The Importance in Finding Purpose in What We DoDo you like what you do for a living? Is it aligned with your values? Can you tie it to something that makes a difference in the world, or makes people's lives better?Friends, I can tell you that there was a time in my life that I did not think about this one bit. I went to work because that is what you do. If you follow me on Linkedin you may have noticed my post this week about an initiative that I helped launch that I think can make a difference and make people's lives better -- its about helping give a louder voice to women in construction (women make up less than 10% of all workers in the construction industry).It's a relatively small thing, but it felt good -- and I found myself feeling more proud about this professional accomplishment than I had in a very long time.For most of career, like many, I focused on working in jobs that did something for me. Maybe they boosted my ego or I thought was interesting or I knew would make me the most money. And sure, all the while, my work made the lives of my family better because it helped put a roof over heads and food on a table. But I did not view my work in the context of it impacting others. I certainly didn't place a lot of value on whether or not it did.This changed for me a few years ago. I was leading marketing for a company in the alternative lending space -- at the time it was a hot, emerging sector in FinTech. Our primary target market: merchants with less than stellar credit.Because banks would not usually take the risk on lending money to these small business owners, they had to seek options elsewhere. That's where company's like mine would come in and offer short term loans at very high interest rates (the equivalent of almost 60% interest in most cases).My job as head of global marketing strategy was to get these people to want to engage with us. I had to craft the story to lure them to our website and our underwriters so that we could loan them money not just one time, but multiple times -- because due to the high cost of customer acquisition and underwriting, we would only make money on the follow up loans.We were essentially the stop you made before you went to your local loan shark. It was an absolutely sh*tty business all around and as I learned more about it, the shady underside and characters in the merchant lending space became obvious. But I played the game and came up with a story that helped me sleep better at night: we were the company that would only loan you the "responsible" amount you needed. Not necessarily the amount you asked for or more than you needed, but just the right amount of really expensive short term money.....Sounded good. On the surface it seemed like it was making lives better. Hell, I even made some heart warming videos about it. But, despite how much lipstick I wanted to put on the pig, in most cases, it really made lives worse. With the exorbitantly high rates were charging, we were taking advantage of people down on their luck.I didn't realize how toxic this was for me until years later. The combination of normal work stress AND the fact that the actual work I was doing was not aligned with my own value system really took a toll on me.At this stage in my life, I don't need that. I want to be getting up every day knowing that the work that I am doing and the stories I am creating are making a difference (albeit big or small) in a truly positive way. Not only do I feel better about myself, the quality of the work I do is better.Can you relate? Are you doing something that fulfills you and is aligned with your core values? Are you making people's lives better?Haven't thought about it much? Well, maybe now is the time....Enjoy the links below. Heading into August and coming down the home stretch for summer.....it will be sweater weather before you know it!XOXODave