Occupational Wellness: Doing The Real Work

BusinessOccupational Wellness: Doing The Real WorkByDr. Rob Dom Douk,Forbes Books Author.for Forbes BooksAUTHOR POSTExpertise and opinions of authors published by ForbesBooks. Imprint operated under license. | Paid ProgramJun 05, 2026, 03:42pm EDTWhere is your work leading you?gettyIt’s graduation day. Folding chairs cover the football field as faces turn toward the podium to hear all about possibilities and responsibilities. It’s May, the month when proud families imagine bright futures unfolding the way the speakers say they should.Finally, the tassels turn, and mortarboards launch skyward as the grads and their loved ones cheer. Just for an instant, the caps seem suspended in time, like photos in an album, but down they come. One lands near the stage, another slips under the bleachers. Some just disappear into the crowd.Most lives scatter a little that way. We start with momentum and find ourselves in places we never expected. We may start to confuse what we do for a living with who we are. We hope for success, but come to wonder what it is.When I was twelve, my brother and I spent weekends helping our parents sell sneakers at Southern California swap meets. One morning, the skies opened as we arrived, and everyone ran for cover beneath the metal awnings. My father waited out the storm a while, then dashed out to the parking lot. A few minutes later, he was back, drenched and breathing hard.“The vans are gone,” he said. He gulped and said it again.Someone had stolen our two old vehicles loaded with our entire inventory. The shoes were gone. The family business was gone. It’s not that selling sneakers to tourists was my parents’ passion. They sold them because they were trying to build a future for their kids. As newcomers in America, they understood what mattered. They lost everything that rainy day, but this was far from the worst they’d witnessed in life. They kept on going. Working beside them taught me something about myself. I liked talking with the customer...