The Four Elements: Finding right livelihood in the 21st century
This author, Timothy Butler, wrote one of my favorite career change books Getting Unstuck so I was eager to give this one a read.
It’s a short little book, so it reads pretty quickly and has some interesting ideas and exercises concisely described.
As you might imaging from the title, the book explores what Mr. Butler sees has the four elements we need in order to move our lives forward, especially when we’re having a hard time making important decisions about our career.
These four elements are:
Identity
Community
Necessity
Horizon
Identity
For Mr. Butler, Identity really boils down to knowing ourselves from several different perspectives. And I certainly agree that getting to know ourselves is a central aspect to revitalizing our careers. So many people aren’t clear on who they really are, what their core strengths and values are, what roles they play and what they want. If we don’t have clarity on those, how will we know what direction will be best for us?
Community
This element is an interesting one to include, one we don’t see mentioned a lot in career development resources. Community for Mr. Butler is all about the environment(s) in which we thrive. As we explore career options, it seems many people overlook how important culture and community are to a successful career path. What good is getting a job that matches up with your strengths and skills if it’s in an organization which is not aligned with the way you enjoy interacting with others/
Necessity
Another element which doesn’t get enough attention, necessity is all about what we are needing our next job or our career path to do specifically. Do you need flexibility to care for aging parents? Do you need financial growth for your family? Maybe creating impact is a necessity to you at this stage.
Horizon
This element has us exploring what we want from life and our career in the long-term. Some might call this our vision or purpose – what are we working toward? What are our ultimate goals?
To help the reader get more clear on each element, Mr. Butler has several exercises within each element. Generally, the exercises in this book have us reviewing and reflecting on previous events, projects and roles. He then guides the reader to go deeper into those reflections, analyzing, and clarifying through various word substitutions. The core technique he recommends for these exercises is what he calls ‘free attention’ and what others might call meditation.
As someone who enjoyes guided meditations, I was intrigued about free attention might come into play with these exercises. Unfortunately, I just didn’t see a lot of insight happening with these exercises and this technique. I think it takes someone who is very practiced at meditation to really see some progress happening with these exercises. Or if the reader has a meditation guide to help them access the brain areas Mr. Butler wants us to get to. From what I understand, he uses these techniques in his role as a career counselor, so he is likely guiding his clients through this free attention technique himself.
So while I enjoyed Mr. Butler’s approach of using these four elements to help guide decisions, I did not find the exercises in the book to be of much help in bringing me clarity on my identity, community, necessity and horizon.
I’d love to hear your take on the book!
