OUR JOBS ARE IMPORTANT TO US; they occupy most of our waking hours, and our thoughts about them sometimes even intrude on our sleep. It has been estimated that we work (as opposed to play) at our jobs for nine to ten hours a day, and even more if we take into account the time we spend preparing to go to work, traveling to and from work, and unwinding from work. For the 30-35 million people who are self-employed or who telecommute, there are often periods in which work never ends, even on weekends. We give so much of ourselves to our work, but at the end of life, no one ever says, "I should have spent more time at the office."

A 2005 survey by the Conference Board showed job satisfaction at an all-time low, with about 14 percent of the total number of respondents reporting that they were very satisfied with their jobs. Of the five thousand households interviewed, only one out of every three workers was satisfied with his or her pay. Only one out of every five workers was satisfied with the opportunity for advancement. So why do people choose work they don't especially like?

One answer might be found in the results of the 2007 "Getting Paid in America" survey conducted by the American Payroll Association, which found that 67 percent of American families are only one paycheck away from financial hardship. Even two-income families, which might be better off, would have to significantly cut back on their lifestyles if one income ended. The heads of such households don't want to risk deprivation.

Of course, this isn't new. People have long traded satisfaction for security. In his book Working, written nearly three decades ago, Studs Terkel observes, "Most people's jobs are too small for their spirits." For security, at one time or another most of us have settled for what we had: a job, a relationship, or something else that "happened" to us that we didn't relish.

In fact, job security is an illusion. We have been brought up to believe we can survive on a single source of income. In the 1950s, common wisdom about how to have a successful career borrowed a page from the Japanese: find the right company, such as IBM, follow the rules, and you'll have security for life. Yet we know this is no longer true. Companies get downsized, philosophies of management change, and even entire organizations become obsolete. Courts have allowed some companies that filed bankruptcy to do away with pensions earned over decades.

Do you relate to any of these statistics? If you associate work predominantly with the need to create cash flow so you can pay your bills and support your lifestyle, perhaps you, like most people, have forgotten that you have a choice about what you do. Perhaps you have chosen to stay in your current job not because you love it but because it's familiar and meets your financial needs. Even though you probably enjoy aspects of what you do, you might gladly trade it in for another, more satisfying and lucrative occupation. Any sense of restlessness is a sign that your soul is ready to grow.

Answering the call of your soul by pursuing a new entrepreneurial activity or a form of creative expression, such as writing, playing music, or sculpting, would be a natural process in aligning yourself with Spirit. If you are restless, this is how you are being guided or invited by your soul to find deeper fulfillment through more satisfying work and meaningful service.

The following story is an example of the transformation that opening to the flow of soul currency can bring to anyone's life, including yours.

Myrna's Story
For Myrna Miott Woods, an African American woman in her late thirties, the biggest problem was finding a way to be of service to others and still be able to pay her bills. It was the same issue she'd dealt with throughout her career.

As a college student at Drexel University, in Pennsylvania, she had volunteered for the Mayor's Commission on Literacy and a nonprofit group called Women Organized Against Rape. She found she had a heartfelt connection with her community, so after graduating she took a job as an elementary schoolteacher in Dade County, Florida. It was fun and she liked the children, but it didn't pay very well.

Myrna always seemed to gravitate to computers. During school she had worked in the computer science department, and after she moved to Florida following graduation she mainly used email to keep in touch with her friends back home. One day when she stopped by a travel agency to buy a train ticket, she saw that the agency had a side business building websites for travel agents, physicians, dentists, and other businesspeople. She was fascinated by what they were doing. They offered to train her to do Internet marketing if she would give them a few hours of her time every week, working for a modest wage in their shop after school hours.

Myrna felt that, at the very least, it would be a way to bring in a little extra cash while having fun playing around on the computer. Since she counted on every last penny of her schoolteacher's salary to cover her monthly expenses, she needed a part-time job to make ends meet. Little did Myrna realize that this "chance" encounter in the travel agency in 1997 would eventually land her a well-paying job at R.H. Donnelly, a large marketing company.

Two years after Myrna took the job with the travel agency, in the midst of the dot-com technology boom, R.H. Donnelly hired her and she received a pay increase that meant she no longer needed to work two jobs. But now, as Myrna sat in her office at a company where her responsibility was to maintain the computer network and expand the company's website and support, she wondered if she had made a mistake in giving up her teaching job for a job that provided more money. As she looked at the walls of her office, she thought about how much she missed having contact with a community like the one that had surrounded her at the school.

The answer to Myrna's question - which one was more important to her, money or meaning? - came unexpectedly several months later when R.H. Donnelly decided to sell its stake in the fledgling Internet division. The announcement, made the day after Thanksgiving, came as an enormous shock to most of the employees in the Internet division, since it meant they no longer had jobs. Myrna was one of the few employees in that division retained to ease the transition. The job would simply provide her a paycheck for several more weeks, until the final day of her employment.

Was this an opportunity to go where her heart wanted to go? If so, where would this be? She remembered what a financial struggle teaching had been. Perhaps she could work in a nonprofit organization and use her experience in computers and web design. She floated her résumé to her friends and to headhunters in the hopes that they would know of an organization that could use her.

Myrna did not have long to wait. A local headhunter connected her to Food for the Poor, a large, multi-billion-dollar charity headquartered nearby. Myrna was needlessly nervous as she drove to the interview. She was met by a smiling woman who immediately put her at ease and told her how impressed she was with Myrna's background. As they talked, they discovered a synchronicity between them: they had the same birthday.

Myrna began serving as the charity's web designer and webmaster and designed an attractive and inviting website. When the charity sought to increase its donations, in 2002 Myrna made improvements to the existing website, applying marketing and information-architecture principles. Her team organized several Internet campaigns. In 2005, they launched a new site. Six years after starting work for the charity, and after generating more than $8 million in funds for it, Myrna became known as one of the nonprofit industry's experts on online fundraising.

Her job enabled her to serve as a local and online community liaison, and to apply her programming and other computer skills to marketing, something that had always fascinated her. She became one of the charity's highest paid employees. Myrna still put in a lot of hours, but the hours didn't seem long, because she had a sense of purpose and satisfaction in her work. As she used her skills to reach online donors, she knew that each dollar raised might make the difference between a family going hungry or learning to become self-sufficient.

Myrna recently left Food for the Poor to become a principal in a consulting firm that advises nonprofit organizations, including charities and churches, on how to do comparable online campaigns. As she told me, "Over the years my focus has changed from striving to survive (which at times was changed to striving to get rich) to striving to build the kingdom of God by serving others." Myrna is a master of soul currency.

Spiritual Intelligence
In recent articles and books, many psychologists and researchers have chosen to define our use of the inner qualities of being as new forms of intelligence. Noted psychologist Howard Gardner, author of Frames of Mind, is credited as being the first to coin the phrase emotional intelligence, a term later made popular by Daniel Goleman in his bestselling book Emotional Intelligence. Gardner also developed the theory of "multiple intelligences" to describe various kinds of inner talents that each of us brings to life.

Neurologist Danah Zohar and physicist Ian Marshall co-authored the groundbreaking book Spiritual Capital, which discusses the power of using spiritual values to develop a new model of the corporation. They define spiritual intelligence as the manner in which we use our ethics and the different talents that characterize our beings so we may prosper.

Becoming a master of soul currency also requires us to develop a special kind of intelligence so we may bridge the material and spiritual worlds. Ultimately, whether we borrow concepts from the fields of physics, psychology, or finance, we are still referring to the same thing: the organizing power of Spirit creatively flowing through a human being. Emotional and spiritual intelligence, and the multiplicity of talents we all possess to whatever degree, are elements of our soul currency.

As I mentioned in the introduction, in this book I am using terms such as assets, capital, currency, and the like to talk about more powerful aspects of intelligence that exist in the invisible universe. For example, musical talent is a form of intelligence that is also a spiritual asset. From an economic perspective, we can invest this asset by a process of loving intention and thus use it to engage in capital formation, drawing both tangible returns, such as income or improved relationships, and intangible returns, such as joy and satisfaction.

Spiritual capital, the ultimate renewable resource, multiplies and grows stronger with use and intention. Learning to recognize when, why, and how to invest our spiritual capital to produce great abundance is a lesson the soul teaches. With practice, we become smarter and more efficient investors.

© 2008, Ernest D. Chu, All Rights Reserved

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Excerpted from the book Soul Currency. Copyright © 2008 by Ernest D. Chu. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com or 800/972-6657 ext. 52.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ernest D. Chu, a leading corporate finance expert, visionary, and strategic advisor to some of America’s best-run companies, has created more than $1 billion in market value for his clients. Of equal importance as his business activities are his spiritual pursuits. Chu currently serves as assistant pastor at Religious Science Ft. Lauderdale, the largest Religious Science church in the Southeast. His website is www.SoulCurrency.org.