April 29, 2020 • 36 mins
Can you separate who you are from what you do? That’s the question that motivated Emmy Award-winning journalist Paula Faris to off-ramp from two dream broadcast jobs in a quest for her truest self. Paula joins us in a conversation about her new book, Called Out, and how honoring her faith calling created the path to get her there. @PaulaFaris #JourneysofFaith
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Faith can be scary. Faith for me is very foundational.
Faith is the evidence of things unseen. But in light
of the name of this podcast, the Road to Somewhere,
I'm going to tell you the best description of faith.
Faith is taking that first step when you can't see
the rest of the staircase. Sometimes you can't even see
(00:22):
the step that you're on and it feels like you're
on a road to nowhere. Thanks for joining us on
this Road to Somewhere where we talk about exploration, adventure,
major life changes, and transformation. It's about not necessarily knowing
where we're going, but having faith that the journey will
(00:45):
be worthwhile. I'm Lisa Oz and I'm Jill Herzig, And
you know, one of the things that has not come
up a lot in this podcast is faith is religious,
faith spiritual. That's because of you, Jill. Because I'm a
heathen to come fleet heathen, I wander in the desert
of nonbelief. Tell me about you. No, no, I interrupted you.
(01:08):
I had to make a joke, but please go go on. No,
that's the full that's full stop. That's the story. And
and through all my transformations, I've definitely had moments where
I thought, now why could we have Why could we
not have been just a little more Jewish the rabbi,
I don't think we've had a minister on all right,
(01:28):
that's true, But I mean we were Jewish only in
food choices, which we reveled in but and still revel in.
But no, not mean we your family, not you and I, yes, yes,
not you and I my family. Why could they not
have raised me with just a little bit more of
a backbone of faith? But you were raised with a
backbone of faith? Yeah, and still ye have that and
(01:51):
and probably had more Stader dinners than you did, no doubt. Um. Yeah,
faith has always played a really huge, huge part in
my life. Um, I went to religious school, you know,
you can't avoid it, chapel every morning, religion in class
three days a week. It was, it was huge. But
(02:12):
that can't be why it plays such a big role
in your life. I don't know. I think it's part
of my DNA at this point. But um, and I
don't go to church that much anymore, so I wouldn't.
I would say I'm religious, but I'm not a good
institutional follower. Let's and in times of changed do you
go there to church? Well? Well, yes, either go to
(02:34):
go to church physically or just turned to your faith
for a sense of true north. Absolutely turned to my
faith for a sense of tuning our north. Not necessarily
go to my church. But we have somebody to here
today who actually can help us both navigate that space.
Because I'm I'm definitely and excited about the this road,
(02:58):
this road, where this road goes, and and your seems
like spiritually curious. I am so interested in it, and
so I mean, honestly, this podcast is just flung open
so many doors and shutters for me. Paula Faris is
an Emmy Award winning journalist, the Senior National Correspondent ABC News,
host of the podcast Journeys of Faith with Paula Faris,
(03:20):
and she is the author of a new book called
Out Why I Traded to dream jobs for a life
of true Calling. Paula, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you, And I think I'd prefer just to listen
to the two of you riff. This conversation was very interesting.
Loved hearing about um your background and you're kind of
curious when it comes to faith, and I did not
(03:41):
know that about you, Lisa, that you went to Chapel
every day and that faith was such an important part
of your life. See, we're just we're just because we're
full of surprises. It's like open surprise, surprise box and dentist. Yes. Well,
and we're constantly sort of surprising one another too, which
is fun. That's kind of why we're doing this is
(04:01):
so that we can learn and grow and and learn
from each other and learn from our guests, right, And
it's really exciting and it's kind of what you do too,
is your podcast. Yes, I started doing my podcast Journeys
of Faith about a year and a half two years ago,
and I just I know faith is very important to me,
and I know that it's so important to to newsmakers
(04:22):
and influencers out there and the people that were interviewing
every day, um in the news media. But unfortunately, we
don't give those folks an opportunity from a mainstream platform
to talk about their faith. So that's really because of
my deep faith and also coupled with the fact that
we don't give them the mic to talk about their
their Muslim faith, or their Buddhist faith, or their Christian faith,
(04:43):
or their Jewish faith or their seek faith. I thought,
what a great opportunity to see these people in a
different light, to peel back the layers, and to find
out how their faith really informs their decisions and how
it gets them through the ups and downs of life.
It's been really fascinating. We're on the season three and
it's been I opening and UM, just a really a
really great journey. So tell us a little bit about UM.
(05:07):
I mean, I do want to go backwards in time
and sort of find out what led you to the podcast,
But of course we're since we're talking about it, What's
what's been the most surprising takeaway from for you from
those guests? Because you've really got a diverse is there. Yeah,
that's the thing. I talked to people of many different faiths,
and this this particular season, season three, we're talking to politicians,
(05:31):
so some of the candidates who we're talking to Democrats
and Republicans. You know, I've just been fascinated. I want
to encourage everyone to come to the table. I think
we're in a moment where we're so scared to have
these conversations, these much needed conversations, and the reason we're
not having these conversations is because we don't show up
(05:52):
as our true self at work or at play. So
I took the onus. I want to show up as
my true self every day to work as a Christian,
as somebody who's going to love God and love people.
And I want people to see that in me. And
I want to encourage my Jewish friends and my Muslim
friends to do the same. And guess what the moment
we do that, we start having really provocative conversations about
(06:14):
your cultures and your traditions and things that are really
important to you, and then we start breaking down walls
and barriers. I think there's pervasive ignorance in our society
today and in our culture. We aren't taking the time
to learn about one another's religions and their cultures and
their traditions. The moment we start having those conversations, that's
the moment we start having change and breakthrough and breaking
(06:36):
down those walls that we need to. What do you
do with someone like Chill, for example, who doesn't have
a Now my dear friend Dan Harris, who I can
I co anchored Good Morning America weekends for getting together,
and he would describe himself as an agnostic Buddhist, but
he also was raised Jewish. I would say, probably more
(06:58):
kind of not cultural Jewish, but more like religious Jewish.
But that was just one parents. So how would you
describe yourself. I think both of my parents. Uh, well,
actually my mother was a Biscopalian and was raised as
a churchgoing person. She married my father, who is Jewish.
Her Um, did she convert? No, she did not. She
(07:21):
was not particularly religious. She would have described herself as
an atheist. Her parents were treated as if some sort
of tragic thing had happened in their family, and literally
the I think I think the last day they went
to church was when the minister came up to them
and said, I'm so sorry for the tragedy in your family.
(07:44):
And my grandmother clutched her breast and said, what are
you talking about? Is something? What happened? Was someone ill?
And he said, no, you do your daughter is marrying
a Jew. And they walked out and never never really
walked back in. So that I think there was something. Um,
if there was, if there were any threads of faith
(08:04):
in my parents, they were broken at that time when
they got married. So we were raised to yes, we
went to say to our grandmother's it was all about
the food. As I said, you know, culturally Jewish, but
not really anything. So it's I would say that it's
I'm a person who is curious but feels a void,
(08:26):
and um, you know, I'm sort of searching for a
comfortable place to sit in belief in something. Do you
he said, a comfortable place? Do you feel uncomfortable? Feel
like are we group therapy? Definitely? Do you like therapist?
You feel uncomfortable right now? Talk to Sam Harris. Sam
(08:48):
Harris is one of the four horsemen of atheism. So
I like to I like to have you provocative conversations.
Just it's not an accusation, it's just an inquisition. We're
having great conversations. So are you uncome triable? You said, now,
looking for a comfortable place. Now I'm when I say
I'm looking for a comfortable place, I think what I
mean is a place where I know that I've found
(09:10):
something that satisfies me, that um feels true to me.
But it might not be a place where I feel
sure of anything. Right, So, in some ways, being comfortable
being unsure and just sitting in that liminal space between
believing something and believing nothing. Ye, And I I'm very
sure in my faith, but again it is faith and
(09:32):
faith is the evidence of things unseen. We can't prove
every single thing, um. But in faith is like Martin
Luther King Jr. Said, you know, taking that first step
when you can't see the rest of the staircase. There's
always an element of faith in everything that you believe. Um.
You know, you believe that the sun is going to
come up tomorrow. At the same time, you have faith
that it's going to why because of the patterns in
(09:53):
the rhythms. So there's we exercise faith in a daily
basis and a multitude of things. I'm very sure of
my faith. It's you know, one of the it's one
of my father was was dying at one of my
last words to him was ill, I love you forever
and I'll see you again. And I have confidence in that.
But yes, there are things that are hard for me
(10:15):
to describe. It hard for me to explain about God.
And my brother in law who was an atheist and
he converted um actually when he was a medical student.
You know, he had an epiphany. But he I love
to have really thought provoking conversations about him. And he said,
if I could explain everything about God, then God would
(10:36):
be too small and That's why God is God and
we are not. You know, we are finite and we
are mortal, and we are looking through a glass dimly
and then we'll see face to face. You know, there's
so many analogies in the Bible. Um, you know, to God,
a day as a thousand years, and a thousand years
is a day, and you know, so I but I
go back to that. There's a lot of things I
(10:58):
can't explain. But for those things that I that are unexplainable,
like why does God allow suffering? You know, why tragedy?
I don't have all of the answers, but I know,
I know, and the promises I cling to. I know
that we're not promised a pain free life because this
isn't the end game. I know the last piece on
(11:18):
the puzzle, and I'm confident the last piece on the chessboard,
and I'm confident of that. But um, yeah, there's there,
definitely are a lot of questions, and I think it's
important to dig into your belief system and try to
answer some of those questions. Outside of this is how
I was raised, and I was raised in a very
religious household, but it took a long time for me
(11:39):
to really can not just come to grips but make
that faith in my own so that it was something
that I leaned on. When we come back, we're going
to dig into some more questions, but we're going to
shift gears, maybe to the secular, and talk about the career.
A little bit before the break, we were chatting with
(12:08):
Paula Feris about her faith, and I wanted to ask
about what Paula's new book is all about, how she
left her really powerful jobs to pursue a life that
was more authentic in her faith. But I want to
talk about those really powerful jobs and exactly what happened
for a second, So can you tell us a little
bit about that? So you know, I I am a
(12:31):
broadcaster and I worked my butt off. I worked in
small markets and Dayton and Cincinnati and then Chicago and
then my husband and I we had two little kids.
When we were in Chicago, when we got a call
to come to the network, to come to ABC, and
as a broadcaster, that's the pinnacle. You can work at
local affiliates. You can work in your St. Louis affiliate,
you can work in your Cincinnati affiliate affiliate. But when
you get called to work for the network, which is
(12:53):
the network is seen in every single television throughout the country.
I mean that's a huge opportunity. So eight and a
half years ago, almost nine years ago, we packed up
everything that we knew and loved. We're Midwest kids. I'm
from Michigan, he's from Indiana. We met in school in
college in Ohio over college sweethearts. Will be married twenty
years this year, and thank you. I appreciate it. And
(13:17):
so we we moved out here. We didn't know anyone,
and m had this great opportunity to work for the network.
I started working overnight, UM, so I were I didn't
even know that ABC had an overnight show. It was like, wait,
what it was called World News Now? And I did
that for a year and it was a great way
just to get my sea legs and news and um
(13:38):
kind of get acclimated to working for the network. And
and then I got promoted after a year just to
be a general correspondent, and then g M a weekend
and then the view So things were just really like
moving fast, um, and the network kept piling things on
top of you without necessarily taking anything away. Right Well,
that was doing too. That was and a lot of
(14:00):
that was my own doing. When I was doing g
M a weekend and then they asked me to do
the view, I said, so, well, how's this going to work?
And they said, well, we'll try to get you a
day off every week. And I had three little kids
at the time, and that was you know, I go
back to that moment, and that was probably something I
you know, like I said, I described myself as a
woman of faith, and I think people knew that about me.
(14:22):
But I was so consumed with my career and I
was so consumed with my job and I was I
think when I got into the business, I got into
it for the right reasons, clear eyes, full heart, can't,
can't lose. But then I was consumed by success and
accolades and accomplishment and achievement. Why do you think it
took hold in you that way? I mean, what was it?
Because it's a high, it's a thrill. And I think,
(14:43):
just like any addiction, work can become an addiction, and
work was my addiction of choice. Any time I experienced
any sort of um, you know, trial, I would throw
myself back into work. I had a miscarriage and then
an emergency surgery and four hours later, I went back
to work, like, that's justus how I coped work with
my coping mechanism, and it's what gave me a sense
(15:04):
of fulfillment. Not my kids, not my husband, not my faith.
It was work that was completely becoming an addiction, and
I was finding my entire identity in it. And going
back to the view Jill you raised, you know, they
were throwing more things on my plate, but a lot
of that was my own fault. And that was a
situation where I should have said, i've got three kids, Um,
(15:26):
I can't work seven days a week, even though I
would go through stretches working twenty one day straight without
a day off. Um, I should have said I need
some time. But I was consumed and addicted to my
job and too into success, and then I eventually burned out.
So if there's someone not to Thostenings, who works the
way you do, maybe not by choice, maybe because they've
(15:49):
you know, got their single mom and they've got kids
that they have to support, and so they're working double
jobs and six or seven days a week, and it's
not by choice, right, um is or even if it
is by choice, if you were to look at what
you were doing. Would could there have been a way
for you to integrate your faith and who you were
(16:11):
at your core into working like that? If your identity
was about being were it could have worked. They totally
could have worked. But you know, unfortunately, you look at
the messages that we get from our society and they're
all lean in. And one of the first questions you'll
ask somebody your name, what do you do for a living?
We ask our kids from the time they're able to walk,
(16:33):
what do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you want to do? And so even subconsciously,
we are trained and taught that our only value is
our vocation right in the society that we live in.
And I think it's probably much more compounded here in
the United States than it is elsewhere. But absolutely I
I could have I could have pulled back and and
(16:53):
but I didn't. And I leaned in and I pushed in,
and I worked hard, and I thought my calling was
my career. But I had it all wrong. My identity
was just consumed in what I did, completely consumed. And
then I just burned out, I really burned out. And
(17:14):
what were some of the signs and signals of that, Well,
I you talk about my year of hell. I knew that.
I think you can sense in your spirit when when
we were talking earlier Jill and I. Sometimes you know
things are off kilter, your your body speaks to you.
Your health might start breaking down, you may feel like
a not in your stomach, you don't have a piece
about something. For me, I looked around and I was
(17:36):
losing sight. All of the my professional choices weren't alineing
with my professed values. Okay, I looked around and the
relationships that I had boasted were important to me, my
husband and my kids, My husband and my kids, and
my church, all those relationships were failing. So everything was
kind of falling apart around me. But I was so
(17:57):
consumed with what I did, and I was then consumed
with the fear, that fear of what people would think.
What would they think. I'm at the height of my career,
you know, the sky is the limit for me. What
would people think? Will they think I'm a failure? Will
they think that that I can't hack it, that I'm weak?
What are they going to think if I walk away?
Because who does that? And one of my boss is
(18:18):
even said, you're crazy to give up an Angorsey. People
don't do that. They work. People have work their entire
life to achieve what you've accomplished, and and this guy
is the limit for you. And so anyway, I bought
into that for a little bit more. I let my
fear drive me. And everything's continued to crumble. And I
go through a tough season jail, and you're afraid of
(18:40):
that disappearance, of what people would say and everything. I'm
afraid of it. But then, but then I go through
a season five within seven months, I have five major
events happened to me. I had a miscarriage with an
emergency surgery. Then I freak accident. I'm getting ready to
go live for g m A and a pedestrian throws
an apple sixty miles an hour at me. Okay, knocks
(19:03):
me almost out. I have a concussion for three weeks.
Freak accident, like who throws an apple at somebody so
hard that the doctor or the police said it was
an apple assault and right had my face been turned
slightly to the right, it would have been shattered. So
then the day I get I'm out of work for
(19:24):
three weeks because of the concussion. The day I'm cleared
to go back to work. I get in a head
on car crash. Then I get influenza followed by pneumonia.
I was like, alright, God, I got it. So I think,
like you're like you said, your body can can give
you can give you signals that you need to slow
down people around you. You can have a sense in
your spirit. For me, like I had to go through
(19:47):
that season, I had to be literally hit upside the
head with an apple. I think God allowed that space
to happen, that unfortunate space, but it finally got my
attention and I said, Okay, I need to slow down.
I gotta pump the brakes. So that's when I decided
to step away from my two dream jobs into this
weird space. But I didn't know what I was walking into.
(20:08):
My boss is said, okay, we'll support you, but what
do you want to do? And I knew it was
not a good career move. They told me it wasn't
a good career move, that it would hurt my opportunities
in the future. I accepted that. I said, I just
need to get my life back. I still want to
work here, but I want to work Monday through Friday,
and um, I would love to launch a faith podcast
because it's something that's really important to me and I'm
(20:28):
passionate about it, and I don't think we talked about it,
at least not from mainstream platform in the right manner,
and they allowed me to do that. But then what
happened was the moment that I stepped away, I had
the sense of loss and identity. I didn't know who
I was outside of my job, and it was it
(20:49):
was then that I realized my addiction. It was in
that moment I thought, oh my gosh, my entire life.
I professed to be this. You know, a Christian who
doesn't get her worth from what she does. I've said,
this doesn't define me. You know, I'm not defined by
who I am and defined by or not. I'm not
defined by what I do. I'm defined by who I am.
(21:09):
And then when the rubber met the road and I
actually stepped away, I was like, there was so much
guilt because I realized I'd become the exact person that
I professed I wouldn't become. I didn't know who I
was outside of my job. So how did you go
about creating a new identity? Because Joe went through a
similar situation after many many years working in one industry.
(21:30):
I was relieved of my job because because the magazine
but was a reinvention of, or rediscovering of who you
were apart from the job. Yes, and I've definitely felt
that identity disruption, although I think in retrospect, what I
realized is that the job wasn't a great expression of
of who I was on lots of levels. So it
(21:54):
wasn't it didn't feel as completely destabilizing because there was
something at the core that had never really been satisfied
or expressed in my job. So I was I was
able to say, well, so you we were like people
would tell me, Oh, this is what you were born
to do, Paula. So that's what no. People definitely told me.
I was. You know, early in my career my boss
(22:16):
sent me, you're going to be an editor in chief.
I was like, really, I think But so I definitely
heard that. But all along I've thought to myself, I
love this work, but the sort of show pony aspect
of it is just not me. When we come back,
we're going to get the secret sauced of how we
we discover our Okay, we've been chatting with Paula feris
(22:50):
about be discovering our identity, especially when walking away from
something that we thought did define who we are. So
what was the process? How did you figure out who
the real polity? How did you stand up? I think
it's a the real policy stand up and got that
in her head. I think, you know, I had to
(23:14):
go through that to figure I had to fall flat
on my face and I had to realize that I
had it all wrong in order to to realize what
changes need to be made. But it was in that
that moment after when I walked away and I didn't
know who I was anymore, that's when began a time
of deep introspection, prayer, um, you know, consulting with people,
(23:35):
trusted people. Yeah, I really liked that component of your book.
You recount some seminal conversations you had, and it just
sounded like you put yourself out on a limb and
talk to people like Robin Roberts and Dan Harris you mentioned,
and just laid it all out there, got really honest
(23:55):
with people that I'm very close to that I trust
with my heart, and I trust, you know, not just
with my heart, but um, you know, with my mind
as well. And diverse people. Um, you know, Dan's an
agnostic Buddhist, but I think there's things that you can
learn from every single person. And you know, they were
both able to really guide me through it, and it
(24:17):
was just a time of deep reflection. And what I
came to was that you know, we we we're all
looking for a purpose in life, and we're all looking
for a calling. Unfortunately, and even in our synagogues and
our churches, that's synonymous with career. So that's the issue
right there, is we're taught that we have to find
our calling and we have to find our purpose, and
(24:39):
unfortunately those are almost always intertwined with what we do, right,
So I had to peel all of that back, and
I really feel like I just had a word that
we do have a calling. We have we have dual
callings in our life. And I feel like my purpose
has nothing to do Whereas before I may have said
(25:00):
my purpose is to use my talents and gifts and
and but it was more focused on what I did
in career. Now I would say my purpose and my
faith calling will never change, and that's just to love
God and love people, and that will that's going to
stay the same throughout my entire life has nothing to
do with what I do for a living. Okay, that
is my purpose on earth to love God and love people.
My book, I call it my faith calling. Now I
(25:22):
have I have a vocational calling, as you have a
vocational calling, Lisa, and you have a vocational calling. That's
going to change. Your vocational calling will change. And as
long as you see your vocation for what it is, Yes,
I'm using my unique gifts and my unique talents which
we all have, but I'm using that as a vehicle.
(25:43):
The vocation is just the vehicle by which you're going
to fulfill your purpose, by which you'll love God and
why which you'll love people. And so for me, it
was just the small paradigm shift of knowing that, um, yes,
who I am definds me and who I am is
I'm just here on this earth to love God and
love people. I'm not here to be the best broadcaster.
(26:06):
I'm here to love God and love people. In the
vocation is just the way that I'm uniquely equipped to
do that, if that makes sense. And also in that
space giving myself the permission to allow my vocation to change,
because it will change, I kind of liken it to
a vine in a branch, like your vine is your
purpose in in this in this world. Okay, the branches
(26:28):
the vocation, the branch. The vocation needs to stay connected
to the vine. You have to always remember what you're
doing and why you're doing it. I'm doing this not
to achieve accolades and success, which I think are a byproduct.
There'll be a byproduct, but I'm doing this because I'm
(26:48):
loving God, loving people in this capacity. And so it
was just for me, a simple mind, a simple paradigm shift,
but it really it made such a huge difference. And
then giving myself the permission to branch out, giving myself
the permission to not see myself so one dimensionally, giving
myself the permission to offer ramp, which I think women
(27:08):
and mothers off ramp. We see ourselves as one thing.
You see yourself as a broadcaster, You see yourself as
an author and an editor. But like peeling back, peeling
all of that back. What makes me a good broadcaster,
what makes you a good nurse? What makes you a
good editor? Looking at those skills and talents and saying,
you know what, those can translate to so many different capacities.
Because I think we see ourselves as one thing. I said,
(27:32):
for so long, I don't know what I could do
outside of broadcasting. Um, and now I know. I'm I'm tenacious,
I'm inquisitive. My nickname was Politwani Questions growing up. So
I just inherently curious and nosy. Those talents can can
manifest in so many different areas. So I think so
just so just limiting myself. I was limiting myself for
(27:54):
so long, you know I was. I'm really interested in
this idea of a vocastional calling in a eighth calling,
and I see the connection the vine and the branch idea,
But it as as somebody who job hunted for a
discouraging lily long period of time. You know what happens
if you're not finding a branch that connects with your vine,
(28:17):
like it does feel like it's a hide bar, you
know what I mean, Like like it's got to be
I need my I need to make sure that my
faith calling is satisfied and that my life that I'm
leading my life in a way that's true to that.
But I also need to find occasional calling and ideally
(28:38):
they're somehow connected, they are connected. I did a really
fascinating interview with um a government guy, and I write
about him in the book. His name is David shed
and he was the Director of National Intelligence after nine eleven,
so he had I think eighteen different agencies reporting to him.
And I wanted to interview him because I saw in
his bio that he was called to go into government.
(29:00):
And again that word calling, like, we just throw it
around all the time, and it's always connected with career, right,
So I asked him. I said, Okay, I've said I
feel called to go here and I've been called to
do this, but I don't know how to articulate what
that even means. And he gave me he shed some
light on it. It was one of those AHA moments
for me. He said, you know, you're being vocationally called
(29:21):
to do something with three things. One are you good
at it? Two do you love it? And three do
other people in your life that are trusted recognize that
you're good at it and you love it. It's not
enough to just be good at it. It's not enough
just to love it. Like for instance, my son, one
of my children, is so good at golf. It's it's
(29:44):
his gifting. And we notice and recognize it, he doesn't
love it. Okay, so it has to be those three things.
What are you good at? What are you curious about? Okay,
so what are you curious about? And then what other people,
trusted people in your life notice that you're good at
and you're curious about. Does that make sense? Yes, it
totally does um And I think just looking back, I didn't.
(30:08):
I wasn't able to put those pieces together. But then
in hindsight, okay, this is what made me a good broadcaster.
I'm curious, I love to ask questions, and my high
school teacher and my college professors were continually encouraging me
in that space. So when I went back to look
at it, like, oh that was that's like the three
(30:30):
step formulative vocational calling in my mind, are you good
at it? Are you curious about it? And other people
recognize that you're good and curious about it? How do
you get your life calling? All right? Forget? What? What What
do you can call it? Your faith calling? Your faith calling?
Do you say? You say? You call it your purpose?
So what if you're vocational calling or choice or where
(30:50):
you've ended up, maybe you weren't called to it. You're
good at it? People recognize you're good at and you
love it. Say you're a day trader, you know, making
or hedge fund time manager. You're not particularly making the
world a better place. You're making a lot of money. Um,
but you can make the world a better place with
your money. And I think that that. I think we're
all each equipped incapacitated in different areas too. You can
(31:14):
use your money for good. So but but know what
I was saying, if it would your purpose or your
faith calling doesn't necessarily merge with your vocational calling. You
have to do it outside of your voca occasional calling.
Because what if I mean, if you're working any job,
the majority of jobs aren't necessarily you know, transforming the world.
(31:38):
You're working at at a department store selling dresses. Is
that you're saying, it's it's out of necessity, It's not
out of loud, correct? So is there a way to
have parallel tracks? Do they have? Does everyone have to
be you know, like curing coronavirus? I mean in righte So,
so if what you're doing isn't the most laudatory of professions,
(31:58):
is there a way to have a parallel track for
your faith calling? So that's not necessarily your day job. Now,
I see what you're saying, and I think that's where
the paradigm shift has to happen to Like, Yes, I
don't like I'm at a point now where I don't
get my identity from what I do anymore. My identity
and my only purpose on this earth is to love
(32:22):
God and love people. The vocation is the way that
I do it. So whether you're a desk clerk or
whether you're working at Macy's, that is your vehicle and
that's your conduit by which you're going to fulfill your purpose.
So you just love people and God within whatever job
you're doing, and that's what you have to remember. And
(32:42):
if you're not a person of faith like I, and
I write about that too, like Dan Harris, who is
my dear friend, his his faith calling or his purpose
might just be to be a kind person and to
treat people with respect. So you remember whatever in whatever
capacity you're in and whatever vocation you're in, that's just
an opportunity for you. You've been uniquely placed in that
(33:03):
position too. As Dan would say, be kind to people
and to be respectful of people. It's not so much
about what you do anymore. It's about who you're doing
it for, why you're doing it. And so we've got
to get the emphasis about off of what we do
and our identity and everything focused on on what we
do and peel back the layers. And I have stopped
(33:26):
asking my children the question what do you want to
be when you grow up? Because I'm feeding that that message,
and I'm I'm telling them, even subconsciously and even consciously,
your only value is your vocation. Your only worth, child,
is what you do. But that's we We have to
(33:48):
stop asking that question. We have to peel back the
layers and focus more on who we are and why
we're here and not so much on what we do.
But unfortunately, you know, it's going to take a lot
of work because we're It's ingrained in our society. It's
part of ours it's part of our nomenclature, it's part
of our language, it's part of our expression what do
(34:09):
you do? Hi, I'm so, and so what do you do?
You know? You imagine if we all went to cocktail
partisan said to each other, Hi, I'm Jill, that you
said I'm Paul, and I said, so, who are you? Really?
Try and think about the core of you if you
had to introduce yourself outside of what you did, how
how would you describe yourself? If you're in I'm jail,
(34:30):
I'm and I'm I'm also a super curious person and
I can't wait to get because that's how I feel
about people. Know. That's amazing though. And you know, when
my dad passed, he said nothing about what he did,
and his and his gravestone it said that he was
a loving father and a loving should do which is
Arabic for grandfather and husband, and that really stuck with me.
(34:53):
Put everything in perspective. It's not so much. It's not
about what we do so much. Yes, it's great to
love what you do and to kind of you know,
me in your sweet spot, but just remember that's just
the way that you're going to love people. Such good advice.
Thank you so much for sharing it with us. We'd
love having you on. Thank you, thank you. This has
(35:14):
been so nice. So everybody, are we going to solve
all the world's problems right now? Today? I think we
kind of did. I think we did. I think I
think the world is solved. Love each other and love
God or your definition of God exactly. So now we
can subscribe it so now listener, all you have to
do is check out Paula's wonderful podcast, Journeys of Faith
(35:37):
and her new book, which is called out Why to
Dream Jobs for a life of Truth Calling. You can
also check her out on Instagram at Paula Faris. The
Road to Somewhere is recorded in New York City. Make
sure you share, subscribe, rate, and review us and let
us hear from you. Where are you on your journey?
Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter at odd to Somewhere.
(36:01):
Email us at road to Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com.
Special thanks to our producer Alicia Haywood. Thanks for joining
us on the Road to Somewhere. Available on the I
Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Faith can be scary. Faith for me is very foundational.
Faith is the evidence of things unseen. But in light
of the name of this podcast, the Road to Somewhere,
I'm going to tell you the best description of faith.
Faith is taking that first step when you can't see
the rest of the staircase. Sometimes you can't even see
(00:22):
the step that you're on and it feels like you're
on a road to nowhere. Thanks for joining us on
this Road to Somewhere where we talk about exploration, adventure,
major life changes, and transformation. It's about not necessarily knowing
where we're going, but having faith that the journey will
(00:45):
be worthwhile. I'm Lisa Oz and I'm Jill Herzig, And
you know, one of the things that has not come
up a lot in this podcast is faith is religious,
faith spiritual. That's because of you, Jill. Because I'm a
heathen to come fleet heathen, I wander in the desert
of nonbelief. Tell me about you. No, no, I interrupted you.
(01:08):
I had to make a joke, but please go go on. No,
that's the full that's full stop. That's the story. And
and through all my transformations, I've definitely had moments where
I thought, now why could we have Why could we
not have been just a little more Jewish the rabbi,
I don't think we've had a minister on all right,
(01:28):
that's true, But I mean we were Jewish only in
food choices, which we reveled in but and still revel in.
But no, not mean we your family, not you and I, yes, yes,
not you and I my family. Why could they not
have raised me with just a little bit more of
a backbone of faith? But you were raised with a
backbone of faith? Yeah, and still ye have that and
(01:51):
and probably had more Stader dinners than you did, no doubt. Um. Yeah,
faith has always played a really huge, huge part in
my life. Um, I went to religious school, you know,
you can't avoid it, chapel every morning, religion in class
three days a week. It was, it was huge. But
(02:12):
that can't be why it plays such a big role
in your life. I don't know. I think it's part
of my DNA at this point. But um, and I
don't go to church that much anymore, so I wouldn't.
I would say I'm religious, but I'm not a good
institutional follower. Let's and in times of changed do you
go there to church? Well? Well, yes, either go to
(02:34):
go to church physically or just turned to your faith
for a sense of true north. Absolutely turned to my
faith for a sense of tuning our north. Not necessarily
go to my church. But we have somebody to here
today who actually can help us both navigate that space.
Because I'm I'm definitely and excited about the this road,
(02:58):
this road, where this road goes, and and your seems
like spiritually curious. I am so interested in it, and
so I mean, honestly, this podcast is just flung open
so many doors and shutters for me. Paula Faris is
an Emmy Award winning journalist, the Senior National Correspondent ABC News,
host of the podcast Journeys of Faith with Paula Faris,
(03:20):
and she is the author of a new book called
Out Why I Traded to dream jobs for a life
of true Calling. Paula, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you, And I think I'd prefer just to listen
to the two of you riff. This conversation was very interesting.
Loved hearing about um your background and you're kind of
curious when it comes to faith, and I did not
(03:41):
know that about you, Lisa, that you went to Chapel
every day and that faith was such an important part
of your life. See, we're just we're just because we're
full of surprises. It's like open surprise, surprise box and dentist. Yes. Well,
and we're constantly sort of surprising one another too, which
is fun. That's kind of why we're doing this is
(04:01):
so that we can learn and grow and and learn
from each other and learn from our guests, right, And
it's really exciting and it's kind of what you do too,
is your podcast. Yes, I started doing my podcast Journeys
of Faith about a year and a half two years ago,
and I just I know faith is very important to me,
and I know that it's so important to to newsmakers
(04:22):
and influencers out there and the people that were interviewing
every day, um in the news media. But unfortunately, we
don't give those folks an opportunity from a mainstream platform
to talk about their faith. So that's really because of
my deep faith and also coupled with the fact that
we don't give them the mic to talk about their
their Muslim faith, or their Buddhist faith, or their Christian faith,
(04:43):
or their Jewish faith or their seek faith. I thought,
what a great opportunity to see these people in a
different light, to peel back the layers, and to find
out how their faith really informs their decisions and how
it gets them through the ups and downs of life.
It's been really fascinating. We're on the season three and
it's been I opening and UM, just a really a
really great journey. So tell us a little bit about UM.
(05:07):
I mean, I do want to go backwards in time
and sort of find out what led you to the podcast,
But of course we're since we're talking about it, What's
what's been the most surprising takeaway from for you from
those guests? Because you've really got a diverse is there. Yeah,
that's the thing. I talked to people of many different faiths,
and this this particular season, season three, we're talking to politicians,
(05:31):
so some of the candidates who we're talking to Democrats
and Republicans. You know, I've just been fascinated. I want
to encourage everyone to come to the table. I think
we're in a moment where we're so scared to have
these conversations, these much needed conversations, and the reason we're
not having these conversations is because we don't show up
(05:52):
as our true self at work or at play. So
I took the onus. I want to show up as
my true self every day to work as a Christian,
as somebody who's going to love God and love people.
And I want people to see that in me. And
I want to encourage my Jewish friends and my Muslim
friends to do the same. And guess what the moment
we do that, we start having really provocative conversations about
(06:14):
your cultures and your traditions and things that are really
important to you, and then we start breaking down walls
and barriers. I think there's pervasive ignorance in our society
today and in our culture. We aren't taking the time
to learn about one another's religions and their cultures and
their traditions. The moment we start having those conversations, that's
the moment we start having change and breakthrough and breaking
(06:36):
down those walls that we need to. What do you
do with someone like Chill, for example, who doesn't have
a Now my dear friend Dan Harris, who I can
I co anchored Good Morning America weekends for getting together,
and he would describe himself as an agnostic Buddhist, but
he also was raised Jewish. I would say, probably more
(06:58):
kind of not cultural Jewish, but more like religious Jewish.
But that was just one parents. So how would you
describe yourself. I think both of my parents. Uh, well,
actually my mother was a Biscopalian and was raised as
a churchgoing person. She married my father, who is Jewish.
Her Um, did she convert? No, she did not. She
(07:21):
was not particularly religious. She would have described herself as
an atheist. Her parents were treated as if some sort
of tragic thing had happened in their family, and literally
the I think I think the last day they went
to church was when the minister came up to them
and said, I'm so sorry for the tragedy in your family.
(07:44):
And my grandmother clutched her breast and said, what are
you talking about? Is something? What happened? Was someone ill?
And he said, no, you do your daughter is marrying
a Jew. And they walked out and never never really
walked back in. So that I think there was something. Um,
if there was, if there were any threads of faith
(08:04):
in my parents, they were broken at that time when
they got married. So we were raised to yes, we
went to say to our grandmother's it was all about
the food. As I said, you know, culturally Jewish, but
not really anything. So it's I would say that it's
I'm a person who is curious but feels a void,
(08:26):
and um, you know, I'm sort of searching for a
comfortable place to sit in belief in something. Do you
he said, a comfortable place? Do you feel uncomfortable? Feel
like are we group therapy? Definitely? Do you like therapist?
You feel uncomfortable right now? Talk to Sam Harris. Sam
(08:48):
Harris is one of the four horsemen of atheism. So
I like to I like to have you provocative conversations.
Just it's not an accusation, it's just an inquisition. We're
having great conversations. So are you uncome triable? You said, now,
looking for a comfortable place. Now I'm when I say
I'm looking for a comfortable place, I think what I
mean is a place where I know that I've found
(09:10):
something that satisfies me, that um feels true to me.
But it might not be a place where I feel
sure of anything. Right, So, in some ways, being comfortable
being unsure and just sitting in that liminal space between
believing something and believing nothing. Ye, And I I'm very
sure in my faith, but again it is faith and
(09:32):
faith is the evidence of things unseen. We can't prove
every single thing, um. But in faith is like Martin
Luther King Jr. Said, you know, taking that first step
when you can't see the rest of the staircase. There's
always an element of faith in everything that you believe. Um.
You know, you believe that the sun is going to
come up tomorrow. At the same time, you have faith
that it's going to why because of the patterns in
(09:53):
the rhythms. So there's we exercise faith in a daily
basis and a multitude of things. I'm very sure of
my faith. It's you know, one of the it's one
of my father was was dying at one of my
last words to him was ill, I love you forever
and I'll see you again. And I have confidence in that.
But yes, there are things that are hard for me
(10:15):
to describe. It hard for me to explain about God.
And my brother in law who was an atheist and
he converted um actually when he was a medical student.
You know, he had an epiphany. But he I love
to have really thought provoking conversations about him. And he said,
if I could explain everything about God, then God would
(10:36):
be too small and That's why God is God and
we are not. You know, we are finite and we
are mortal, and we are looking through a glass dimly
and then we'll see face to face. You know, there's
so many analogies in the Bible. Um, you know, to God,
a day as a thousand years, and a thousand years
is a day, and you know, so I but I
go back to that. There's a lot of things I
(10:58):
can't explain. But for those things that I that are unexplainable,
like why does God allow suffering? You know, why tragedy?
I don't have all of the answers, but I know,
I know, and the promises I cling to. I know
that we're not promised a pain free life because this
isn't the end game. I know the last piece on
(11:18):
the puzzle, and I'm confident the last piece on the chessboard,
and I'm confident of that. But um, yeah, there's there,
definitely are a lot of questions, and I think it's
important to dig into your belief system and try to
answer some of those questions. Outside of this is how
I was raised, and I was raised in a very
religious household, but it took a long time for me
(11:39):
to really can not just come to grips but make
that faith in my own so that it was something
that I leaned on. When we come back, we're going
to dig into some more questions, but we're going to
shift gears, maybe to the secular, and talk about the career.
A little bit before the break, we were chatting with
(12:08):
Paula Feris about her faith, and I wanted to ask
about what Paula's new book is all about, how she
left her really powerful jobs to pursue a life that
was more authentic in her faith. But I want to
talk about those really powerful jobs and exactly what happened
for a second, So can you tell us a little
bit about that? So you know, I I am a
(12:31):
broadcaster and I worked my butt off. I worked in
small markets and Dayton and Cincinnati and then Chicago and
then my husband and I we had two little kids.
When we were in Chicago, when we got a call
to come to the network, to come to ABC, and
as a broadcaster, that's the pinnacle. You can work at
local affiliates. You can work in your St. Louis affiliate,
you can work in your Cincinnati affiliate affiliate. But when
you get called to work for the network, which is
(12:53):
the network is seen in every single television throughout the country.
I mean that's a huge opportunity. So eight and a
half years ago, almost nine years ago, we packed up
everything that we knew and loved. We're Midwest kids. I'm
from Michigan, he's from Indiana. We met in school in
college in Ohio over college sweethearts. Will be married twenty
years this year, and thank you. I appreciate it. And
(13:17):
so we we moved out here. We didn't know anyone,
and m had this great opportunity to work for the network.
I started working overnight, UM, so I were I didn't
even know that ABC had an overnight show. It was like, wait,
what it was called World News Now? And I did
that for a year and it was a great way
just to get my sea legs and news and um
(13:38):
kind of get acclimated to working for the network. And
and then I got promoted after a year just to
be a general correspondent, and then g M a weekend
and then the view So things were just really like
moving fast, um, and the network kept piling things on
top of you without necessarily taking anything away. Right Well,
that was doing too. That was and a lot of
(14:00):
that was my own doing. When I was doing g
M a weekend and then they asked me to do
the view, I said, so, well, how's this going to work?
And they said, well, we'll try to get you a
day off every week. And I had three little kids
at the time, and that was you know, I go
back to that moment, and that was probably something I
you know, like I said, I described myself as a
woman of faith, and I think people knew that about me.
(14:22):
But I was so consumed with my career and I
was so consumed with my job and I was I
think when I got into the business, I got into
it for the right reasons, clear eyes, full heart, can't,
can't lose. But then I was consumed by success and
accolades and accomplishment and achievement. Why do you think it
took hold in you that way? I mean, what was it?
Because it's a high, it's a thrill. And I think,
(14:43):
just like any addiction, work can become an addiction, and
work was my addiction of choice. Any time I experienced
any sort of um, you know, trial, I would throw
myself back into work. I had a miscarriage and then
an emergency surgery and four hours later, I went back
to work, like, that's justus how I coped work with
my coping mechanism, and it's what gave me a sense
(15:04):
of fulfillment. Not my kids, not my husband, not my faith.
It was work that was completely becoming an addiction, and
I was finding my entire identity in it. And going
back to the view Jill you raised, you know, they
were throwing more things on my plate, but a lot
of that was my own fault. And that was a
situation where I should have said, i've got three kids, Um,
(15:26):
I can't work seven days a week, even though I
would go through stretches working twenty one day straight without
a day off. Um, I should have said I need
some time. But I was consumed and addicted to my
job and too into success, and then I eventually burned out.
So if there's someone not to Thostenings, who works the
way you do, maybe not by choice, maybe because they've
(15:49):
you know, got their single mom and they've got kids
that they have to support, and so they're working double
jobs and six or seven days a week, and it's
not by choice, right, um is or even if it
is by choice, if you were to look at what
you were doing. Would could there have been a way
for you to integrate your faith and who you were
(16:11):
at your core into working like that? If your identity
was about being were it could have worked. They totally
could have worked. But you know, unfortunately, you look at
the messages that we get from our society and they're
all lean in. And one of the first questions you'll
ask somebody your name, what do you do for a living?
We ask our kids from the time they're able to walk,
(16:33):
what do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you want to do? And so even subconsciously,
we are trained and taught that our only value is
our vocation right in the society that we live in.
And I think it's probably much more compounded here in
the United States than it is elsewhere. But absolutely I
I could have I could have pulled back and and
(16:53):
but I didn't. And I leaned in and I pushed in,
and I worked hard, and I thought my calling was
my career. But I had it all wrong. My identity
was just consumed in what I did, completely consumed. And
then I just burned out, I really burned out. And
(17:14):
what were some of the signs and signals of that, Well,
I you talk about my year of hell. I knew that.
I think you can sense in your spirit when when
we were talking earlier Jill and I. Sometimes you know
things are off kilter, your your body speaks to you.
Your health might start breaking down, you may feel like
a not in your stomach, you don't have a piece
about something. For me, I looked around and I was
(17:36):
losing sight. All of the my professional choices weren't alineing
with my professed values. Okay, I looked around and the
relationships that I had boasted were important to me, my
husband and my kids, My husband and my kids, and
my church, all those relationships were failing. So everything was
kind of falling apart around me. But I was so
(17:57):
consumed with what I did, and I was then consumed
with the fear, that fear of what people would think.
What would they think. I'm at the height of my career,
you know, the sky is the limit for me. What
would people think? Will they think I'm a failure? Will
they think that that I can't hack it, that I'm weak?
What are they going to think if I walk away?
Because who does that? And one of my boss is
(18:18):
even said, you're crazy to give up an Angorsey. People
don't do that. They work. People have work their entire
life to achieve what you've accomplished, and and this guy
is the limit for you. And so anyway, I bought
into that for a little bit more. I let my
fear drive me. And everything's continued to crumble. And I
go through a tough season jail, and you're afraid of
(18:40):
that disappearance, of what people would say and everything. I'm
afraid of it. But then, but then I go through
a season five within seven months, I have five major
events happened to me. I had a miscarriage with an
emergency surgery. Then I freak accident. I'm getting ready to
go live for g m A and a pedestrian throws
an apple sixty miles an hour at me. Okay, knocks
(19:03):
me almost out. I have a concussion for three weeks.
Freak accident, like who throws an apple at somebody so
hard that the doctor or the police said it was
an apple assault and right had my face been turned
slightly to the right, it would have been shattered. So
then the day I get I'm out of work for
(19:24):
three weeks because of the concussion. The day I'm cleared
to go back to work. I get in a head
on car crash. Then I get influenza followed by pneumonia.
I was like, alright, God, I got it. So I think,
like you're like you said, your body can can give
you can give you signals that you need to slow
down people around you. You can have a sense in
your spirit. For me, like I had to go through
(19:47):
that season, I had to be literally hit upside the
head with an apple. I think God allowed that space
to happen, that unfortunate space, but it finally got my
attention and I said, Okay, I need to slow down.
I gotta pump the brakes. So that's when I decided
to step away from my two dream jobs into this
weird space. But I didn't know what I was walking into.
(20:08):
My boss is said, okay, we'll support you, but what
do you want to do? And I knew it was
not a good career move. They told me it wasn't
a good career move, that it would hurt my opportunities
in the future. I accepted that. I said, I just
need to get my life back. I still want to
work here, but I want to work Monday through Friday,
and um, I would love to launch a faith podcast
because it's something that's really important to me and I'm
(20:28):
passionate about it, and I don't think we talked about it,
at least not from mainstream platform in the right manner,
and they allowed me to do that. But then what
happened was the moment that I stepped away, I had
the sense of loss and identity. I didn't know who
I was outside of my job, and it was it
(20:49):
was then that I realized my addiction. It was in
that moment I thought, oh my gosh, my entire life.
I professed to be this. You know, a Christian who
doesn't get her worth from what she does. I've said,
this doesn't define me. You know, I'm not defined by
who I am and defined by or not. I'm not
defined by what I do. I'm defined by who I am.
(21:09):
And then when the rubber met the road and I
actually stepped away, I was like, there was so much
guilt because I realized I'd become the exact person that
I professed I wouldn't become. I didn't know who I
was outside of my job. So how did you go
about creating a new identity? Because Joe went through a
similar situation after many many years working in one industry.
(21:30):
I was relieved of my job because because the magazine
but was a reinvention of, or rediscovering of who you
were apart from the job. Yes, and I've definitely felt
that identity disruption, although I think in retrospect, what I
realized is that the job wasn't a great expression of
of who I was on lots of levels. So it
(21:54):
wasn't it didn't feel as completely destabilizing because there was
something at the core that had never really been satisfied
or expressed in my job. So I was I was
able to say, well, so you we were like people
would tell me, Oh, this is what you were born
to do, Paula. So that's what no. People definitely told me.
I was. You know, early in my career my boss
(22:16):
sent me, you're going to be an editor in chief.
I was like, really, I think But so I definitely
heard that. But all along I've thought to myself, I
love this work, but the sort of show pony aspect
of it is just not me. When we come back,
we're going to get the secret sauced of how we
we discover our Okay, we've been chatting with Paula feris
(22:50):
about be discovering our identity, especially when walking away from
something that we thought did define who we are. So
what was the process? How did you figure out who
the real polity? How did you stand up? I think
it's a the real policy stand up and got that
in her head. I think, you know, I had to
(23:14):
go through that to figure I had to fall flat
on my face and I had to realize that I
had it all wrong in order to to realize what
changes need to be made. But it was in that
that moment after when I walked away and I didn't
know who I was anymore, that's when began a time
of deep introspection, prayer, um, you know, consulting with people,
(23:35):
trusted people. Yeah, I really liked that component of your book.
You recount some seminal conversations you had, and it just
sounded like you put yourself out on a limb and
talk to people like Robin Roberts and Dan Harris you mentioned,
and just laid it all out there, got really honest
(23:55):
with people that I'm very close to that I trust
with my heart, and I trust, you know, not just
with my heart, but um, you know, with my mind
as well. And diverse people. Um, you know, Dan's an
agnostic Buddhist, but I think there's things that you can
learn from every single person. And you know, they were
both able to really guide me through it, and it
(24:17):
was just a time of deep reflection. And what I
came to was that you know, we we we're all
looking for a purpose in life, and we're all looking
for a calling. Unfortunately, and even in our synagogues and
our churches, that's synonymous with career. So that's the issue
right there, is we're taught that we have to find
our calling and we have to find our purpose, and
(24:39):
unfortunately those are almost always intertwined with what we do, right,
So I had to peel all of that back, and
I really feel like I just had a word that
we do have a calling. We have we have dual
callings in our life. And I feel like my purpose
has nothing to do Whereas before I may have said
(25:00):
my purpose is to use my talents and gifts and
and but it was more focused on what I did
in career. Now I would say my purpose and my
faith calling will never change, and that's just to love
God and love people, and that will that's going to
stay the same throughout my entire life has nothing to
do with what I do for a living. Okay, that
is my purpose on earth to love God and love people.
My book, I call it my faith calling. Now I
(25:22):
have I have a vocational calling, as you have a
vocational calling, Lisa, and you have a vocational calling. That's
going to change. Your vocational calling will change. And as
long as you see your vocation for what it is, Yes,
I'm using my unique gifts and my unique talents which
we all have, but I'm using that as a vehicle.
(25:43):
The vocation is just the vehicle by which you're going
to fulfill your purpose, by which you'll love God and
why which you'll love people. And so for me, it
was just the small paradigm shift of knowing that, um, yes,
who I am definds me and who I am is
I'm just here on this earth to love God and
love people. I'm not here to be the best broadcaster.
(26:06):
I'm here to love God and love people. In the
vocation is just the way that I'm uniquely equipped to
do that, if that makes sense. And also in that
space giving myself the permission to allow my vocation to change,
because it will change, I kind of liken it to
a vine in a branch, like your vine is your
purpose in in this in this world. Okay, the branches
(26:28):
the vocation, the branch. The vocation needs to stay connected
to the vine. You have to always remember what you're
doing and why you're doing it. I'm doing this not
to achieve accolades and success, which I think are a byproduct.
There'll be a byproduct, but I'm doing this because I'm
(26:48):
loving God, loving people in this capacity. And so it
was just for me, a simple mind, a simple paradigm shift,
but it really it made such a huge difference. And
then giving myself the permission to branch out, giving myself
the permission to not see myself so one dimensionally, giving
myself the permission to offer ramp, which I think women
(27:08):
and mothers off ramp. We see ourselves as one thing.
You see yourself as a broadcaster, You see yourself as
an author and an editor. But like peeling back, peeling
all of that back. What makes me a good broadcaster,
what makes you a good nurse? What makes you a
good editor? Looking at those skills and talents and saying,
you know what, those can translate to so many different capacities.
Because I think we see ourselves as one thing. I said,
(27:32):
for so long, I don't know what I could do
outside of broadcasting. Um, and now I know. I'm I'm tenacious,
I'm inquisitive. My nickname was Politwani Questions growing up. So
I just inherently curious and nosy. Those talents can can
manifest in so many different areas. So I think so
just so just limiting myself. I was limiting myself for
(27:54):
so long, you know I was. I'm really interested in
this idea of a vocastional calling in a eighth calling,
and I see the connection the vine and the branch idea,
But it as as somebody who job hunted for a
discouraging lily long period of time. You know what happens
if you're not finding a branch that connects with your vine,
(28:17):
like it does feel like it's a hide bar, you
know what I mean, Like like it's got to be
I need my I need to make sure that my
faith calling is satisfied and that my life that I'm
leading my life in a way that's true to that.
But I also need to find occasional calling and ideally
(28:38):
they're somehow connected, they are connected. I did a really
fascinating interview with um a government guy, and I write
about him in the book. His name is David shed
and he was the Director of National Intelligence after nine eleven,
so he had I think eighteen different agencies reporting to him.
And I wanted to interview him because I saw in
his bio that he was called to go into government.
(29:00):
And again that word calling, like, we just throw it
around all the time, and it's always connected with career, right,
So I asked him. I said, Okay, I've said I
feel called to go here and I've been called to
do this, but I don't know how to articulate what
that even means. And he gave me he shed some
light on it. It was one of those AHA moments
for me. He said, you know, you're being vocationally called
(29:21):
to do something with three things. One are you good
at it? Two do you love it? And three do
other people in your life that are trusted recognize that
you're good at it and you love it. It's not
enough to just be good at it. It's not enough
just to love it. Like for instance, my son, one
of my children, is so good at golf. It's it's
(29:44):
his gifting. And we notice and recognize it, he doesn't
love it. Okay, so it has to be those three things.
What are you good at? What are you curious about? Okay,
so what are you curious about? And then what other people,
trusted people in your life notice that you're good at
and you're curious about. Does that make sense? Yes, it
totally does um And I think just looking back, I didn't.
(30:08):
I wasn't able to put those pieces together. But then
in hindsight, okay, this is what made me a good broadcaster.
I'm curious, I love to ask questions, and my high
school teacher and my college professors were continually encouraging me
in that space. So when I went back to look
at it, like, oh that was that's like the three
(30:30):
step formulative vocational calling in my mind, are you good
at it? Are you curious about it? And other people
recognize that you're good and curious about it? How do
you get your life calling? All right? Forget? What? What What
do you can call it? Your faith calling? Your faith calling?
Do you say? You say? You call it your purpose?
So what if you're vocational calling or choice or where
(30:50):
you've ended up, maybe you weren't called to it. You're
good at it? People recognize you're good at and you
love it. Say you're a day trader, you know, making
or hedge fund time manager. You're not particularly making the
world a better place. You're making a lot of money. Um,
but you can make the world a better place with
your money. And I think that that. I think we're
all each equipped incapacitated in different areas too. You can
(31:14):
use your money for good. So but but know what
I was saying, if it would your purpose or your
faith calling doesn't necessarily merge with your vocational calling. You
have to do it outside of your voca occasional calling.
Because what if I mean, if you're working any job,
the majority of jobs aren't necessarily you know, transforming the world.
(31:38):
You're working at at a department store selling dresses. Is
that you're saying, it's it's out of necessity, It's not
out of loud, correct? So is there a way to
have parallel tracks? Do they have? Does everyone have to
be you know, like curing coronavirus? I mean in righte So,
so if what you're doing isn't the most laudatory of professions,
(31:58):
is there a way to have a parallel track for
your faith calling? So that's not necessarily your day job. Now,
I see what you're saying, and I think that's where
the paradigm shift has to happen to Like, Yes, I
don't like I'm at a point now where I don't
get my identity from what I do anymore. My identity
and my only purpose on this earth is to love
(32:22):
God and love people. The vocation is the way that
I do it. So whether you're a desk clerk or
whether you're working at Macy's, that is your vehicle and
that's your conduit by which you're going to fulfill your purpose.
So you just love people and God within whatever job
you're doing, and that's what you have to remember. And
(32:42):
if you're not a person of faith like I, and
I write about that too, like Dan Harris, who is
my dear friend, his his faith calling or his purpose
might just be to be a kind person and to
treat people with respect. So you remember whatever in whatever
capacity you're in and whatever vocation you're in, that's just
an opportunity for you. You've been uniquely placed in that
(33:03):
position too. As Dan would say, be kind to people
and to be respectful of people. It's not so much
about what you do anymore. It's about who you're doing
it for, why you're doing it. And so we've got
to get the emphasis about off of what we do
and our identity and everything focused on on what we
do and peel back the layers. And I have stopped
(33:26):
asking my children the question what do you want to
be when you grow up? Because I'm feeding that that message,
and I'm I'm telling them, even subconsciously and even consciously,
your only value is your vocation. Your only worth, child,
is what you do. But that's we We have to
(33:48):
stop asking that question. We have to peel back the
layers and focus more on who we are and why
we're here and not so much on what we do.
But unfortunately, you know, it's going to take a lot
of work because we're It's ingrained in our society. It's
part of ours it's part of our nomenclature, it's part
of our language, it's part of our expression what do
(34:09):
you do? Hi, I'm so, and so what do you do?
You know? You imagine if we all went to cocktail
partisan said to each other, Hi, I'm Jill, that you
said I'm Paul, and I said, so, who are you? Really?
Try and think about the core of you if you
had to introduce yourself outside of what you did, how
how would you describe yourself? If you're in I'm jail,
(34:30):
I'm and I'm I'm also a super curious person and
I can't wait to get because that's how I feel
about people. Know. That's amazing though. And you know, when
my dad passed, he said nothing about what he did,
and his and his gravestone it said that he was
a loving father and a loving should do which is
Arabic for grandfather and husband, and that really stuck with me.
(34:53):
Put everything in perspective. It's not so much. It's not
about what we do so much. Yes, it's great to
love what you do and to kind of you know,
me in your sweet spot, but just remember that's just
the way that you're going to love people. Such good advice.
Thank you so much for sharing it with us. We'd
love having you on. Thank you, thank you. This has
(35:14):
been so nice. So everybody, are we going to solve
all the world's problems right now? Today? I think we
kind of did. I think we did. I think I
think the world is solved. Love each other and love
God or your definition of God exactly. So now we
can subscribe it so now listener, all you have to
do is check out Paula's wonderful podcast, Journeys of Faith
(35:37):
and her new book, which is called out Why to
Dream Jobs for a life of Truth Calling. You can
also check her out on Instagram at Paula Faris. The
Road to Somewhere is recorded in New York City. Make
sure you share, subscribe, rate, and review us and let
us hear from you. Where are you on your journey?
Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter at odd to Somewhere.
(36:01):
Email us at road to Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com.
Special thanks to our producer Alicia Haywood. Thanks for joining
us on the Road to Somewhere. Available on the I
Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
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