what else could I do? What if I gave that same dedication to things I actually want to do? What if I considered it my job to worry less? What if I started a newsletter and stuck to it like it was my job? What if I - you know - started a podcast? 

I do this for a living is about what we do to get paid, but also what we do because it makes us feel alive. Okay, that's the gist. I will talk to people with day jobs, people who started their own thing, people with ideas about work and life, people looking for ideas. I'm going to ask what they do for a living, how they got there and what they like to do related to their job or not. 

I hope you come back for more. This is a podcast about all my questions and it won't be anything without other people's ideas.