Never Give Up On Doing What You Love

Steve Farber, a guest on Off the Rak way back in Season 1, has one of the all-time great lines when offering career advice: “Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do.”

It’s simple. It’s easy to understand. It’s thorough. It’s aspirational. It’s achievable. And it’s memorable.

In fact, I am bringing it up now because it came to mind a couple of times during the same week recently while I was reading news from the world of sports.

The first time was after the Masters, which golf fans will no doubt long remember because of Rory McIlroy’s emotional playoff win against Justin Rose.

If you saw photos from the scene – McIlroy on his knees after making the winning putt, for instance, or shots of him being embraced with his caddie – you got a sense of just what the victory meant to him. But you might not realize that the man behind the camera for some of the most widely used shots of those poignant moments was none other than baseball Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr.

Some of the photos he took were incredible, but so was one taken of Griffey Jr. because it captured the absolute joy on his face during the event. Since retiring from baseball, Griffey Jr. has turned a hobby into a second career. And by doing something he loves – and doing it well – he’s serving people who love what he does.

Less than a week after the end of the Masters, another note in the news caught my attention: Clint Hurdle, also a former guest on Off the Rak, was coming out of retirement to serve as hitting coach for the Colorado Rockies – a team he once managed.

I haven’t asked Clint about his decision. But when you are 67 and have a new book hitting the market, you don’t take a grueling day job unless it allows you to do something you love in the service of people who love what you do.

I love seeing people who are so clearly investing their time in work that brings them joy, but I also realize how rare that is. Many folks show up for work not particularly liking what they do and not feeling at all appreciated by their customers or their employers. Most of us have had at least one job like that.

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For many, the options for doing something different are limited. I am convinced, however, that everyone can find things in their work that will bring them joy. It could be as simple as the 15 minutes sharing stories with a co-worker each day in the break room or the chance to say a kind word to someone who needs it. And focusing on those types of things leads to better times, sometimes with a different employer or a different career.

Jeff King, the number one draft pick in 1983 by my Pittsburgh Pirates, is an unlikely example of what this can look like.

King quickly made his way to the big leagues and was a key member of some of the club’s best teams in the early 1990s. He had a good, but not hall of fame career, including eight years with the Pirates and two-and-a-half with the Kansas City Royals. But he didn’t enjoy the grind of playing professional baseball.

On May 23, 1999, the day after he qualified for a full pension from the MLB, King retired. And while he was financially set, he still gave up about $3 million that he would have earned if he’d kept playing.

“You can’t pretend,” King said. “You’ve got to be all-in. When I wasn’t really able to do that, I felt like I was just going to be stealing a paycheck if I kept playing.”

King left the spotlight of professional sports and moved to Montana, where he has a ranch and a slower-paced life filled with things he loves – children, then grandchildren, plus time in the great outdoors.

When we find things we love to do and do them – whether that’s photography, coaching hitters, raising cattle in Montana, or writing blogs and hosting a podcast – we not only experience joy but we soon attract people around us who benefit from it and who love what we do.

That’s a great place to be in life. A place worth pursuing. A place that will put a photo-worthy smile on our face. And who knows, maybe Ken Griffey Jr. will take a picture of it.