Hello fellow World Changers! Do I have a wicked tool to share with you! Before I get to sharing the goods though, I’d like to tell you all a story about a girl who was headed down a dark and stormy path, far away from social activism and everything that made her heart happy.
Our young heroine completed her BA at a pretty awesome University in Political Science, with an emphasis on International Development and Global Issues. Pretty vague, I know. She set out the day after graduating, her earnest heart filled with hope and longing for this “DREAM JOB” she always figured she would land once school was over. Readers, she wanted to change the world, and idealistically saw no obstacles blocking her path. But BAM! wall after wall she hit, and was rejected by all of the awesomest, social justice type workplaces she used to dream of working for (complete with requisite dream desk, covered in dream teas and dream assignments and dream notebooks filled with dream thoughts of changing the world). After being rejected by the millionth employer on charityvillage.com, she sighed and settled, found a job to pay off her OSAP debt and figured she could still make a difference by spending all of her free time volunteering. And friends, this she did, racking up volunteer hours, but no money, as her menial job was severely lacking in the salary department. Fast forward to two years later, and she hit yet another wall, exhausted from long nights at work and long days spent volunteering for various, but not connected organizations in the nonprofit sector. An idea started brewing in her head, and suddenly, thought bubbles filled the air. After a family crisis took hold of her life and made her rearrange her priorities, she realized she had had enough of meandering down the wrong career path. Her volunteer work was what set her soul on fire and her world ablaze. So she abruptly switched her career path, and began to make her way down the craziest, and most rewarding road she could ever imagine. And here, she found bliss.
Ladies and Gentleman, that girl is… (drumroll please) ME! If that long and winding story inspired you at all, please continue reading, and I will share with you the most incredibly relevant job tool I happened to stumble upon while visiting a like minded friend’s profile on a ridiculously popular social media site which starts with the letter “F”…
It’s an absolutely FREE (no strings attached!) E-Book called, “Occupation Change the World”, developed by DreamNow, “a charitable organization that produces ideas that do good for the world”.
I downloaded and relished the wonderful nuggets of information filling my computer screen, and basked in the sense of enlightenment that had suddenly dawned on me. No, I wasn’t given the answers to my most pressing life questions (like: why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?), but I suddenly found myself with insight that I wish I had been armed with on graduation day four years ago.
Developed by DreamNow as a research project/pseudo guide to meaningful employment for twentysomethings, this e-book aims to educate young people on how to gather the tools necessary to set them on the path to meaningful success with an emphasis on doing GOOD (which coincidentally is the focus of this blog! Insert happy face “here”).
Researchers in the book ask some pretty loaded questions to get readers to travel deep into the recesses of their mind, to the dusty bookshelves way at the back where they parked some Awesome Ideas To Change The World, but never revisited because they lacked confidence/motivation/support/money, whatever. Questions like, “How do I find Meaning Outside of Work”, and “What are Barriers that I Face [to finding meaningful employment]”?
At the heart of the document, lies this main question:
“How can people my age, in their twenties and thirties, find a balance between the lifestyle they desire, the career they want and the change they want to invoke in this world? And why hasn’t anyone figured this out?”
The authors set out to answer this by first defining what constitutes meaningful employment, and then finding out what the barriers to meaningful employment are and the best ways to overcome them. By listing “[6 steps to make money and do good]“, the authors hope to illustrate that yes, you can do Good, and you can develop a rewarding career from it (ie. you can pay your bills and still change the world!).
It is also filled with exercises you can do to set you on the right path, such as how to create your own course book by collecting articles, quotes, pictures, or anything you come across that inspires you, and then getting it bound once you’ve collected a good hearty stack. It is also filled to the brim with resources, all neatly listed in a section aptly titled, “where to find Good jobs”.
Volunteering is a marvellous way to give back to your community, but don’t you sometimes wish that what you did as volunteer work was your primary source of income? Instead of sitting in your car dreading the walk through the parking lot and into the front doors of your current, less meaningful job, wouldn’t you rather be filled with joy at today’s new challenges? In conclusion, this is an incredible and insightful resource for those who want to transform doing Good to meaningful employment. Read it! Go on, click the link below, and download it now! You won’t be sorry you did!
thinkGood. Guest Blogger: Rasheeda Ali
Do Good, Feel Good, Live Good
-Team thinkGood.
Tags: Charity Village, DreamNow, How to Make Money and Change the World, International Development, Occupation Change the World E-Book