Butter and Book Deals

Last week I saw the movie, Julie and Julia. If you're not familiar, it follows the journeys of two women at life and career crossroads. One woman is as-yet un-published cookbook author Julia Child and the other is office worker Julie Powell who cooks her way through Julia Child's cookbook over the course of a year, blogs about it, scores a book (and obviously movie,) deal of which I admit, I am just a teensy bit jealous, and presumably, lives happily ever after.

The geeky career counsellor in me found the movie compelling and inspirational. I took away two lessons from these women.

Lesson 1: Doing what you love takes courage...and butter doesn't hurt either

I know. It's not revolutionary but bears repeating over and over, several times daily. So there was Julia Child, complete with pearls and seemingly unflappable spirit, feeling somewhat at loose ends living in France with her diplomat husband. She loved the whole Paris life thing, but eventually wanted a bit more substance to her daily existence and asked her husband what she should do to keep busy. Her husband asked her, "Well, what do you like to do?" to which she responded with gusto, "I like to eat!"

Such a simple statement and yet, how hard to actually trust that this could actually lead to a satisfying and indeed, lucrative career. How often do we convince ourselves that something we love to do is too ridiculous to be a "real" career? I'm not denying that Julia Child had the benefit of a financially and emotionally supportive spouse (always helpful when you're striking off in a scary new career direction) but even when our ducks are in a row, I still think we often hesitate to go down the road with only what we love to do as our guide. It seems somehow as decadent as all that butter Julia used in her recipes. It takes incredible courage to pursue a career dream especially when it's based on a wispy little statement like, "I like to eat" and just because you dream it doesn't mean you get it right away (Julia certainly didn't). But Julia Child's fearlessness and work ethic in persistently pursuing what she loved and working hard to gain the skills to back it up, is something to aspire to. Even in the face of obstacles and at an age where many of us are tempted to throw up our hands and decide "it's too late for me", she persevered. Bon Appetit, Julia!

Lesson 2: Fussing ain't helping and you can't win if you don't buy a ticket.

Enter Julie Powell. While perhaps not as colourful as her French Chef mentor (and perhaps this was the point), I know that many women can connect with the story of a woman who was feeling the all-too-common career sensation of "is this all there is?" at the age of 30 (or 40 or 50). After some understandable grumbling and whining about the state of her life, she decided to take some action. And that's the cool part. It's easy to get stuck in the grumbling, whining stage and never...actually...ACT. But she did. Even better, she quite wisely picked something to do that she enjoyed doing, without strategizing about "where it could lead". She simply came up with a project that combined two things she loved: cooking and writing. In the process, she found that achieving her goal of cooking all 500+ recipes in Julia Child's cookbook in 365 days, was even more difficult than she imagined. She had to work really hard at times to succeed and she had to have discipline and keep at it even when she was really discouraged, tired, and dreading attempting new things. All the while she had absolutely no inkling that she might get a book deal or start a new career or anything so swish. She was simply working hard at something and lest you overlook what an accomplishment that was, think about the last time you worked hard at some new direction for your career every single day for a year in the hopes that it might, but certainly wasn't guaranteed, to lead to something good. Uh hunh.

Bad things happened along the way. And good things too. But I think the biggest career lesson from her story isn't that she got a book deal and moved to a bigger house in Queen's. I think it's that she experienced the joys, frustrations, panic, exhileration---sensation of action when she was feeling career frustrated. Even if it hadn't opened up the fabulous new career opportunities for her in the end, I still think the action served her well because it revitalized her, gave her a renewed sense of purpose and hope. And who couldn't use a little more of that?

Julie and Julia. Butter and book deals. What will you do today to find your own Bon Appetit?