What Global Need is Your Smart Mind Working on?

April 23, 2024 - For years, I’ve been asking this question.

• To myself if this is how I am living out my life and my career.

• To my colleagues when the going gets tough (or frustrating or both).

• To my students as they contemplate careers, career growth and career changes.

Double Standards

A few months ago, I read the same question in the book “Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential”. (It’s also a movie.)

The author, Dan Pollotta, highlighted the double standard in our world between the for-profit and non-profit worlds. 

Corporates can pay their staff whatever they want, and spend ridiculous amounts on marketing campaigns.

‘But non-profits?  Their staff are only allowed to be paid the barest minimum.

And marketing?  Nope. Can’t spend money on that. Heaven forbid we try to raise awareness for the world’s biggest problems – sanitation, clean water, access to electricity and healthcare.

But it’s okay to spend billions encouraging people to eat junk food and buy fancy cars and tech gadgets.

Something is off….

Moral Ambition

Then yesterday I heard the same question in a speech given by Rutger Bregman at the World Trade Center in Amsterdam.

He framed it very interestingly: Every career lasts 2,000 workweeks.

He asked us: what are you doing with this precious time you have on the planet?

He noted that the biggest waste on earth isn’t old electronics, second hand clothes or plastic. It is the waste of talent.

His research found that 25% of people think their jobs are meaningless. That is more than most countries’ unemployment rate!

You can read more about his work on the website and in his book, “Morele Ambitie” (the English version, “Moral Ambition” comes out in 2025).

So…what are you doing with your 2,000 workweek career?

What impact are you making? What legacy are you leaving behind? What global problems are you making a dent in? What global need is your smart mind working on?!