Finding the work you're meant to do

The difference between a 'professional life' and a 'career'

Bill Burr started his career like many other aspiring comics—grinding his way through the clubs in New York City, taking any gig he could get, often performing to tiny crowds and for no pay.

In an interview with Tim Ferris in 2017, he recalled one particular evening that reminded him that he was on the right path:

“I was seeing this woman when I was in New York, and I remember she came over and I was making her dinner, and I had a spot at the comic strip, which where I was living was right around the corner,” Burr said. “She asked me, What do those spots pay? And it was like five, seven, eight dollars—basically, you’re just going up there trying out material. I went up there, tried out new material, and it worked. I was psyched. I came home, and I finished cooking the dinner, and I did this stupid dance in the kitchen and she was laughing. I was dancing because I had this new material—I was excited. Then she got this sad look on her face, and I was like, ‘God, did I dance that bad?’ And she goes, ‘No. I just wish I had a job where I got paid $8 and I came home and danced in the kitchen.’

…And I never forgot that.”

How do we find the work that’s worth more than it pays? The work we’re meant to do?

Motivational speakers and self-help gurus will tell you to follow your passion. They’ll say things like, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” But I find such advice reductive and dismissive of the reality most of us face in our everyday lives. It also assumes we know what we love and what we want to do, which, as I get older, I'm learning is far rarer than I ever realized.

Perhaps we need to change how we think about work:

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns never uses the word ‘career,’ preferring instead to say ‘professional life.’ This subtle yet meaningful change in how he refers to his work was instilled in him by the author Robert Penn Warren (All the King’s Men) when they worked together in the 1980s. Burns sought Warren’s advice on whether he should make a 5-hour film about the American Civil War—an idea which was repeatedly turned down by the Corporation of Public Broadcasting because “no one on the jury felt that anyone’s attention could be sustained across five one-hour episodes on a subject.” In response, Warren declared with “goggle-eyed, snapping turtle eyes” that “careerism is death!”

“Careerism is something that locks you into someone else’s determination of what’s best for you,” says Burns. “I just felt that if I could listen to that dictum—careerism is death—I could figure out how to make choices that were not about [my] career, but about my professional life, like, what did I need?”

Burns released Civil War in 1990. It’s nearly 12 hours and nine episodes long, and in 2025, it’s still the highest-rated program in public television history.

The very notion of a career ladder suggests that the best course of action is climbing the rungs as they’re laid out for us. It implies that progression is linear and follows a certain order.

The risk is climbing the ladder blindly without ever thinking about the ladder you’re on.

Whether we like where we end up or not is largely determined by the choices we make along the way. Thankfully, making the right choices is more straightforward than it sounds.

“It’s all about curiosity,” says Burns. “And how not to kill it.”