How's Work: From the Mundane to the Meaningful

Anita Brick:

Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to Career Cast at Chicago Booth to help you advance in your career. Today we are really delighted, super duper delighted. Be speaking with my former colleague, friend, and amazing author among other things, Mef Shebi. He is a leadership at career coach and director of MBA career coaching at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, a Harvard graduate who rose from humble beginnings. Mef has built a dynamic career spanning engineering, management, consulting and policy advising across tech, energy, healthcare, government, and education. He recently published a book, great read and so you math called How's Work, drawing from Years of Experience and his own Unique Personal Journey. His mission is simple to help people unlock their full potential craft careers that matter of fulfillment, meaning, and purpose. I'm there with You <laugh>.

Mef Shebi:

Thank you Anita. I completely appreciate that kind introduction. It's a pleasure to have this conversation with you and so glad to be here.

Anita Brick:

Me too. So let's jump in. An MBA student said, I am so busy working to keep my head above water. It feels like finding purpose and living it will be distracting and exhausting. Where can I run an experiment before fully committing to doing this?

Mef Shebi:

Wow. Well, first I wanna take a quick step back here. I think the question face finding purpose and living will be distracting. And I wanna highlight an important point here. I think living with purpose is not a distraction. First of all, just like spending time with your family or your loved ones or doing something you care about, you don't consider those things a distraction, right? It's important to acknowledge that doing anything purposeful and doing it intentionally is not a distraction. I would rather say it's actually a source of meaning first. Reframing that point and thinking of it as if I am living a life that is full of purpose, that is intentional. It can be a source of meaning and fulfillment for me. So that's the first thing I wanna establish. But I can understand, you know, people are busy, they're exhausted. Keeping your head above water can be very challenging sometimes I think the first thing to do is to figure out what are the type of things that is energizing to you that is exciting, that's inspiring, that's motivating, that's engaging you in the workplace as opposed to draining, exhausting, disengaging. And the more we can take small steps, it doesn't mean you need to change your environment within your current environment. Can you think about those things that do give you more energy and lean into the tasks that essentially help activate you more? Keep building it on it over time, because starting small, what are the type of things in your current environment that excites you, that's engaging to you, and then trying to do more of that I think is a good place to start.

Anita Brick:

Okay. How have you seen people carve out some time to even observe what is inspiring and exciting and energizing to them?

Mef Shebi:

Very good question. Think about your busy day and think about all the activities that you're doing. You are aware of the activities you're doing, listing those activities down. A simple exercise could be if you take a blank piece of paper, draw a line in the middle on one side, write plus, and then on the other side write minus. And then based on your busy day that you have, what are the activities that you're doing that are exciting to you, are energizing to you? Write all the things that are energizing exciting on the plus side. And then anything that is like, you know, not as exciting, not as inspiring, not as motivating on the minus side. And just to give you an example, I'm a coach Anita, you are a coach. You, you can relate to this probably when I am doing one-on-one coaching, when I am doing workshops with people, that's where I get a lot of my energy.

I get excited. It's exciting to me, it's motivating to me, it's inspiring to me to meet with people from all types of backgrounds, doing all types of different things and being able to advise them, coach them, teach them, mentor them, advise them. The plus side will be doing those types of activities. On the flip side, the minus side would be when I'm writing reports, when I'm not in front of people, when I'm like, you know, doing administrative work in our line of work, we have to do some of that, right? Sure. Like those are less exciting. I still have to do them, but it's still less exciting to me. So that would be on the minus side. I will try to, every single day try to do more of the things that are on the plus side than the less side. There's no perfect reality, but at least if you can do things that moves you more towards the plus side of the column, I think it will push you more towards meaning.

Anita Brick:

I like that over time I've done this, I've worked with other people to do this. They look at the plus side.

Mef Shebi:

Yeah.

Anita Brick:

And start looking for themes, right? Because when they find themes, they're like, oh yeah. It's not just presenting, presenting certain topics or whatever it happens to be. I like what you said, if the energy is all flowing out, you're gonna be bad at at your job.

Mef Shebi:

Correct. I would argue the more of the plus things you do, ultimately you actually perform better and, and it comes from a place of strength. I mean there's a lot of actually evidence and data around strength-based performance.

Anita Brick:

Oh sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Mef Shebi:

And so this aligns with that as well. Okay.

Anita Brick:

So here are a couple questions from people who maybe are giving themselves a hard time.

Mef Shebi:

Okay.

Anita Brick:

The first one is from an alum.

Mef Shebi:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Anita Brick:

Self-compassion is hard for me. It took me a while to even understand what that meant. What is a small step a person can take to show more self-compassion that isn't too risky?

Mef Shebi:

Wow, that's a great question. I can understand this. And uh, self-compassion, self-care or prioritizing yourself can be challenging. You can perform better. You can show up better when you are better. Thinking about what is the most important thing for you, what do you care about? What, what are the things that you value? And then making your choices reflect those values I think is an important thing. One thing I do with people that I coach when it comes to self-compassion is think about one thing every morning, every day. Think about one thing you can do that is important to you. I think sometimes the challenge is, oh, I have to do so many different things for myself. And it becomes overwhelming. If you just focus on one single thing in 30 days, you would've done 30 important things for yourself. Taking the pressure off and thinking of it just like what is one thing it could be, I want to exercise that day.

It could be I want to read a book that day. Something very simple, but it's something important to you that you can do. Now I say this because if you don't do that, then the rest of your day is going to be filled with doing things that are important to other people. So it could be your loved one, it could be your coworker, it could be your boss that wants you to do something for them. So ultimately you're still going to do something that's important for other people. Again, prioritizes them over you. If you just add to that puzzle yourself by adding one important thing that you can do in a given day, then at least you have incorporated self-compassion in that equation.

Anita Brick:

I like that a lot. This next question is like, how do you choose the right action? But we'll come to that in a second.

Mef Shebi:

Okay.

Anita Brick:

For me anyway. Yeah. Important Doesn't have to be monumental. Yeah. I have a friend who's been in the world of technology for a long time.

Mef Shebi:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Anita Brick:

Is very senior.

Mef Shebi:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Anita Brick:

And has a lot of pressure.

Mef Shebi:

Right.

Anita Brick:

The important thing that she does every day. Knowing her, she does more than one important thing, but the first important thing that she does important to her is have a cup of coffee. Right. And that is okay. Yeah. And she likes it a certain way and she likes a certain brand and all that stuff. And for her that's self-compassion because it gives her a kickstart and then she can move on. A hundred percent important. Doesn't have to be societally important. It could just be important to you, Mef, for me or my friend.

Mef Shebi:

Yeah. I had uh, a similar kind of in the same vein, someone who is really limited on time when it comes to like, uh, carving out time for themselves. He asked me like, what can I do to really prioritize myself? I don't know. And I said, what do you enjoy doing? And then he said like, well, you know, it's kind of sad, but my current environment, there's not a lot of opportunities for me to laugh with people or hang out with people. And I said, well, laughter is important to you then what are some ways you can wake up in the morning and laugh? And he said, well, I don't know. And then we experimented and then he now reads jokes every morning to laugh.

Anita Brick:

I think that's great. Yeah. Alright, so here's another boothy and it goes along with this, but I think the question or the operative word here is the word best. So listen up for a second. I understand that we gain power in action.

Mef Shebi:

Mm-hmm

Anita Brick:

<affirmative>. Yet I stop because I don't know the best action to take.

Mef Shebi:

Yeah. I would reframe this point around the best action. If we are looking for the best or the perfectly carved out action, I think it actually puts us in a place of inaction.

Anita Brick:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Mef Shebi:

I agree. So just thinking of it as any action that you take that is more aligned with what we were saying earlier about the things that give you energy, the things that inspire you, the things that engage you, the things that motivate you. If you're taking action towards those steps, it can be considered, quote unquote the best action. But I would move away from the qualifiers like best or perfect because nothing in life is actually that the best thing to do. <laugh> pun intended here. The best thing to do would be to take any action, any step that gets you closer to your area of curiosity, your area of interest, your area of exposure. The word exposure I use more specifically where I say, how is it helping you grow? Another way to ask yourself is how are the things that you're doing helping you develop and grow? Growth can mean you are developing your competency or skillset. It can be developing your knowledge base. It could be connecting with people, building connections. If we can think of it from a place of taking these steps is ultimately going to help you gain, help you grow, help you develop, help you get closer and closer to really being authentically you. That would be my advice.

Anita Brick:

I agree. I also think that size does not matter.

Mef Shebi:

I agree a hundred percent. Small steps over time become actually bigger. Right? Like over time. So the compounding effect is, is what is going to help you long term, right?

Anita Brick:

Because we build momentum, we have a success and they're like, oh, that feels good. Let's do something like that again. You're absolutely right. I think it compounds, it does get bigger. But here's a question you mentioned curiosity. Lucy asked, how can a person cultivate curiosity as this was not something highly valued in my home family or in school.

Mef Shebi:

I would remind this person that curiosity is innate. We're all born with it. So every human being on planet earth is born with curiosity. I mean, look at children, look at kids. They are just curious, innately curious and drawn to different things. But the challenge is over time, as we grow older, whether it is expectation, pressure, societal norms, I mean this person mentioned family, homeschool, different environments and conditions that can potentially dampen your curiosity. The way I would encourage people to reignite it is start by asking, you know, what am I naturally drawn to? You know, what are the things I enjoy doing without getting bored? Keep thinking about what are you drawn to learn more about? What are you interested in? What do you enjoy doing? And without being bored. And just to give you a quick example, for me growing up as a kid, I loved sharing stories.

I loved listening to stories specifically about people. So like the kids in my neighborhood, we would get together and we would even play, you know, role plays and character plays, but playing different types of people in our neighborhood that we are exposed to. And I could do that for hours. Like I loved hearing people's stories. I loved sharing different stories about people. Just human behavior. Something that I gravitated towards. You know, fast forward today, I am a coach. Uh, and Anita, you know? You know, yeah. Which is in our world, we're constantly exposed to diverse human stories and diverse human experiences. That's what connects me to what I do. And it just fuels me a lot more. And it's endless. I can do this for hours on end. Just to give you another contrast, I have a very close friend of mine loves going to a wood shop and just going inside and like building furniture is her like playground. She loves making things. It started when she was young. She used to do it with like sands and different types of toys and things like that. Now, today, like anytime she has any sort of free time, she goes to the wood shop and loves like putting wood and creating different types of furniture. She's actually an entrepreneur and loves building and creating companies. There is a relationship there too.

Anita Brick:

Sure.

Mef Shebi:

The key thing here is what are you drawn to naturally? And then finding ways to nurture it, cultivate it, and then finding ways in your current daily life experience that you can engage in work that sparks your curiosity.

Anita Brick:

Here's a question from an alum who said, as you wrote, lots of repetition, is the foundation of your success and happiness. How did you move from the potentially boring to the meaningful?

Mef Shebi:

Oh, great question. Let me illustrate this with an example. I think the best way to answer this question would be for me, one of the things that I really wanted to happen was to leave my environment to go to college in the us. So I immigrated to the US and I came here for college. Initially growing up in the environment I grew up in very impoverished resource limited and there's very few opportunities to leave. One of the options was education. So for me, I was very clear on, I need to travel to the US and go to college there. There's a problem. I don't speak English. So then I'm like, okay, I need to learn English because that is critical if I'm planning to go to college. So for me, my vision was very clear in that sense. Like, I need to move to the US and go to college.

In order to accomplish that, I need to learn English. So that became a goal. Ultimately, my motivation came from wanting to learn English, develop the skillset. So I need to read, write, communicate in English. Well that meant constantly going to the library, constantly getting different types of resources to learn the language. And it was deliberate practice. Thousands of hours that I spent over years to learn English. So it goes back to that repetition point. So I had to do that repetitively, but it wasn't boring because I was motivated by this objective that you I'm trying to accomplish. And I think for anyone who is thinking about, okay, how do you overcome this repetitiveness of an activity or a task or where it doesn't become boring, I think the way to think about it is to what end are you doing that activity? Right? What is the ultimate goal? Right? And then, right,

Anita Brick:

What's the purpose? I mean the purpose, it goes back to purpose too. Yeah.

Mef Shebi:

The more you are clear on your vision and why you're doing it, I think it gives you more fuel to build the capacity, the skillset to achieve your ultimate goal. And I think deliberate practice is part of that.

Anita Brick:

I love that process. You pushed against the norms. You decided you wanted to study in the us Yeah. You didn't have the resources necessarily, et cetera, et cetera. Question is you pushed against the norms.

Mef Shebi:

Yes.

Anita Brick:

I live in a world where that is really not acceptable. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. What is a low risk action that you can suggest that I could take to go beyond the super conventional?

Mef Shebi:

Oh wow. That's a great question. Embedded in that question. I have something I want to reframe. I want to challenge this notion that changing the norms is unacceptable. Because I think, oh,

Anita Brick:

I don't think he thinks it's unacceptable. Oh, I just think his family,

Mef Shebi:

Oh,

Anita Brick:

Environment. Okay. Said it was unacceptable.

Mef Shebi:

Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah. So if that's the case, then you know, um, the environment that you live in, you have a set of norms, you have a set of standards, constraints, boundary conditions. I think the first thing you want to be aware is why are the things around you the way they are? I think it's an important question to ask. Why.

Anita Brick:

That's a big question though, Mef.

Mef Shebi:

It's a huge question. <laugh>,

Anita Brick:

How do you get started with that one?

Mef Shebi:

You know, for me, for example, living in the environment that I lived in goes back to your, the curiosity point. I was really driven by. I wanted something more for my life. I wanted something more than what my environment or my current condition could offer. My initial thought was, okay, why are things so hard? Why are things this way? And as a kid it's very hard to understand it. Growing up over time, I started to be curious and ask these questions constantly. And this actually works well in a work environment. There are some established norms or constraints put on you. I think if you challenge and and ask why are these things in place? The reason I say why the question why is important is because it helps you reflect on whether those norms are aligned with what you care about or not. The reason I say that is because if you don't know why those things exist, if you don't know why in the first place things are established, I think then all you're doing is reacting to get deeper.

I think it's important to understand why are these things in place so that you can understand the reasons behind them. And then once you understand the reasons behind them, then go internal and see how does this settle with me? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Where am I trying to go? Where am I trying to ultimately be? What's my vision for my life and where I'm trying to go, does this align with it or does this misalign? If it misaligns, then the question becomes what can you do to change it? What are small steps you can do to challenge, to question, to potentially come up with alternatives? And that's where the journey towards change starts.

Anita Brick:

I agree with that. I think that in the workplace you have to be able to assess the level of psychological safety. Correct. 'cause you may not be able to question the why

Mef Shebi:

100%. Yeah. And with this idea of psychological safety, I would say also because I've been in environments where the workplace did not feel psychologically safe, it's a question of trust as well. Workplaces that feel psychologically unsafe, typically there's not a level of trust that is given. Or it can be very controlling. It could be very rigid, completely against any sort of change. And I talk in depth about this in the book where change ultimately it, it really belongs to the person rather than the environment. Because ultimately each and every human being, we're all making choices and our choices reflect our values. And ultimately these choices collectively create norms, create environments. We, as we created these norms, we can also change those norms. It's important to think about your agency in this process. Oftentimes, you know, when we coach people, sure. You've come across people, Anita, in your experience where people feel like they can't do anything about it.

Right. You know, this is how it is. So I can't really do anything about it. And what that does is it puts you in a place where you don't have agency mm-hmm <affirmative>. Rather than to say, actually you can change. If you can't change the immediate environment, you can leave that environment. There are different possibilities that you can explore. That's where I go with a lot of people that I coach, is you can control your own choices and those choices can influence change. Change has to be aligned with what matters to you, what is aligned with your values. And that's why I go back to that question of why are these norms there in the first place to understand kind of the root causes of it and how does it that settle in with with who you are.

Anita Brick:

Very true. And the choices and decisions may not be easy ones

Mef Shebi:

Correct.

Anita Brick:

But then you have to decide. Exactly.

Mef Shebi:

Yeah. Because every decision has consequences for sure. And compromises. So it has to be, what are you willing to do? So

Anita Brick:

Here's a question that clearly is meant for you, and only you can answer this question.

Mef Shebi:

Oh wow. Okay.

Anita Brick:

So this is the question. How did the challenges you face, which were certainly not insignificant, create gratitude instead of despair and resentment?

Mef Shebi:

Oh wow. I can see why you said that question connects with me. Yes. It's really hard, especially having gone through what I've gone through, it's very easy to settle in a space of despair and resentment. In fact, there were moments where it was like that For me, being in a space of despair and resentment can lead you down a path of more darkness, more depression, more trauma. It puts you in a place of narrow-mindedness where you feel like you have more to lose than gain. So the thing I would highlight here is, you know, challenges and things that you go through tough challenges, especially I now see them as powerful teachers. They really help build resilience. They help you be become more adaptable. They help you navigate uncertainty. Especially as an immigrant, every time I achieve one milestone, the goalpost keeps moving. And Right. You sometimes feel like you have more to do

Anita Brick:

And you do have more to do. Right.

Mef Shebi:

And then you do have more to do. You do. Yeah. <laugh>. Exactly. To this point around gratitude, I learned to become more grateful through my grandma growing up. My grandma, she grew up in a remote village, very limited to no resources. And as a woman, even more so limited in terms of opportunities, she's not formally educated. There's a lot of constraints and challenges that she went through. But one thing she would always say I still remember to this day is, so she'll remind me of the things I have rather than the things I don't have. And this connects with kind of most humans in a way. You know, Anita, someone tells you, you know, nine things that are going really well and then one thing that's not going well, your tendency is to focus on the one thing that's not going well. Oh yeah. Right. Like it's just, it's just a human thing where we kind of connect it to our survival.

We focus on the things that are going wrong or the things that are not happening, rather than the things that are going well, rather than the things that you do have. If we shift that focus to the things we do have and the things that potentially we could gain as opposed to what we could lose, that actually puts you in a space of gratitude. And ultimately it actually helps you be more connected. Puts things in perspective. It puts you in a place of humility and empathy. And that's one thing I remember with my grandma. Every time we would walk around our neighborhood, she would always stop. If there are homeless people or beggars on the street, she would always, always stop us and tell us to give them something. Even if we like have some piece of bread or piece of anything, what can you give? And she would always remind us, you know, there are people that are less fortunate than us, but we should always be grateful for the things we do have. And there's always something we can give. I go back to that because being in a space of gratitude really puts you in an optimistic mindset, gives you more possibilities, more options, and think about the things you can gain rather than the things you are going to lose.

Anita Brick:

I agree. Your grandmother was a very wise woman, and I look at your behavior and how I've known you over time, and I can see it reflected in what you just shared about her.

Mef Shebi:

Thanks Anita, I appreciate that. Okay.

Anita Brick:

Do you have time for one more question? Yeah,

Mef Shebi:

Yeah.

Anita Brick:

What are three things that you would advise someone to do to go from mundane to the meaningful?

Mef Shebi:

Great question. This is my overarching message when it comes to the book I wrote. When it comes to people I coach this big foundational principle or point around moving from mundane to meaningful. I want people to think about answering this question from the perspective of time. Most people say this time is our most valuable asset. Time is our precious asset. We don't wanna waste our time. So if we keep saying time is our most precious asset, precious means valuable not to be wasted. I asked the question, how much of our time is valuable and how much of our time are we spending in a meaningful way? Now, when you put it in the context of work, and I put it in the context of work, because we spend over half of our waking lives at work. I actually did this calculation recently just to measure it. If you live up to 80, 85, and assuming you work 40 hours a week, most people work more than that. It's about 90,000 hours that you're spending at work. That much time is being spent at work. If we are saying this significant portion of our time is spent at work, now the question is, is our time at work, is it being spent in a meaningful way?

Anita Brick:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Mm-hmm

Mef Shebi:

<affirmative>. Unfortunately 85% of the, the global workforce feels completely disengaged at work.

Anita Brick:

Yeah.

Mef Shebi:

Oh

Anita Brick:

Yeah.

Mef Shebi:

Right. You know, you know about this Anita. So eight out of 10 people are likely doing something that kind of resembles what I'm about to say. So if you're spending your time at work, scrolling through social media, TikTok, Instagram, you're watching your favorite shows at work, you are doing laundry or doing, you know, personal chores. If you're working from home and your chores are more exciting to you than work or you're talking to as many people in the office to kill time. So you can go home. If you're doing any of this, and by the way, eight out of 10 people are doing this, then you are really wasting your time. And not only are you wasting your time, you're also, there's a huge loss in productivity for businesses and companies as well. My point in all of this is, so then how do you feel your time at work so that you feel like the time you're spending there is meaningful?

So I give you three things like you mentioned, top three things, I have a full chapter on this, but three key elements that need to be present in your time at work. Curiosity, exposure and values. So curiosity, like we talked about earlier, Anita, it is basically doing work that draws you in to learn more. That is innately connected to who you are, what you're excited to do, what you care about. And every single person on earth can do this. I understand this because I've lived through this experience and I often sometimes hear challenges where people are like, oh, not everyone can do their passion. And I'm not really necessarily saying that. What I'm saying is doing work that sparks your curiosity, doing work that engages you, doing work that energizes you. And then related to that, the second point is exposure, which basically highlights what are the experiences that are stretching you to grow.

What are you doing in your daily work that is helping you develop your competency, your knowledge, your capability, your skillset? Because we need to be challenged as well. So like how are you challenging yourself to grow, connected to your curiosity, connected to the things that you are interested in growing in. And then the lastly, the biggest point, which is values, is really making sure everything you do is aligned to what really matters to you. What do you care about? What's important, what's the mission here? Keeping in mind the work that you are doing is contributing to some sort of a societal issue. Like we have a lot of problems in the world and when we think about contribution, your contribution could be meaningful or it could be meaningless. Thinking about how are you contributing in a meaningful way to address challenges, to address opportunity areas and problems in the world. And I think if you frame it that way, then if you're doing work that sparks your curiosity, that gives you exposure to grow and that's fully aligned with your values, then you are living a much more meaningful life and your career will be much more fulfilling.

Anita Brick:

And clearly you do

Mef Shebi:

<laugh>. Yes. And you do too as well, Anita. Well,

Anita Brick:

Well thank you. We are, we are both very fortunate. But thank you so much. Anything I didn't ask you that you were hoping I would,

Mef Shebi:

I think you've covered pretty much everything and uh, I hope that people can get the book and connect with me as well to learn more. And so I appreciate again, you taking the time to have this conversation with me.

Anita Brick:

I wouldn't have missed it,

Mef Shebi:

<laugh>.

Anita Brick:

I'm so glad that I found out about the book and it was kind of random. I'm glad it all worked out. Thanks again, Mef.

Mef Shebi:

Thank you Anita. Appreciate it.

Anita Brick:

And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with Career Cast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.