I’m in Love With My Job, And You Should Be In Love With Yours

This morning, it was snowing so much they canceled my kids’ schools. I pushed my way through the wind and snow, arrived at the train station to board my train to work just on time, and sat down to write this.

I listened as passengers on the train complained about the weather, and about their jobs, and about their bosses, and about anything they could think of to complain about.

And I just sat there smiling, my heart filled with gratitude. Because I’m in love with my job, as founder and CEO of Likeable Local. And I couldn’t wait to get to work to start our day and week.

My day's not always filled with joy and happiness. But they’re always filled with excitement. Running a startup or small business is most certainly a roller coaster.

There was the time when we barely made our payroll. There was the time when we couldn’t figure out exactly how many customers we had. There was the time we had to let go of an employee who was using cocaine in the bathroom.

Yes, there are definitely hard times in running a small business. But the story of my latest job and business is most certainly not a horror story. It’s a love story.

My first job after college, I sold life insurance, and I hated it. Several months in, I decided to only work a job I could fall in love with, and I've been blessed ever since with jobs I loved: working for Radio Disney in sales, consulting in word of mouth marketing, teaching middle school math, and entrepreneurship.

Our first business, Likeable Media, literally began with a love story. I married my wife in a sponsored baseball stadium wedding that led to so much buzz and media, our sponsors asked us what we could do next for them. We couldn’t get married again, so we started a marketing company instead.

Six years later, I woke up one morning and I wasn’t excited to go into work. I had grown increasingly passionate about helping small businesses, but as a large social media agency, Likeable Media could no longer work with small businesses, instead working with global brands who could afford to pay bigger bucks. I had become more and more impatient and frustrated about this, and one spring day in 2012, I just decided.

I’ve always been taught, (and believed) that the day you’re not happy and excited to go into work is the day you should find something new.

In many cases, this is easier said than done, but in every case, this is worth doing.

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Time is too precious to waste on any job you don’t love.

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I was incredibly fortunate to have built some relationships that would serve me well in building a new business. I had become friends with Dr. Ed Zuckerberg, a dentist in New York and the father of the founder and CEO of Facebook, a guy you’ve probably heard of. An early employee had left me to go to work for Henry Schein, a Fortune 300 company and the largest company in the world that sells to dentists. And so Likeable Local, six months later, was born with Likeable Dentists.

A year into the latest roller coaster known as business ownership, we’re serving hundreds of dentists, and thousands of small businesses. We’re helping make social media easy and effective for small business owners around the country and planet with our software.

Our mission is bold, and our goal is audacious: Likeable businesses on every Main Street in the world.

But I’m blessed with a great team of people who are as passionate as I am about what we’re here to do. And yes, I’m in love with my job, and with our business. I love when our customers call and email us to tell us how much we’ve changed their lives and businesses. I love it when I can find great talent and convince them to join our mission. I love it when I get thank you cards from employees who feel grateful for what they do. I love it when our development team builds something new. I love it when my business allows me the freedom to go visit my daughter’s school and dress up.

I love my job and our business on good days, and yes, even on bad days. I love it in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, til death (or acquisition) do us part.

I’ve written before about how my career highlights won’t be on my tombstone, and how ultimately our children and family is our most important legacy.

But we still spend more of our waking hours with our work than with our family for most of our lives. So, I figure, in addition to being in love with my family, I ought to be in love with my job.

You don't have to be an entrepreneur to be in love with your job! You can be a teacher, or an accountant, or a salesperson. You can be anyone - who brings passion and commitment and dedication and love to what you do! I was in love with my job when I was a ballpark vendor at the Boston Garden, and I was in love with my job when I worked for Radio Disney, and I was in love with my job when I taught math to middle schoolers in New York City.

Being in love is a state of mind - one that you can have with someone - or with something - like a job!

Are you in love with your business, or job? If yes, tell me your story in the Comments section below or enter to win your share of over $10,000 in prizes here!

If not, what’s stopping you from falling in love? Let me know that too, along with all of your thoughts, in the Comments section below.

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Dave Kerpen is the founder and CEO of Likeable Local. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of Likeable Media, and the New York Times-bestselling author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business, and the new collection, Likeable Leadership. To read more from Dave on LinkedIn, please click the FOLLOW button above or below.

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