Shapers. Jonas Altman

Shapers - Jonas Altman


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other trailblazers all helping to shape the future of work. We'll dive inside companies like Netflix, Squarespace, LEGO, and Patagonia to see how they cultivate resilient work cultures. We'll see precisely how shapers fuel themselves by what they do every day and how you can do the same.

      Whether you're in the C‐suite or the front line, work remotely or in an office–the ideas, lessons, and tools presented in these pages are for you to adopt as you see fit. Pick, mix, experiment, and run with whatever works best for you. We all have different approaches to work, and each one of us can find those opportunities for growth. We can all evolve. My invitation is for you to thoughtfully shape and regularly refine the ways you work.

       Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

      —Viktor Frankl

A three-dimensional image depicting that the nature of work is quickly changing so that more of us can find meaning in what we do.

      Work is now a practice through which we search for meaning to help shape a colourful life. The choice we have is to move beyond ourselves and connect with something larger. This deep sense of commitment and purpose is non‐negotiable and is what gives shapers their shimmer.

      Happiness is fleeting. It comes and goes, flexes and flops, rises and pops. A double‐scoop ice‐cream cone might fall to the floor or melt divinely in your mouth, but whichever way, it's gone and so is the momentary happiness it brought. And that makes happiness a moving target and, therefore, a crappy career goal.

      Shapers know that happiness is perpetually in flux and hinges upon getting what you want, or at least getting what you think you want at various times. And it's fleeting. It comes and goes, flexes and flops, rises and pops. A double‐scoop ice‐cream cone might fall to the floor or melt divinely in your mouth; but either way it's gone and so is the momentary happiness it brought. And that makes happiness a moving target and, therefore, a crappy career goal.

      Meaning is nuanced and textured. It's subjective. It's a choice that emerges from those things to which we ascribe significance. But it's slippery as hell because it's not always clear what those things are at any given time. It could be pinned on someone, something, or some place. When felt, when lived–meaning spirals into our soul and provides for an expansive sense of self. It helps connect the once seemingly unconnected through time.

      Meaning matters because it lets us show up in the world as we were meant to be. It propels our inner drive. It gives us energy. It provides the colour to our lives. We need meaning both for the will to live and the ability to grow.

      Since most have abandoned religion in favour of work in the secular West, we now seek an enduring sense of purpose not from the house of God but the church of work. The largest religious group in the U.S.A is, you guessed it, ‘non‐believers.’ We've supplanted the altar with the office, the Bible with the smartphone, and come to expect righteous Sundays every damn day.

      In order to boost our chances of finding and sustaining meaning–we need to stop divorcing ourselves from our work. Basta! Instead, we should inject ourselves quirks and all, into what we do. For shapers this is a heartfelt obligation. It's how they make their best contribution to the world. And then like a swell in the ocean, that unmistakable feeling of meaning rushes in.

      To be certain, we can often confuse urgency with meaning. When the pressure is so heavy and the exigency so real, we attribute what we're experiencing as supremely significant. It may be in the face of adversity or confronting our fatality that might expedite a sense meaning, but none of these are necessary conditions. All that's required is the ability to choose.

      It may be paradoxical, but shapers understand that finding meaning typically appears when we're not looking for it. By plunging into something bigger than ourselves, setting aside our ‘convulsive little egos’ as the father of American psychology, William James would put it, meaning can gently bubble up. For example, I studied digital marketing to go into the music business, and lo and behold, I bumped into the love of my life.

      Meaning ensues from a process of discovery and defeat. During the ups and the downs, turning points, and in between all the gnarly waves that life brings, shapers show up wholeheartedly in the present. They enjoy the fruits of their labour as well as the process, the sweat, and the struggle. This unyielding commitment to a purpose is what gives shapers their shimmer.

      Shapers begin with their why, and then figure out the how. Their interiority let's them create meaning time and again. Their self‐efficacy let's them shun the negative self‐talk and spiral upwards. They feel part of something larger than themselves. There is sacrifice, yes. Settling, no.


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