Choosing a Job That Fills Your Bucket

How did you get to where you are today?

My first job came when I was about five. I was the church drummer for the children's choir, and my mom was the choir director. When the church wanted to pay me for playing, my parents said no. They wanted me to learn how to serve God without being paid, and to have a servant’s heart. Money was never the source of why I served. I never thought something I learned at five would apply so heavily in my life today.

My dad worked at Chick-fil-A, and I joined the team at 15. That's where I learned second-mile service. Around the same time, I watched an old TV show called Emergency about two firefighter paramedics, and by 13, that was all I wanted to be. So at 15, I also joined DeKalb County's Explorer program, riding the fire truck and responding to calls while still working at Chick-fil-A. 

I went to EMT school a week after high school and got my paramedic license at 21, the youngest in my group. Chick-fil-A was vital to that. It taught me a heart to serve and made me a better paramedic. I asked a lot of questions, and that's part of how I made operations supervisor at 25, helping manage around a hundred people and 40 to 50 ambulances a day.

When COVID hit, I'd already met my wife, and I had to ask whether my lifestyle was sustainable. The divorce rate in public safety is high, and we run our bodies into the ground. My dad brought up Chick-fil-A again, and I joined a leadership development program there. The hardest part was learning to translate the skills I'd built without realizing it. You walk into corporate America as a blue-collar paramedic and wonder what transferable skills you even have. It turned out I had plenty. I also finished my bachelor's last year while my wife was pregnant. There was no better feeling than walking across that stage.

How did you discover your main purpose in life, and what is it?

I attribute a lot of this to my dad. He got me to think differently. He asked this one question, “What has been the exact same in everything you’ve enjoyed and been successful in?” So I spent time with God asking what has been consistent across my life, and I landed on three things:

1. The first is building relationships and trust, and building it fast. As a paramedic, I'd walk in, someone's bleeding and won't cooperate, and I have maybe 30 seconds to get them to trust me. 

2. The second is that I'm a problem solver. As a paramedic, I'm the temporary solution until you reach the hospital. At Chick-fil-A, it's a candid conversation about how we get better today, even by a small step. 

3. The third, when you put it together, is that I love owning the challenge. Give me the difficult person or the hard problem, and I want it.

Those three have been so consistent. Now I know that whatever I do needs to fill at least one of those buckets.

Are there common denominators that make up a great team player?

There are three:

1. You have to be a listener. Ask questions and be willing to listen, and lead with empathy. You might have the answer to someone's problem, but you build trust by understanding why they think and feel the way they do. I want a teammate who makes the team better and approaches it with humility.

2. Culture matters more than people think. In the paramedic world, there are 20 companies you could work for. Most people choose strong culture and people first, even for a couple of dollars less an hour. Who wants to make two dollars more to be miserable?

3. Embracing hard things. When things get hard, a lot of people want to quit. The people who succeed did the hard things and did them well. If it's hard for you, it's probably hard for everyone else, so we go into it together.

Are there people in your life who have shown you those values, or helped teach you those things?

First, my dad. He's one of the few people who can get me to see what I'm not seeing. When I was stuck between the corporate world and my blue-collar background, he told me, “You've saved lives and seen people die and can still think clearly through all of it. That's a transferable skill.”

Second, a mentor who just made fire chief. He made captain in eight years when it usually takes 12 to 14. He taught me not to follow what everyone around me thinks. People get complacent and complain. He pushed me to ask what I was doing differently. My drive to get promoted was never about power. It was about influencing the people around me, because so many of them had a bigger calling than they were living out.

Third, my counterpart when I was a supervisor at American Medical Response. He taught me leadership is all about the people. It's not about you. 

And my mom is the anchor of everything we do. 

Are there common mistakes team members make that can hurt team culture, and how do you avoid them?

A common mistake I see is when people don’t ask questions and don't seek to understand. It's easy to get upset with someone for a decision. It's harder to take the time and ask why they made it. Someone shares an idea, and we're quick to call it good or bad without thinking through what they were thinking. Something as simple as “tell me more about how you got there” can make that idea better, because you might bring insight they didn't have.

I also see a lot of the friction coming down to pride. In leadership, you often have information your team doesn't, so they think you're acting on your own when there's a real reason behind the call. Sometimes you have to decide now, and that's fine. Just revisit it and talk it through. When we keep pushing that off, we end up with a culture where nobody communicates.

If readers take one thing away today, what would you want to leave them with?

It all comes back to purpose. A lot of people are struggling to find a role or are stuck in a job they don't like. There are experiences I complained about that made the difference 10 years later. My wife and I once debated happiness versus compensation. She said if you're making good money, you should be fine, even if you hate the job. I said you should love what you're doing, and God will make a way for what you need. How often do we see someone who seems to have everything lose their joy anyway? Tie your work to your purpose so there's real joy in it. It's a lot easier to go the extra mile when you love what you're doing.

If a job was 60 percent my three buckets and 40 percent something I wasn't sure about, I'd take it, because it fills my cup. Then I'd treat that 40 percent as a chance to grow, and getting better at it might be the very thing that opens the next door. So don't get so caught up in one exact title that you miss it. Maybe God wants you to have that job, just not now. Find what's purposeful and let Him do the rest. Stay on the yellow brick road, and you'll get to the Emerald City. You'll get where you're going, God gets the glory, and you'll have the joy that comes with it.

Thanks so much for sharing, Skip.

If you’d like to learn more about Skip and his work, check out his LinkedIn here.