you are the person you are

advice from how to think about work from toni morrison (through her father), via laura olin’s cup of ambition newsletter:

That was what he said. This was what I heard:

1. Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself.

2. You make the job; it doesn’t make you.

3. Your real life is with us, your family.

4. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.

“Perhaps he understood that what I wanted was a solution to the job, not an escape from it.”