During an interview with Ellen DeGeneres last week, Ashton Kutcher made a bold declaration about the entitlement culture in America saying, “The only thing that can be below you is to not have a job.” On radio this morning, Glenn further elaborated on that very point, using the words of Kutcher, the lessons of Mike Rowe, and his own experience differentiate between finding work and creating it.
“Ashton Kutcher said, ‘I believe the only thing that could be below you is to not have a job.’ Amen,” Glenn said. “Do you have anybody that you know that is a recent college graduate, or are you a college graduate? And you’re having a really hard time finding a job? Do you know anybody who’s telling you there are just no jobs out there? I would tell you that Mike Rowe would disagree with you. There are millions of jobs that are available right now, but are they below you?”
Glenn offered seven steps for finding a job right now:
1. You find a leafless yard
2. Go find a rake
3. Take pictures before and after you’ve raked
4. Post the pictures
5. Put them in a flier and take them around your neighborhood
6. Tell yourself every day: ‘I’m going to do the very best.’
7. Ask yourself at the end of the day: ‘Can I do better tomorrow?’
“Got a bunch of leaves in your yard? Take pictures of all of the leaves in your yard, or maybe if you don’t have a yard, go find someplace else. Go find a park if you have to. Find somebody in your neighborhood that has a whole bunch of leaves and take a picture of all the leaves. Then go find a rake and rake all the leaves. I mean every single leaf. Do the best job of raking you’ve ever seen anybody do – I mean every single leaf – and bag it. Make it into an art. Find your joy in raking those leaves,” Glenn explained. “Find the worst lawn you could possibly find and take all the pictures of it before, and then do the best job you possibly can and show all of the pictures afterwards. Then post those photos on Facebook and tweet them with the following caption: ‘I will do the best job of raking leaves you’ve ever seen. Reply and I’ll quote you a rate.’ If you don’t want to do that on Facebook or Twitter, just take the pictures of what you do and what you’ve done and go door to door and say, ‘I’m going to give you a great rate because I’ve got to work. I can’t sit around all day. It’s driving me out of my mind.’”
“Every day when you leave your home to rake leaves say this to yourself: ‘I’m going to do the very best job I possibly can.’ Step 7, return home after you’re finished and ask yourself, ‘Did I do my very best?’ That’s it. Could be raking leaves, could be anything, but leaves is where I would suggest you start today,” he continued. “Every journey begins with a first step. And I’m telling you: Hard workers are hard to find. People who are dedicated, people who will do any job, it is hard to find them. Everybody has some sort of an elitist attitude. Everybody has this attitude of: That job is beneath me. No job is beneath you. No job is beneath you.”
As Glenn explained this morning, the current economy requires one to create work, not simply find it.
“It’s tough to find a job right now. But it is not tough to create a job right now,” Glenn said definitively. “Find a problem and fix it. The problems are merely opportunities. And may I suggest that if you are in a job right now that you hate, why are you doing it? I’m really convinced that most of us, the reason why we have so many problems in our world is because we are not doing the thing that we’re supposed to be doing.”
Glenn explained he is still not totally sure he is doing what he is supposed to be doing. But he recognizes that he is evolving and changing. “I really feel like I’m not the guy that I was 13 years ago. I’m not the guy that I was six years ago. I don’t even know if I’m the guy that I was a year ago. I’m changing… I’m still paying for the mistakes that I made… I have a different consciousness. I understand things differently now,” he explained. “How do I let go of that past because it’s the world that I’ve now created for myself? Well, I’ve done it before; why can’t I do it again? Well, because I’m not quite ready yet. I’m not really sure where I’m headed yet. I don’t know. But I know that it will be better than it is today because I know I’m willing to put in the hard work.”
Recognizing that you are evolving and changing, and understanding that what you find fulfilling today, may or may not be what you find fulfilling a year from now is part of life. And Glenn contends this growing experience all starts with work.
“There’s nothing better than work. There is nothing more fulfilling than work… If your child says or you’re saying the economy stinks, this isn’t a good time to start a business, what is the economy? Can you explain it to me,” Glenn asked. “Maybe I’ll invite the economy out to lunch and tell him to stop preventing people from doing work. There is only one economy that matters: Your economy. And your economy starts with two hands and the talent that you were born with. Everyone was born with exactly every tool you need.”
“Listen to me carefully. People say this to me all the time: Glenn, but if I could just get you to talk about… No! You were born with everything you need,” he concluded. “All in due time. All in God’s way. But know this: Everything that you need, you have right now. What is it you were sent here to do? Pick up a rake. Pick up a rake and start finding it.”