Job Search Resembles
Hero's Journey

After hearing the "elevator speeches" of 30 or so Marin Professionals members at the January 27, 1999 general meeting, Deborah Bloch said she was impressed by the high number of us in mid-life who are undertaking "the hero's journey."

Bloch, an associate professor of organization and leadership at University of San Francisco, said the "adventure of the job search" is as transforming as any undertaken by heroes in mythology. The process shares one essential element with such heroes: the need to change and meet new challenges, she said.

The best way to meet the challenges is to go inside oneself, said Bloch. Getting in touch with the burning desires inside of us will lead us to the job that is our true vocation. It's a theme in her book "Soul Work: Finding the Work You Love."

Bloch enabled those of us who attended the meeting to become more aware of what's going on inside us by leading us in an exercise involving crayons and paper. She asked us to draw a scene depicting where we are now in our careers, and another picture of where we want to be in one year. Then we were to name positive and negative energy we detected, an important point, said Bloch, because we are all energy, as the new physics has shown.

Insights from the Lower Depths

The non-verbal plunge worked for this writer. My drawing of "right now" had a lot of dark colors above a smoldering red, which, when I had to tack words on it, I interpreted as many negative things suppressing a lot of passion and drive toward success. There was a ray of light green color arcing upward from the mass. I took it to mean hope and striving.

My vision of the future had yellows and golds, and a channel or bridge bordered in bright blue leading away from the dark colors. I know exactly what the shapes mean to me, and the scene tells me I'm visualizing an immensely positive scene one year from now, with negativity minimized in the picture.

In the middle of our Crayola triptychs, Bloch had us write positive things that would get us to our bright futures, and negative things that would be road blocks.

Many things came up for people who shared with all of us. One person said she could see isolation is a problem for her. Another said she lacked clarity. Bloch said that meditation is an excellent avenue to clarity.

The bottom line for finding your perfect job is to notice where you do your best work, not only in terms of subject matter, but process, too, she said. "You do your best work in in the 'zone,'", the things you are really happy doing," said Bloch.