Rewards Beyond Money

What’s up, listeners? I’m your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and this show — the whole thing — is Faithful on the Clock, the podcast where all the items on the receipt add up to get your faith and work aligned. All of us in the professional world like our paychecks, and especially for younger professionals with more starter wages trying to save and meet expenses with all this inflation and everything, I hear you that money counts. But it’s so important, especially early in a career when your work attitude defines so much of your path, that you have some rewards aside from money to keep you grounded and provide a deeper sense of accomplishment and purpose. So, this episode, I’m sharing what I personally aim for and invite you to use those elements as your own focus points. Let’s hit it.

As we start out today, I just wanna clarify a little about my background, because I really want all of you out there listening to understand that the advice I’m about to give, it’s not just about abandoning a worldly or materialistic mindset. Doing that of course fits within Christian philosophy or ideology, but I say what I do simply because in my real, everyday experience, I just figured out that, when it came to giving me a really satisfying sense of validation, money didn’t do the job. You know, because what a job is worth is so subjective a lot of the time in the market anyway, right? We see pay rates fluctuate all the time, so it never seemed like a really good measure to hang my hat on, if that makes sense. But growing up, my family, we were incredibly poor. My parents were a lot older when they had me, and so by the time I came along, you know, my mom’s a homemaker, my dad’s out of the normal workforce and trying to get us a little income from working the tiny farm we had, and we had to rely on government assistance for most of what we needed. And so, I’m out there by the time I’m sixteen trying to hustle and get money for college, I earn scholarships and all of that, work my way through. But on top of that, you know, my home life, it was pretty chaotic. The home environment wasn’t all that safe. And so, the bottom line is, money just wasn’t there as an external reward most of the time. It wasn’t reliable enough for me to look to as a motivator. It was much more about just getting enough to survive. And I was just really, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, but through all of the abuse and neglect that happened, the good that came out of it was that I really was able to learn what I responded to and what really filled my cup. And then, you know, as a musician and writer, I — I mean, those fields are notorious for low pay, and it’s not getting any better what with all this hype around AI. But it’s meant that through my whole career, I’ve kind of maintained that original dynamic where looking to money as a motivator, you know, it’s almost not an option. I have to have other reasons to persist, and I have to be really clear about what I’m looking to get back from what I’m doing.

So, all that said, the biggest reward I want you to look for outside of money from your work is this sense of freedom. I know we don’t usually think of work as being all that freeing, right? But when you’re really using the gifts God’s given you in a full and authentic way, the effort it takes to do the work is far less than if you were in a job that wasn’t really a fit for you. And that’s not to say there aren’t challenges or that getting a result won’t take time. That’s not really what I mean when I say free, and there certainly might still be systemic things that are difficult to deal with. But it’s just, it’s like, you can be doing the work or look at the results, and the thought that I always have is, “There I am.” It’s really this feeling of being able to feel the core of who I am, and all of a sudden, there’s just this sense of flow. Like, I just feel so sure that this is my real self that I almost don’t know what to do with all of the energy behind it, like I have to let that out somehow or I’m gonna pop a vein in my neck or something. And yet, at the same time, there’s a peacefulness to it, too, because it feels like all the weight has just come off and I don’t have to fight everything anymore. So, it’s kind of like I’m this beautiful exploding star, and it kind of foreshadows a little to me of what heaven is like, right, where all of the weight is gone and you can be exactly what God intended you to be. And when so much of the world is telling you you have to do this or be a certain way and there are all of these rules, I have yet to find anything that’s as meaningful as that sense of authentic freedom.

[4:49]

The next reward, look for the ability to influence and change. You know, I think we all want to connect to other people in some way, right? But I teach beginning piano really informally as a side gig, and I remember, one student I have, she’s a good friend now, but as we did more and more lessons, we really started to work on having her worry less about the music being perfect. Like, she was so focused on the goal of learning the piece and not making mistakes that it was hard for her to just enjoy playing and express herself in the moment. And so, we’re talking about this, and all of these issues came up for her about all the pressure of expectation she felt and how she didn’t really know what she wanted from life. And so, working on piano, that wasn’t just working on piano. It was working on her as a person. But in doing that, we really became better friends. And I’m watching her kind of work through a lot at the keyboard, and it dawned on me that I had the capacity to do a lot more with teaching music than give people a good hobby. You know, music therapy is a real thing, and I saw how that work I did with my friend helped her understand more of what she wanted and how to interact with other people in a way she was comfortable with. And it felt pretty good to have that kind of deeper, positive influence. Because from my side, I think most of us, if we ask if we matter, that’s what we’re really asking, is “Would anything be different if I weren’t here?” And so when you can see that you’ve changed something for somebody, that’s a huge deal.

The next reward I really value and want you to have is opportunity. Now, when I say opportunity, I’ll be really clear, an opportunity, of course you can decide to take it or leave it, but it’s not just an option you can say yes or no to, okay? An opportunity really is a gift from others that recognizes the potential you have. If people didn’t see your talent, if they didn’t believe you could rise to the challenge based on what you’ve already done and the effort you’ve purposely put in, they wouldn’t give you that opportunity. If you want to put it in business terms, the market is choosing you as capable and superior when compared to other candidates. Money, somebody could pay you right now and that would be the end. There’s no obligation to let you keep going. But when someone gives you an opportunity, it says, “We see a future for you. You don’t have to stop. You can keep achieving.” See, money says “You have to have done something,” whereas opportunity says, “I believe you still can.” And having that kind of validation where someone’s telling me my story isn’t over yet, it’s completely different than just having someone toss cash at me for what’s already done and behind me. And so, the story that comes to mind for me with this is the parable of the bags of gold in Matthew 25:14-30. In that story, Jesus tells about a master who gives more responsibility or opportunity to the servant who handled the master’s money really well. The chance to be in charge of even more, that was a gift from the master that was future-oriented, right? The master was anticipating what the servant would be able to do, and he trusted the servant to keep going and do even more. And as a writer, oh my gosh, I mean, the number of times I’ve had my work rejected is through the roof. And so, when an editor contacts me and asks me to write a piece or a colleague tells me about a gig that could help me expand my business, it’s like, thank you. Thank you for believing I could meet the needs you have and giving me something to build the next level on. And I know a lot of you out there, especially if you haven’t been in the business world all that long, you need that. It’s an amazing confidence builder when you’ve got somebody supporting you and believing in what you can do like that. And of course, the more confident you are, the better you usually perform, and so, the more opportunities you get. It creates this whole positive cycle. So, really ask yourself if you’re working in a way that lets people take notice of what you’re doing. Because yes, humility is important. You need to keep your ego from flaring, and you can’t be obnoxious in your promotions. But the hard truth is, people can only give you opportunities if they can see what you’re accomplishing. So, from that perspective, you do have to self-advocate. Don’t be shy about representing and marketing yourself well.

Then the last reward that’s really good to seek from your work is learning. You know, I’m on LinkedIn almost every day, and this idea of learning, it’s so embedded in corporate culture. It’s part of this concept of growth or self-development, which we see as positive. And to the previous point, if you apply what you’ve learned well, you absolutely can be gifted more opportunities. But what I want to suggest to you is that you embrace learning not to change yourself or become more competitive, which is a bit egocentric, but just to appreciate and understand everything else. You know, why do we read the Bible? Why do we study scripture? Yes, it’s so we can do better as individuals. Of course we want to sin less. But so much of it is just so that we can grasp Who God even is. It’s so much about having the scales taken off our eyes so we can understand His character and decisions and have a better sense of why He’s worth trusting. And that’s external. It’s not focused on us at all. And the chance to see better, to know why, for me personally, that’s been so valuable in making things seem less chaotic. And if things can seem a little less chaotic, life’s probably not gonna seem as stressful to you. And I think what you’ll find is — or at least, what’s been my experience — the more you focus on learning about God and others and the world, the more you start to shift internally without even really trying. It’s more organic or natural than the way we talk about learning in the business space, where everything is very much an intentional choice around who you’ve personally decided you want to be. And I point that out because I want you to know that you don’t have to be in complete control of it. And in fact, scriptures like Daniel 2:22, they remind us that God is in control of what we can see and when we see it. So, I think it’s worthwhile, even as you ask good questions and seek wisdom like Solomon did, to let go of this drive to be in charge of it all and to just trust that He’ll give you what you need when you need it. And every time you gain new understanding in your work, you can see that as a gift, as God saying, “You’re ready.”

So, with these four big rewards laid out for you, let’s pray together.

God, so much of business is built around money, whether it’s profits and earnings or investing, and it’s hard not to seek money when so much of what we need in the world seems to have a price tag. But we have needs money can’t buy, Lord, like the need to feel valued and connected. So, I pray today that all of us can see it when you’re meeting those deeper needs, and that we can praise You for that provision even if our bank accounts are at zero. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

That’s the end for this episode, everybody. Next time, we’re gonna be talking about that awkward situation where your lack of experience becomes a stumbling block around demonstrating the potential you really have. It’s the old catch-22 where you need opportunities to get results, but you need results to get opportunities. We’ll cover how to handle that in two weeks. Until then, visit faithfulontheclock.com for more content, and be blessed.