Life Conversations with a Twist
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Life Conversations with a Twist
90,000 Career Hours: How to Make Your Work Meaningful (Not Just Profitable) with Georgi Enthoven
"You build it, you don't find it. Occasionally, it comes landing in your lap, but most people build it into their lives." —Georgi Enthoven
We spend roughly 90,000 hours of our lives working—that's one-third of our entire existence. What if those hours could be more than just a paycheck, but a profound journey of purpose and passion? Imagine transforming those 90,000 hours from a mundane countdown to a meaningful mission that lights you up from the inside out.
Georgi Enthoven is an entrepreneur, author of "Work That's Worth It," and a global impact strategist who has navigated the complex terrain of meaningful career design. With roots in emerging markets and a passion for helping purpose-driven professionals reimagine their professional journeys, she brings a unique perspective on transforming work from a daily grind into a personal mission.
Tune in as Heather and Georgi dive deep into the art of crafting a career that aligns with your values, the myths about impact and income, practical strategies for breaking free from professional burnout, plus much more!
Connect with Heather:
Episode Highlights:
01:35 Meet Georgi: Global Roots, Global Impact
06:50 Breaking the Nonprofit Poverty Trap
16:54 Empathy as a Career Compass
25:22 Turning Overwhelm into Opportunity
32:24 From Download to Published
36:04 Core Values: A Reliable Career Navigation Tool
Resources:
📖Book
Connect with Georgi:
Georgi Enthoven is an international thought leader, trusted advisor, and the visionary founder of Work That’s Worth It. But she didn’t start her career knowing what would come to define her.
Like many, Georgi spent the first half of her career taking the scenic route.
After attending the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Business School, she found herself misaligned in jobs that either met her needs for income and ambition or matched her desire to add positive value to the world. She struggled to find roles where she could combine the two.
Meanwhile, she lived in more than half a dozen countries, including South Africa, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, and the United States. This gave her a truly global perspective and a special appreciation for the dynamics of emerging markets.
Today, she’s a passionate advocate for young professionals seeking to combine contribution with compensation. With nearly three decades of professional experience in various industries, Georgi’s on a mission to help individuals like you turn their career into work that’s worth it, finding a career and calling that is good both for them and for the world…
Heather Nelson: Welcome everyone to this week's Life Conversations With a Twist. I have the honor of having Georgi on. We just met. And funny enough, we're an hour apart from each other, which is always so interesting how I get connected to these amazing women all over the world, and some have been in my backyard. It's really cool to be able to meet you, so thank you, and welcome to the podcast.
Georgi Enthoven: You are so lovely to have me. Thank you for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here.
Heather Nelson: I just met Georgie, and I was like, okay, I want to dive into your story, and this conversation is going to be so good and so needed right now. And especially just having conversations about this topic through my community, and so I can't wait to dive in. So tell the listeners a little bit about who you are. What is your work world life is? Maybe your home life, kids and all the fun stuff.
Georgi Enthoven: First and foremost, I am a mother of three children. The youngest is 12, and the oldest is 18. I've got a girl and two boys, and that really is like the absolute core of my priorities, and also what I feel is my greatest privilege in life. And my husband and I live in San Francisco, and we're both from emerging markets. He's from Mexico. I'm from South Africa, and I spent half my life in emerging markets, so that gives a little background. But I am at the stage right now where I have just published a book, and it's called, Work That's Worth It, and also has a podcast to go with it. But what is important about that for me is I have finally found my work where I'm in a complete flow state, the synergy of the impact I want to make with the income that I would like to earn is in sync. I am deeply excited and invigorated by the work that I'm doing.
Heather Nelson: I need this conversation so badly. I need someone like you to inspire me. Because literally, this is where I'm sitting in my career and in my life right now, and so I cannot wait to hear how you even got to this point because I think that's the part that we get to this point. And you're so thrilled, and you're thriving, and you love the work that you do. That doesn't happen overnight, and there's a lot of sacrifices and fear that goes behind that, and so I would love to hear how you got to this point. You want to talk about your career?
Georgi Enthoven: Sure. So when I graduated from undergrad, from UC Berkeley in the neighborhood that I'm in now, I was really at Berkeley at the time, it was a very theoretical education, so we learned very little about how you're going to get a job. And in fact, the Career Center at the time was not even on campus. It was off campus and many blocks away. And so when I graduated, I felt really confused. I had immigrant parents from South Africa. We really didn't have connections, or know a lot of people in the US at the time, and I was on my own to try to figure out the career stuff. I didn't know what was possible, and only later now do I realize that is the case for most students. They come into college maybe knowing three to five careers, and come out maybe knowing 12 careers, but you really don't know a lot of the pathways that are possible. So I wanted to do good in the world. I had put together my own major, and it was third world development, but it was a lot like political science, but also understanding poverty, food shortages, health needs and education. So all sorts of topics that I found really important, big topics that caught my interest. And so when I graduated, I wanted to continue that work, but I had grounded myself that I'm going to live in San Francisco. I couldn't find opportunities that allowed me to do good in the world, but also met my ambition. And so a lot of the opportunities I found early were sort of pass out flyers, and I could see that there really wasn't going to be a lot of movement from that position. And so I ended up, I would say getting gobbled up by the tech industry, and spent the first part of my career there.
It really met most of my needs. I was excited about it. I had a lovely team. Met incredible people that I'm still in touch with. We got promoted quickly, and were able to earn well. But I noticed that I kept volunteering on the side for the pieces that were missing from me, and that's more of the heart connection of really what I want to contribute to the world. And so I thought, okay, well, this is how it works. You have your day job, and then you spend extra hours figuring out the other piece to balance. And that was really the premise of where I got started. Later, I moved to Mexico City with my husband, and we had three children. I didn't have a lot of time. But the time that I did have, I flipped it completely and went hardcore on the impact side. There were so many incredible organizations that really needed help, and so I did project work for various organizations, but they paid incredibly little, if anything. And so although I was fulfilled by the work and really was connected to the impact, I felt, okay, this couldn't really be beyond a project for me because I've got three children at home. And leaving them behind, I need to also, for me personally, be rewarded for the work that I'm doing. And so yeah, that was sort of the basis that I went. I call it the scenic route. I zigzagged through my career, not really with not having a broader vision of what I wanted to how I wanted to spend those hours. The average career is 90,000 hours. It's a huge amount of your time. None of us think about that. When you're starting your career, you're equally rich in hours. You don't know how long your life is going to be, and what your career path is. But we can start off with the assumption that we're equally rich in hours, and you get to spend those hours where you want to. And an important part of what I learned later in the journey is like, what's that big picture that you really want?
Heather Nelson: I have so many thoughts around this topic. Coming off of a nonprofit, I just supported a local nonprofit here with their gala. And the work that they're doing is so good and so needed. I tell our executive director all this all the time. I'm like, you literally are going to change the world. Her passion is education, and we all know that education is a hot mess right now, and it doesn't get paid well. Literally, this is where it starts. These kids, this is how they're being taught. This is how we're fueling our future. These jobs that are so important, so crucial are not paying. And so you get to a point where you're like, I want to do this good work, but-- specially here in Sonoma County, you can't afford to do that work because you have to work to pay the bills. And even you're doing stuff you don't love.
Georgi Enthoven: Even worse. The people who can identify with the problem, the people who've experienced the problem are the ones who really can't afford to do it. They've got the perspective, the knowledge and the know-how. What I am passionate about is, how do we get those people with the kindest hearts that really want to do good on bigger stages? Because sometimes, nonprofit is the ideal model, and the only model that will work. But other times, it's about focusing on where you can have the same impact or greater impact, and also be rewarded. So how do we get those kind hearted people into C suites and boardrooms where they're making big decisions that are influencing policy of education, or whatever it is. I find that the way that the structure when kids come out of college, they're like, are you going to go make money? Are you going to go for not for profit? And we're still telling people that these are their binary options. And what that does is it keeps the best people playing on a way smaller scale. And when I say the best, I mean the people who are going to make good decisions for our planet, good decisions for the families, good decisions for education, through health care. And those are the people who care and can think more holistically about the problem versus what are we returning to shareholders. And so how do we get those people to play bigger? And that is part of my interest. And just to side note. Sometimes, I will talk to a teacher who feels incredibly rewarded for their work because they enjoy the human interaction with the children so much. They enjoy having their summers off, or whatever it is. But what's really important about this is that it is personal. This is something that you get to live. Nobody else can tell you what is worth it for you. That is something that you have to sort through. And there's a lot of layers to it. Where are you from? What is your financial situation like? Who is your partner? If you have a partner. All these things allow you to craft the career that you want given your circumstances. So one teacher could feel very fulfilled, and another feels grossly underpaid. So it's about YOU reflecting on your situation, versus making a grand statement about a particular category.
Heather Nelson: Just a thing that sparked to my head. I just got off of a woman's retreat. I also do women's retreats, and that's been a passion. Again, this thing that I'm so passionate about, and I make such an impact with these women. I don't make money off of it. And in fact, I have lost money because of it. But the impact of what I'm doing in changing people's lives is what makes it worth it, right? And so one of the conversations that we just had in our last retreat was about your mindset on money, and why everyone's perception is different on money? Why do people think it's important that we make money? Or why is it important to make an impact and just change the world? And money is not a big thing, but it was very eye opening to hear all the different money types of where our mind comes with money based on our parents, our grandparents, and how we were raised. Things like that. But it was a whole conversation that I'm like, we need to have this on the podcast because it was very eye opening.
Georgi Enthoven: I have a chapter in my book that I talk about compensation, and it's one of the pillars that I think is really important for any person who I call once to be a disrupter for good to consider. But compensation is anything that gives you energy. So income is part of it. And for some people, it's a lot of it. But what else is giving you energy? It could be the people you work with, the feedback you're getting, the role model you get to stand by every day. Working from home, having flexibility, all this allows you to live the life that you want. And to take a holistic view of compensation, and really knowing what's important to you is great. But on the other hand, something that you said to me, I just want to point out. A lot of the people who are doing great work feel like I have to serve my audience because they need this. They want the impact, and I'm able to do it even if I don't get compensated. And those kinds of things are sometimes internal shifts that you have to make. Teachers don't get paid well in the US, and that is something that is difficult for us to control in the short term. How does that change? I don't know, but that's systemic. But then we have these internal barriers, and those internal barriers are actually easier for us to control. And part of it is to say, so what would it look like if I were paid for this? Who would I need to reach out to? Who would the people be? And could I still reach the other woman that I really care about as well in this model? And so it's you finding the opening that would allow you to be rewarded sufficiently for the work. And if you feel like you were already, then that's wonderful. But if you're not, oftentimes, it's our own YES language that we've grown up with, or feeling the sense of responsibility to give, and that ends up leading to burnout. And so I always feel that whatever the equation is for you, you have to receive so that you can last your 90,000 hours. We really want to be doing good work in the world, so how do we keep you energized and rewarded so that it's not a small project, and it's actually something sustainable?
Heather Nelson: Yes, I love that. And again, I mentioned this is where I'm sitting right now. I started my business two years ago, and I do a lot of consulting work. I've been in the events industry for so long. I know I'm really good at what I do. I have the experience, I have the knowledge, I have the motivation around it. I love doing it, but it's a lot of work. It is sucking the soul out of me right now. And then I have on the other side this retreats and my podcast where I am making an impact. And these are the things that truly fuel my soul, but I can't get to a point to grow it, to a point where I can make a bigger impact, or can make some income off of it. My time is so sucked over here. Literally four weeks out to let a lot of that go, because either contracts are ending, and I'm just going to put a pause on that business, and maybe I'll pick that back up. But to spend time doing the things that I love to get to a point where I finally hit that breaking point. Because one, my mood is awful. I can just tell that I'm anxious all the time. I'm constantly checking my emails. I feel like I constantly have to do all this work, or make these meetings and do all these things. I want to wake up some days and just reach out to amazing women, connect, grow and do all this work. But I'm like, I just get sucked. So I am totally right there with you where I'm sitting in my life right now. And I always believe that people come on my podcast every single time for a reason. They're like telling me something like, this is where you need to go.
Georgi Enthoven: The other aspect of my coaching experience with clients is often, people think of when they imagine if you're in a situation, you say, really difficult. I need to make a change. That's actually easier than it being a pretty good situation, because that's hard to change out of a pretty good even if you know it's not.If in the good situation you're looking for, but you're at a point where you can see clearly that you need to make a change. And I find that a lot of people think like they say, if I could just make it 10% better. Why envision a 10% better scenario? Why not envision the best scenario and put that out to the universe, and then see what comes back? So I think often, this is where you need to take in that you have the power and the potential to create the ideal life that you really want, and it's a canvas that you get to paint. And if you can imagine it, you can make it happen. But first, you have to believe that it's possible. And so I often think that we feel okay. So you've got these situations, what would the best scenario be where you were doing both in the way that you wanted, but really dream it. I'm imagining you being able to bring in the impact and the work that you're doing into the skills that you've already developed. But it could be translated. But once you allow yourself the freedom to imagine what could be possible and to say that it will be possible, then things start to fall in place. You start to notice, oh, wow, this person is doing it. And then you start to see these pathways for yourself, or at least the next step.
Heather Nelson: I love that so much. I want to help you grow up. You're going to college. Was there a time, or an experience, or something that happened that made you want to do this type of work, doing stuff for the bigger of the world? I feel like you don't wake up and do that. People don't wake up and they're like, I just want to change the world. I wanted to help with climate change. I want to help educate. There's something that was rooted there. And I'm curious to hear where that came from for you? I do believe that when you live in an emerging market and you're confronted with poverty every day, you are very aware of what it's like. It's easy in parts of the US where you're in a neighborhood where a lot of people are maybe not hitting it out of the park, but they're doing okay. But when you live in a country where people are really struggling to find their next meal, I know that happens in the US as well, but you can't detach from it in an emerging market. So I think part of that is just really having empathy, understanding and curiosity about that. I interviewed an incredible gentleman recently, and he was telling me what drew him to the work. He helps youth unemployment in South Africa. And what drew him to that after many years of a corporate career was how significant the challenge was. You don't know what draws people in, but I really resonate like there's something about it being incredibly challenging that is so invigorating. I have a love of learning, that's one of my strengths. So diving into a problem that's easy to solve won't keep me very interested. But understanding a big problem, peeling back the layers and making headway is really exciting for me. So I think that's just who I am. And then what else could I say about that? I'm a people person. I really enjoy a deep connection with the people that I am around. And when people say, I go to work. I just work and I leave. I don't have a connection. I couldn't do that every day. That would be soul depriving. So wherever I've worked, I've had a community around me, and that is important to me. And so what I love about the people doing amazing work in the world, they're such wonderful people. And so you bring in the people into your work based on the contribution that you want to make to the world. And if you are aligned on contribution, I can tell you, you're probably going to really enjoy those people, or find them stimulating, interesting, fascinating. So I think those are the reasons that I am interested in this work. I didn't know how core it was to my being, and that's what got me pretty off track.
Heather Nelson: So important to be surrounded by positive people who are making a change, and who are being positive and influential in such a crappy time right now, and so I love that. I think the more you can surround people that bring you joy or bring you up, I think is so important right now. So I love that. It just was a reminder. On your podcast, who do you interview?
Georgi Enthoven: When I was making my decisions are role models and pathways to understand what is possible. And so for my particular podcast, it's for young people looking to understand what career opportunities they have. And so it's different from people doing venture capital, but focused on impact, to lawyers that are impact focused, to a politician, to a doctor that focuses on fertility, really emphasizing black and brown people. And so all different aspects where you're able to include income and impact into your work. So in my book, what I use is making a significant contribution to the world, but also being compensated for that time.
Heather Nelson: Oh, my gosh, so good. I definitely have to tune in, because I need some more of that.
Georgi Enthoven: It's not just for young people, but my heart goes out to my younger self that didn't know the pathways. And so if you're in an informational interview, understanding the dynamics of what got somebody interested in their field, and I do talk about income because it's important. So I have had people that work for amazing not for profits, and we talk about how they make that work financially, some of the not for profit to work pay well. And a guest I recently had said she relies on her husband's salary to be able to do the calling that she really wants to do. So I think honest conversations about that are important too.
Heather Nelson: Okay, so you are seeing all these people doing amazing things in the world. Can you give us one or two people that you've met, humans doing or making that shift where they were working in a job that wasn't fueling them to make this big impact into our world? Do you have a story, or somebody that you've met along the way?
Georgi Enthoven: Many of these are beautiful stories that I get goosebumps of. But one of the people that I included in my book is a woman called Elspeth, and she was working at ClientEarth at the time. And ClientEarth is a law firm that represents nature. And so if you are a politician and get elected, you are promising all sorts of climate policies that will curb emissions, or whatever it is. And then you get elected, and you don't do it, they then file a lawsuit against you. Or if you're a company producing all sorts of plastic waste, and you say 90% is getting recycled, they will hold you accountable to it and say, actually, that's only 8%. But yes, just because it says recyclable doesn't mean it's getting recycled. And so it's an amazing organization. And this in particular what I'm interested in is not just the organization, but actually the person behind the story. Her story was so interesting because she needed to be financially responsible for her sisters, given her family situation. And so she decided to go into law, and she took the highest paying job. She was very successful in it. Very bright, and she took the highest paying job in what she could do so that she could be the financial breadwinner for her younger sisters, and help them get through college and everything else, which is amazing. But if you looked at it on the outside, she was supporting oil companies. She had their blueprints on the wall. And one day, she had just learned to scuba dive, and she was now quite far into her career. And her sisters no longer needed her financially. She was looking at the blueprints of the oil rigs on the wall and just thought, that's it. I'm done. And that just was so misaligned with who she is.
She then went to join ClientEarth, and she took a massive risk and started as an intern after being a very successful lawyer. And obviously, she worked her way up fast in the organization. But this is an example that you hear a lot of people make choices early on because they don't know an alternative, or because they need the alternative. It's always really important to me to stay in your lane, don't judge others on the path that they're taking, because we don't know why they're taking those paths. And there's not one size fits all. In the podcast interview, people who started off, let's say, in big law, and they focused on a lot of the not for profit work, and so I find often the people who are doing good or want to do good spend time judging others of how pure your good is, and that is not a good use of your time. So focus on what really would feel important to you, the contribution you want to make, and that is where you can have the greatest influence. And something you mentioned earlier about the way the world is right now. I hear a lot of people just saying, I just can't fight anymore, or I can't do this, or I feel overwhelmed by what we're facing so I'll just do nothing. And I would challenge people to be like, okay, so if you can't do the fight, could you do the growing of the good? What could you grow? And whether it's you supporting this not for profit leader, or buying somebody a coffee in the line, or whatever it is, but what good can you do to start an upward spiral? And we all know ways we could do it. I've just launched a book. If you know it all, you know an author, buy their book. If it's from anyone in the creative field, but anyone in the not for profit, that field that needs support, go volunteer, spend your time. Or imagine a model where you could be an entrepreneur potentially, and bring in impact at the core of your business. But if you focus on growing the good, you will get a lot less resistance, and maybe that's how you compensate, and that's how you create a better society, a better world.
Heather Nelson: Such good advice. I also think we all cannot dim our light at this point. I know everyone wants to give up. But if we all give up, we're definitely gonna fail. But if we all just keep going and work together, and continue to support each other and make movements, we can make a change. But we just can't give up. That's how I feel right now. There's a lot of stuff personally that I haven't even got to talk about. My husband is also Latino, and so there's a whole thing that a lot of people in my life don't know about. But I'm at a point now where I'm like, I have this platform and have a voice, and I am a hard working person who has been paying taxes and paying into our economy. And so my husband is doing the same thing. And yes, he wasn't born here, but why does he not have the right to be here? It's been starting to get to me a little bit. And he is very like, let's keep things private. But I'm like, no. Keep being quiet, this is why it gets to be this way. I struggle with it. I literally just had this conversation two weeks ago that I'm like, I think I don't want to dim my light anymore. I'm not going to change the world, but I can continue to have the conversations.
Georgi Enthoven: One of the really interesting parts about writing the book is I wrote the first version, got test readers, and wrote it again based on some feedback. And the second time around, somebody gave me the book from Rick Rubin of The Creative Act. And what he says is, you have to detach from how your message, any creative work you do, how it's going to land. Don't worry how it's going to land. Go inside. Get the truth, get your knowledge. For me, writing a book. It's like I already had it inside. The hardest part is shutting down all the noise so that I could get the book out, that I needed to surface. But it's not like I had to make it up. It was there. It was all inside already. And so what he says is, if you are focused on how it's going to land with others, or the impact it's going to have, you are now taking away from the creative process. And so don't worry about it. We were talking earlier. One of the things that got me going on writing my book is I read an article from the Harvard Business Review that the average career is 90,000 hours. And this article was nothing about doing good or impact. It's a long career to find and be happy. Find a way to be happy. But that number completely changed the direction of my life. It really was like a moment where the music stopped, and I just thought it sunk in deep. I could understand the totality of it in a way that felt full of potential. And so we don't know where things are going to land. So you never know. Maybe your story does land into exactly the right connector to have the impact that you may not even have dreamed about. But to worry about that is not something that needs to happen. As long as you're connecting with your truth and feeling aligned with what you're doing, then that is the piece that you are here to do.
Heather Nelson: So good. I love that. Thank you for that. You're definitely getting there. I just read the Mel Robbins book about allowing people to have their opinion and not leaning into how they feel about you, or what their thoughts are about you. It's your life. I'm getting there for sure. You have teenagers. You're like in the thick of teenagers. What do your kids think about the work you do? Are they inspired by you? Are they doing the work? How do they feel about it?
Georgi Enthoven: If I'm being honest, it's a fine line where I don't want to overly influence them because I think we all take our own journeys. But obviously, it's been a huge part of all our conversations. But my youngest wrote in Spanish Class this Mother's Day, and they had to write a note to the mother. He wrote, you're so hard working, and you always want to do good in the world. You're like Hillary Clinton. I don't even know that he knew Hillary Clinton. But I thought, well, I've shown him that I'm a hard working mother that has a deep passion in what I care about, and I'm prioritizing that. And being able to be there for him at the same time, and sometimes not being there for him because of what I'm working on, but explaining it. He is such a beautiful soul that I really, part of my motivation was, who can I introduce him to later? So I'll have to see what, where he takes his life. But my other kids, they had a speaker at their school, and they were talking about how this woman was really focused on the impact that she was making. And then all the kids afterwards, the grumble was, yeah, but how do you make money? And he's like, now I understand what you're doing. I understand why it's so important. And they've been so sweet about cheering me on, and I've gotten all the support internally from my family. In the book I write, there's a chapter on connections. And one of the things that I talk about is the safety net. And I haven't met a single person doing amazing work in the world that doesn't have the safety net part of their equation. But we don't often think about it, especially when it comes to careers. We think of mentors and role models, but we don't think about who's your home base, who's going to pick you up when you need it, or encourage you to take that bigger risk. Maybe it's one person, maybe it's just a handful of people, but we all need that to be able to take those big risks.
Heather Nelson: So good. I have a three year old, a 11 to 14 year old, and a 19 year old. Oh, my gosh, yeah. I struggle with that. I have been a surrogate, and I'm about to be a surrogate again. And my kids on the second now because they're older, they're kind of questioning it a little bit more like, why do you have to do it? And I just keep telling them, later in life, you're going to look back and you're going to see the value in what I'm doing by doing this. I promise you, I'm doing a good thing, you know what? It's so important how they're watching you, and how they see that. So where are your kids?
Georgi Enthoven: It's interesting also that it costs them for you to do this work. And for you to be able to hold that and say, yeah, it may be that I can't be there for everything, or I am more focused on something else for a while. But the bigger message you're telling them is to go out there and find the ways that you can be the citizen you want to be.
Heather Nelson: I love that. One last question for you, what is the book like? Tell us a little bit about the book. I guess you found the courage to write a book because we talked about it quickly that it's not an easy journey. I know that it's not in your goals list, but it's the future. Tell us how you got to that point to write.
Georgi Enthoven: I will say for me, the book, I got a huge download from the universe. So one day, I got out of bed. The next day, I didn't go to bed. I didn't go to bed that night as the same person likes, I got this sort of massive download knowing that this is something I have to do. And I was at a point where I could say, yes, I'm going to do it. I never had to think, I would love to write a book. What would I write it on? I never had that part of the journey. I know other people do, but that was not my journey. So originally, with the book I thought, okay, I'm going to highlight all these incredible people doing amazing things in the world that will feel so inspiring for others, and it'll be like the ideal graduation gift. Or somebody starting their career, and I've imagined this to be a beautiful coffee table book. And I came back, and I had a coach at the time, and I was talking with her. She dropped a crumb and said, Georgi, you have an interesting story. What if you included your story? And I thought, oh no, no, I don't want to be in the spotlight. I wouldn't deserve to be like the main person and the story weaving it. The story is about everybody else. I would love to shine the light on everybody else. And then people kept asking me, but what's your story? What's your story? And so I think for me, I listened, I accepted that people wanted to have a personal aspect, and then the world always presents you with this clarity. When you need clarity, the world presents you the option to have clarity. And I went to stay at a friend's house, and she had two books in her house that I had read lately or had experienced lately.
One was an amazing coffee table book called Vital Voices, and it's got these beautiful artwork of these women around the world, and the incredible work that they're doing. But I think she was given the book. It was on her coffee table, but it was still in the saran wrap packaging. And the other one was by her bed, and it's a book by Arthur Brooks called From Strength to Strength. And it's for people who've maybe done the majority of their career. And now, they're going to shift to the wisdom phase of their career. She had gotten it from the library, and it was completely read. Every page you could see had been turned, and that was the moment where I just had a chuckle to myself. I said, okay, I'm gonna try to write the book, versus do the coffee table book. And that was a big, hard for me to step into the limelight more. And the way that I did it is, I said I'm going to play a little bit hard to get with the universe, and I am going to take one step at a time. And then you're going to have to meet me and tell me that the next door is going to open. And that's how I did it. And every time I took the step, the next door opened. And I can't say it has all been easy. They're definitely things that I would have done a little bit differently. The second time around, I would do it differently. But what I do know is that I was never met with resistance. It kept going, and I kept getting the hand pulling me to the next step. That's how I did it. Until all of a sudden, it's published. I spend a lot of time working on it. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said I'd work 10 hours a day for at least two and a half years. And I spent so much time on the book. But it's not time that I felt like work, I felt life enhancing.
Heather Nelson: What's the one piece of advice you could leave the listeners with if they are in this place where they're like me, working our little butts off, working massive amounts of hours, doing work that isn't fulfilling, but has this vision of doing really good, impactful work. What is the advice you have for that person?
Georgi Enthoven: I think it's really important to know what you want to contribute to the world. Thinking of this 90,000 hour number, and people say, find your purpose. And it sounds so lofty, so overwhelming and off. I would like to tell you that you built it. You don't find it. Most occasionally, you find it that it comes landing in your lap, but those are the stories we often hear. But most people build it into their life. And the second thing is what I do in my book as I work people through this chapter on contribution of how to figure out what's yours where you can contribute. And I say, if you can just start with one word. One word that's important to you, so start with that. And it could be women, it could be education, it could be health, whatever it is. What if you start trying to use that as a thread through the work that you do? How can you surround yourself with more people who've focused on it? And that will lead you to where you have a definitive declaration that you want to make of what your personal mission is. But we never ask people, what do you care about? We ask, what do you do? What do you want to be? But we don't ask what you care about. So start figuring that out, and it's not overwhelming. Just think of one word that's important to you. It could be immigrants. It could be whatever is the piece that really lights you up. If you have 100 areas you're focusing on, if you've got the circle of all the arrows of everything that you're focusing on, it's going to get diluted if you have too many. But if you can think of something you really want to contribute to, or two things, you could have the environment and emerging markets, or whatever it is, but if you can think of two words, that's fine too. But what can you use to start making your decisions of what you're going to contribute to or not? So that it's not like, I'll do any good anywhere, anyhow. It's actually what I'm going to move towards. And so I think that brings the right people into your life. It gives you focus on what to say, yes and no, and it starts you on a path where you start to feel very fulfilled.
Heather Nelson: Georgi, I'm so inspired by you today. I always say to my guests that the days they come on is like the time that I need these messages so much. I'm so glad that you are here today. I can't wait to buy your book. I literally have so many books. I just need to spend more time reading books, because all of my guests have had books. And so I buy them because I want to support you guys, and then I want to learn about what you're doing.
Georgi Enthoven: I did have a young woman that I was coaching early on, and she said, what else do I need to read before I meet with you? And I said, what have you read? And she listed off all sorts of books. And then I said, okay, what have you done with them? And she said, I don't know. It's all in the back of my head somewhere. So sometimes, I think slowing down and having less, and really deciding to reflect on what you're going to take out of a book, we're in this age of consumption--
Heather Nelson: I do take my time. I get a book, I read a chapter a day just because I just need a little bit in it. And then I can noodle on what I just learned. It takes me a while to read a book, but I just finished with them so I need to move on to my next one, and I have a sack. So now I'm like, okay, which one do I want? In the show notes, everyone can find you, they can find your book, they can find your podcast. We will link all of that. I'm so glad that we got connected, and I love that you live so close. I want to continue to follow your journey. I know that you're going to inspire me.
Georgi Enthoven: I would love to follow and see what you're up to as well. Thank you so much for having me. And yes, it was a delightful conversation.
Heather Nelson: Thank you.