Soulful Work

[Photo Credit: Benevity]

The purpose of work in the early years is to teach a young person humility. I was a teenager and it was a corner grocery store and the only task I was qualified to do was stocking shelves. I don't know how a person can get that wrong. But I learned it wasn't about putting items on the shelf, it was about not sitting on the floor while you did it, which made no sense to me at all. You couldn't see that bottom shelf from above and bending over was hard on your back.

In my next job, they let me sell stuff. It was a shoe store and what I knew about the product was ... nothing at all. But I learned the stockroom codes, which at least allowed me to find the items I went looking for. And then I got to slip them on the slender feet of young women. But put me anywhere near the cash register and I was lost. Especially the time the owner left early to attend a wedding, leaving me to close the store. I guess the receipts and the sales didn't match up very well, he accused me of stealing, I called him an unflattering name, and I moved on to landscape gardening.

On the first day of that job I was sent to remove some roses from someone's yard. It seemed a strange request, especially when the garden looked so perfect the way it was. But the customers wanted their roses pulled, so that's what I did. I cleaned up the mess, placed the bushes in plastic garbage bags at the curb, and even did a little edging while I was at it. Too bad it was the wrong house, the climbing roses on the chimney next door being the intended victims. Roses could climb? Who knew?

None of those jobs I would describe as "soulful." But each one taught me something about myself that I needed to learn, and at the necessary expense of my burgeoning adolescent ego. So the experiences had soulful potential. I think this is how it happens with our work life, providing as it does ample opportunity to grow in wisdom and in depth, though that's a lot to ask of a young man. And it's a lot to ask of an employer intentionally to foster such growth. Ordinarily, that's not its business.

There are, however, enlightened companies that see past the bottom line to the human potential employed by the company. Benevity is such a business. Their "product" is actually a service, to bring together willing workers and noble causes, facilitating support for charitable organizations. It's a business, so they do have a financial bottom line. But it's also a soul-nurturing environment for its employees, to bring their unique talents and interests to their job to make a difference in the world.

Sona Khosla is Benevity's Chief Impact Officer. Her job is to oversee the company's effectiveness in utilizing the creativity of its people and addressing the pressing needs of the world. The work is soulful in the best sense, helping make the connections that, at a deep level, ennoble individuals and heal societies. And it takes for granted this: life itself is a bold experiment and, even in our failings, we can be contributors to a better world--something somebody might have thought to tell me after I'd pulled those roses.

To hear my conversation with Sona Khosla for The Mystic Cave, just click on the 'Play' button below. To learn more about Benevity, follow the 'More Info' button to the show notes.