This philosophy underpins pretty much everything I write about, everything I base my coaching on and even my own working life today in the merry world of banking.

It also shines a light on why so many jobs are such a pain in the ass (or worse) and what to do if yours is too.

To get things rolling, try this metaphor on for size:

Imagine you’re on a train.

As the train trundles on, your journey gets progressively worse. A baby across the aisle begins to scream. The person sitting next to you starts fidgeting and crowding your space. The air con stops working and you can feel the sweat starting to trickle down your arms. Then the conductor comes on the tannoy and announces the food cart has run out of beer!

Not a train journey you’d want to repeat, I’m sure you’ll agree.

But as the train trundles on further, it dawns on you:

Not only are you having a thoroughly miserable journey, but you’ve got on the wrong bloody train!

So what does this have to do with our jobs?

Simple:

If something feels off with our working life, it’s for one of two reasons. It’s either because we experience our jobs as stressful, overwhelming and sweat-inducing. Or it’s because we know we’re heading in the wrong direction. 

It could even be both.

But whichever it is, it really pays to know the difference. 

It pays to be able to separate the raisins from the rice pudding, as I like to call it.

That way you won’t waste years of your life trying to fix the wrong problem. 

You’ll either know to jump off the train to catch a train that’s heading in the right direction or you’ll know to stay on the train and stop letting the journey get the better of you. 

You could even find a way to enjoy the journey.

At first glance, that might sound odd. Why would anyone knowingly stay on a train that isn’t going where they want to end up?

Well, I can think of lots of reasons when it comes to our careers.

Perhaps you’re learning skills or building credibility you can use later. You might have people who rely on you or a mortgage to pay and stability is what matters right now. Maybe you’re resting or recovering from burnout. Or perhaps it simply isn’t the right time.

But the thing to bear in mind (and this was a revelation to me, I have to say) is that even if you’re not in the job of your dreams or moving towards what calls you, you can still enjoy the journey.

In fact, this is the whole premise of my soon-to-be-released book Don’t Quit Your Job.

Incidentally, I vividly remember standing on a remote beach in the Scottish Highlands in the summer of 2021 and calling my boss to quit after 13 years in banking. Specifically, I told her that “banking isn’t what I’m on this planet to do”. What a hard-nosed securitisation banker with a few decades of corporate finance under her belt made of that comment, I have no idea. But it still holds true. Banking really isn’t what I’m on this planet to do.

However, I can still enjoy my job!

I don’t know if that sounds surprising or not.

But enjoyment is always available when we’re not caught up in our thinking. Always. Even the office politics, corporate bureaucracy and last minute deadlines can lose their hold over you if you let them. 

They can actually become sources of entertainment, strange as that might sound.

And look. Sometimes the absurdities of corporate life grind my gears just as much as it grinds the gears of my colleagues. But a lot of the time nowadays, this stuff genuinely makes me smile.

Anyway, getting back on track:

Perhaps it sounds like I’m suggesting we all stay in the wrong career and make the best of a bad situation.

But I’m not saying that at all.

If you’ve ever experienced that deep, persistent tug of your soul that’s nudging you and pulling you and jostling you to do something different, you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say that regardless of how much you enjoy the journey of your job right now, it could be time to jump on a new train that’s heading in the right direction.

This is what the Father of Motivation Wayne Dyer calls “The Music Inside You”. The American supercoach Michael Neill calls it following your “Soul Path”.

But it doesn’t really matter what you call it.

What matters is this:

Are you going to do the safe, comfortable thing and stay on the train that everyone else expects you to ride? Or are you going to trust yourself and start going after that thing that keeps tapping you on the shoulder instead?

My own personal take is that when you start to hear your own inner sense of direction calling out to you, it would be madness to ignore it.

For one, you now know you’re riding a train that’s heading in the wrong direction.

For two, you’re teaching yourself that your own knowing doesn’t matter.

And for three, you start to go to war with yourself. There’s part of you that’s trying to be sensible, safe or avoid rocking the boat up against the other part of you that knows what you really want.

That’s a war you’ll never win. 

In fact, you’ll likely spend your life managing the gap between what you know and what you're doing. For me, that meant pouring over a decade’s worth of energy into pretending I didn’t know what I actually did know. Needless to say, that was exhausting.

But what I’ve come to see is that if you can’t trust what you do know, what CAN you trust?

Your mate Bob? A spreadsheet? ChatGPT?

Bob, Microsoft Excel and ChatGPT aren’t living your life. You are the only one living your life. And thus you’re the one who gets to decide what direction your career and your life goes in.

We’ve certainly come a long way from train journeys and food carts running out of beer.

But the difference between the experience and the direction is fundamental when it comes to figuring out what we want from our career.

In fact, this is the reason why I have not one but TWO links for your itchy fingers today:

Trust Me, I Work Here (a program for anyone who wants to thrive on the train they’re riding)

The Music Inside You (a program for anyone who knows they’re riding the wrong train and wants to do something about it)

I must warn you though…

These are the most expensive programs I offer. Thus if you have even the tiniest sliver of doubt about whether one of these programs is right for you, I suggest you give it a swerve.

It’s also why the only way to take me up one of these offers is to jump on a free 25 minute Discovery Call with me first.

I’ve opened up a whole bunch of slots for these Discovery Calls until June 6^th.

But once they’re gone, they’re gone. I’m not going to open up any others or extend the calls into future weeks.

So if you do want to chat about what it would be like to work together, best hop to it.

That’s all for today.

To fulfilment,

Tom