Bea Boccalandro helps organizations and people ignite purpose at work. She is the author of Do Good at Work: How Simple Acts of Social Purpose Drive Success and Wellbeing. Bea has been published in Harvard Business Review, The Boston Globe and other major publications; and has been featured on Forbes, FOX TV and other media outlets. As founder and president of the global purpose advisory firm, VeraWorks, Bea has two decades of experience helping businesses make customer interactions more human, products more inclusive, operations more environmentally sustainable, marketing more charitable or otherwise make work more meaningful. Her clients include Aetna, Bank of America, Disney, Eventbrite, FedEx, IBM, Levi’s, PwC, Toyota and Western Digital. She lives in San Clemente, California, with her husband.
Bea begins by talking about the influence of her father. When Bea was just 6 year’s old, her father offered these wise words: “my precious little sky…You will need to find better sources of joy as you grow up. You will need to… listen beyond the clamor of your wants for the whisper of the world’s needs.” While writing the book, she realized that her father had been guiding her on how to make work meaningful her entire life.
Most of us go to work to receive a paycheck and do what’s fun and meaningful outside of work. However according to Bea, work is the best place (and very often the only place) to get fulfillment in life and to contribute to the broader society. Bea explains that job purposing is “making any meaningful contribution you can from whatever job you have.”
According to the research, job purposing improves your productivity and makes you a better worker, but amazingly it also promotes better health and greater happiness. Ultimately, we are hardwired for work that makes a contribution.
Bea tells some wonderfully inspiring stories about regular people who have purposed their jobs, such as a parking attendant in Washington DC to a singing airport attendant in Dallas. She reminds us: “If your job doesn’t improve the world, improve your job.”
Bea talks about the ripple effect of job purposing. The research shows that the beneficiaries of job purposing go out and triple the amount of positive acts in the world, both in their personal lives and the workplace: “It shifts everything toward contribution”
Bea’s daily morning routine includes practicing gratitude and working on her next book. Then she puts on her wetsuit and paddles out to surf the waves of San Clemente California.
For anyone feeling powerless, Bea offers this advice: “don’t overlook what a contribution your work as a platform for doing good can make to your wellbeing.”
Lastly, Bea says to check your intention. If your intention is contribution, don’t worry so much about the shape of the action. “It’s intention that the world will eventually respond to, not the action itself.”
You can learn more about Bea and her book right here: https://www.beaboccalandro.com/
You can also connect with Bea on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeaBoccalandro
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