Living a Calling in a Time of Pandemic and Change: The Master Class

3. About this Class

The Highlights

In this class, Bryan will explore cutting-edge research on discerning work as a calling and living out a calling in a rapidly changing world. He will also show you how to help people get more out of work and life by:

• Building the courage needed to succeed in the face of challenges
• Adapting to the “new normals” within the world of work
• Understanding their unique “work personality”
• Identifying ways to connect their work with a broader sense of purpose in life
• Exploring tangible opportunities that fit with their values and strengths
• Outsmarting the standard job search rules and getting real results
• Actively shaping their work to make it a better fit
• Avoiding the perils and pitfalls of approaching work as a calling
• Cultivating their callings in and out of work

 4. The Eight Weeks

Week 1: What is a Calling, and Why Is It Needed Now More than Ever? Explore how calling is defined and experienced and learn about its impact and potential as a resource for clients coping with challenges in the current world of work.

Week 2: Diversity and Dignity at Work. Before work can be truly purposeful, it must allow people to have dignity. But many clients have marginalized identities and limited access to opportunity, and they face barriers and constraints. Learn how to support all clients and to influence organizations and public policy, to help ensure that work is decent for everyone.  

Week 3: The Science and Art of Discerning a Calling. Try out some hands-on strategies for helping clients explore their work personalities and identify promising pathways for purpose.

Week 4: Navigating Change: Calling, Career Adaptability, and the Purposeful Job Search. Master the evidence-based art of managing change and helping clients succeed in a job search that results in purposeful work.

Week 5: Make Your (Current) Job a Calling. Practice work adjustment and job crafting and supporting clients in transforming their current job into a calling.

Week 6: Callings and the Future of Work. Learn how clients can cultivate a sense of purpose and joy in the midst of three new normals that will transform work as we know it: a new labor contract that trades security for flexibility, ubiquitous computing, and the rise of automation.

Week 7: The Dark Side of Calling. Help clients confront the perils and pitfalls that sometimes accompany a sense of calling, from career tunnel vision to rationalized workaholism to exploitation by unscrupulous employers.

Week 8: Callings in Life. Explore how a sense of calling can function as a client’s organizing life principle, because people are called to far more than work.

5. What You Will Get Out of This Course

You will:

• Learn why the notion that work can be a calling, a centuries-old idea, has surged in importance in the popular culture. You will also learn why it continues to be among the most rapidly growing research topics within positive and vocational psychology today, with roughly 600 more studies on callings published within the last 15 years than in all of history before that.
• Gain an up-to-date and thorough expertise in the science and practice of calling and vocation, expertise that will give you an edge when seeking new business and new clients from all walks of life who are struggling with work-related concerns.

• Apply new strategies and exercises for discerning a calling by exploring your gifts and identifying or creating new opportunities to express them in the world of work.

• Acquire new skills to assist clients with managing change due to job loss and job change.
• Explore the boundaries of work as a calling in light of new scientific evidence. You will consider both its tremendous positive potential and also the challenges and vulnerabilities it can bring.
• Dig deeper than books and articles allow, practicing new ways to find purpose and meaning in your work and life, and in the lives of others.

6. Who Should Attend?

This course is for coaches, therapists, consultants, educators, business professionals, leaders, change agents, managers, mentors, entrepreneurs, and all those who seek evidence-based paths toward greater health and happiness in work and life, including and especially in the face of current challenges, whether for themselves or for those with whom they live and work.

7. The 17-Year Context for Bryan’s Super Star Class

Bryan joins MentorCoach’s rich history of presenting compelling, breakthrough Super Star classes taught by masters in coaching and positive psychology. Over the last 17 years, Super Star teachers have included dozens of luminaries such as…

Marty Seligman
Roy Baumeister
Barbara Fredrickson
Ryan Niemec
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Chris Peterson

Bryan’s course is incredibly timely and needed by any coach or professional who works with people.  And Bryan is as gifted as any teacher we have ever had!

8. How is this Class Different from Bryan’s 2015 Class?

In 2015, Bryan taught a spectacular MentorCoach class on making work a calling. If you were among the very large group of class members, you’ll remember what an amazing and gifted teacher Bryan is. This 2021 class is different in that it has all new material and content, and it is tailored to this very unusual and dramatic moment in time. It will deepen your knowledge of how to help your coaching clients find work with meaning and purpose in this new, unprecedented world economy.

9. About Bryan J. Dik, PhD

Bryan J. Dik, Ph.D. is Professor of psychology at Colorado State University. He also serves as Director of Training for CSU’s Ph.D. program in counseling psychology. And he is Co-Founder of the CSU Applied Positive Psychology Program.  Bryan earned his B.A. in Psychology from Calvin University in 1998 and his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology with specialized training in vocational psychology from the University of Minnesota in 2005. His research is primarily in the area of career development, especially perceptions of work as a calling, the role of faith in career decision-making and planning, career counseling interventions.

Bryan has published more than 100 professional articles and has served on the editorial boards of seven research journals, including Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Journal of Career Assessment. He is an American Psychological Association Fellow and recipient of the Early Career Professional Award (Society for Vocational Psychology), the John Holland Award for Outstanding Achievement in Career or Personality Research (Society for Counseling Psychology), and the Applied Psychology of Religion and Spirituality Award (Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality). He is the author of Redeeming Work (2020), co-author of Make Your Job a Calling: How the Psychology of Vocation can Change Your Life at Work (2012), and co-editor of Psychology of Religion and Workplace Spirituality (2012) and Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace (2013). Bryan teaches courses at CSU in the areas of positive psychology, vocational psychology, personality psychology, and the psychology of religion and also supervises the career assessment and counseling activities of Ph.D. students in Counseling Psychology.

Bryan has lectured all over the world, has consulted with dozens of organizations, and was part of a delegation that presented at the White House and the National Science Foundation headquarters on the use of technology to foster purposeful workforce development. Bryan is also co-founder and Chief Science Officer at jobZology, an award-winning Colorado company and developer of the PathwayU assessment system. He lives in Fort Collins, CO, with his wife Amy and their four sons (ages 9-16).

10. Reading and Resources 

The course will use one required text — Make Your Job a Calling by Bryan Dik and Ryan Duffy – and two recommended texts, Redeeming Work by Bryan Dik, and Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace, co-edited by Bryan Dik, Zinta Byrne, and Michael Steger. Also, those participating in the class should complete the PathwayU assessment system.  Bryan will post relevant research articles, chapters, two e-books, and videos on the password-protected course website as the class progresses.

Make Your Job a Calling is full of practical insights and actionable research findings. It guides readers through a thoughtful and research-based path to transform their relationship with work.

Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace presents, in an extremely user-friendly way, the major theories and research that pertain to finding meaning in work. Anyone who is interested in improving work experience will find this volume and indispensable reference.

Bryan’s books have been praised by many, including:

• Amy Wrzesniewski, associate professor of Organizational Behavior, Yale School of Management
• William Damon, professor, Stanford University, and author of The Path to Purpose: How Young People find their Calling in Life.
• Rich Feller, Ph.D., past-president, National Career Development Association
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management; and Founding Co-Director, Quality of Life Research Center, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA
• Tom Nelson, DMin, president of Made to Flourish and author of Work Matters
• Steven Garber, PhD, professor of marketplace theology, Regent College, and author of Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good
• Christine B. Whelan, PhD, clinical professor, School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin, and author of The Big Picture: A Guide to Finding Your Purpose in Life

11. About PathwayU

Bryan will post relevant research articles, chapters, two e-books, and videos on the password-protected course website as the class progresses.

Also, those participating in the class should complete the PathwayU online assessment system.  PathwayU is an award-winning, patented online career assessment system developed by jobZology, a software and services company founded by Bryan Dik, Kurt Kraiger (current chair of Management at the University of Memphis), and two entrepreneurs with backgrounds in engineering, information technology, and business development. Winner of NSF’s Career Compass Challenge, the PathwayU system is a user-friendly, evidence-based platform that guides users to joy, meaning and purpose in their careers by making data-driven decisions that leverage their gifts and locate career opportunities in which they can express those gifts to make the world better.

As part of the course, Bryan is gifting you a lifetime membership in the PathwayU system for no additional charge.  Simply go to redeemingwork.pathwayu.com, and follow the instructions there to create a profile.

But, of course, this is not a course on PathwayU.  It’s an introduction.  Bryan will weave PathwayU in during a couple of class sessions, mostly as an example of an assessment and counseling model that can be deployed using other tools as well.   The overall purpose of the course really is to answer the question: given what we know from research on calling (and more broadly from vocational and positive psychology), what practical things can we do with clients that will help them achieve more purpose, joy, and meaning in their work and lives?  And how do we do this in the middle of a pandemic?

12. So What Is Bryan Like as a Teacher?

What Colorado State University Students Say About Bryan:

• “I would like to say that I have been in college on and off for nine years and this was the best class and instructor I have ever had.”
• “This course…has been my favorite so far. This experience was mostly due to the enthusiasm and concern that the teacher showed towards making the class fun, fair and challenging. Professor Dik did a great job creating a fun learning atmosphere and I really enjoyed this class.”
• “Professor Dik was very enthusiastic about teaching this course, and knowledgeable about the subject. It was organized very efficiently. He was also very respectful of student opinions and interested in what we had to say. I really enjoyed this course and would definitely recommend it to others.”
• “This was one of the more useful and enjoyable classes I’ve taken. I appreciated that open and objective approach that you took with this course. You seemed to dive into the material in a way that challenges students to search for meaningful answers, and that aspect was great.”

What MentorCoach Students Say About Bryan:

• “The content of this course was perhaps the most relevant in my coaching work and in my own life as a corporate America employee. It seems that so many of my clients are struggling with work, forging meaning and connection and purpose in that area of life. The information in this class was robust, relevant, and perfectly presented.”
• “I’ve got my masters degree and have taken many other courses but this is – by far – the best class I’ve ever had!”
• “Bryan is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about issues related to meaning and calling in the workplace. He had great stories and an obvious passion for the subject. At the outset the course seemed somewhat didactic but as we moved forward he wove in more suggestions for how we might incorporate the information provided into our work with clients. Bryan is a very humble man and was very approachable. He has clearly found his calling!”
• “Although there was a great deal of content, I never felt overwhelmed with the information because of the way Bryan broke it down and presented it. I’m extremely appreciative of the fact that he took the time to design this course in such a way that I was able to get the most out of the time.”
• “Content was very absorbing, inspiring and useful. Bryan worked hard to make it fit for an audience of coaches. I couldn’t have been happier with this class. Great job in all regards!”
• “Bryan was one of the best instructors I’ve ever experienced. It is so difficult to take a course with this much material and present it strictly over the phone, and he did it so thoroughly and so masterfully. I would take any course he offers in the future.”

13. Private Class Webpage

Bryan’s class will be a live, interactive video on the Zoom platform – full-featured and easy-to-use. You can connect from anywhere in the world through your computer, tablet, or smartphone, or by calling in by telephone or Skype. No travel is required.

Class members will have access to our password-protected course website that will be your home on the web for this class. In advance of each session, we’ll post Bryan’s class materials in multiple formats, relevant articles, videos and blog entries. Then by Friday evening, we’ll post the recording from that week’s class as well.

Real-time Questions During Class. Students will submit questions to Bryan real-time via email during the class. When he pauses for questions, Ben will read the submitted questions to him.

Every class is recorded on Zoom video. By the day after each session, you’ll be able to listen-watch the class recording online—video or audio–or to download a digital recording of the class to your computer, phone, and/or MP3 player.

Thus, when you have a conflict with a particular class, you’ll have the recording, class materials, and readings, and you won’t miss a thing. In our past programs, some students had ongoing conflicts and listened to the entire class by recording. We anticipate that a number of Bryan’s students in this class – for example, those living in Australia and New Zealand – may decide to experience the class entirely by recording, still emailing in questions to him between classes. (And they’ll even be able to earn ICF CCEUs (Resource Development).

14. Class Schedule

Course Begins:  TBD

Duration:  Eight Classes

Class Length:  90 minutes

Continuing Education Credits: 12 hours of CEs and ICF CCEs

Certification Hours: 12 hours toward Certified MentorCoach and ICF Certification and all other MentorCoach Certification programs

15. Prerequisites

You are welcome to join Bryan’s class. There are no prerequisites for it. Rather, it is open to everyone, both within and outside the MentorCoach Community.

16. Coach Certification

This class provides 12 hours toward the Certified MentorCoach Certification as an elective for students meeting the class attendance requirement. It can also provide 12 hours toward ICF Certification via an Accredited Coach Training Program such as MentorCoach or via the ICF Portfolio Approach.  It also provides 12 hours toward all other MentorCoach Certification programs.

17. ICF Coach Continuing Education

Live Class Attendance. This class is approved for twelve hours of CCEs (ICF Core Competencies) from the International Coach Federation for students meeting the class attendance requirement. There is a $20 fee for ICF CCEs.

Listening/Watching by Recording. For students who will be listening/watching to Bryan’s classes by recording, this class is approved for twelve CCEs (ICF Resource Development) from the International Coach Federation for students meeting the class attendance requirement for listening/watching by recording. There is a $20 fee for ICF CCEs.

Note: For both ICF CCEs Core Competencies or Resource Development, the ICF CEE fee applies only if you are a member of the International Coach Federation and need ICF CCEs. Otherwise, when you register, indicate that you do not need to pay the ICF CEE fee by choosing the “Base Unit Price with NO CE’s” registration option.

18. BBS CEs

This class is approved for eight hours of CEs Marriage and Family Therapists in California (BBS). The CE administration fee is $75.

To receive credit for CEs, students must pay the CE fee and be present for 6.5 classes. How can you be present for half a class? For one class, turn in only one of the two attendance codes. (Note: Each class is 90 minutes long.)

Note: The CE fee applies only if you are a licensed mental health professional in the US and need CEs from one of the organizations listed above. Otherwise, when you register, indicate that you do not need to pay the CE fee by choosing the “Base Unit Price with NO CE’s” registration option.

19. Attendance Requirements

Every class is recorded by Zoom video and audio. You may listen to/watch some or all of the classes by recording at your leisure. This may affect the kind of credit you’re entitled to.

However, to receive credit for CEs, ICF CCEUs (Core Competencies), credit toward MentorCoach Certification, or to receive a Certificate of Completion, you must be present for 6.5 of the eight classes. (Note: Each class is 90 minutes long.)  How can you be present for half a class? For one class, turn in only one of the two attendance codes.

Listening to / watching the class by recording does not count toward the attendance requirement for receiving CEs, credit toward MentorCoach Certification, ICF CCEs (Core Coaching Competencies), or a Class Certificate of Completion.

However, you can earn 12 hours of ICF CCEs (Resource Development) by listening to all eight 90-minute sessions and turning in the attendance codes and a short summary of each class.

20. Watching and Listening by Recording

Every class is recorded by Zoom video and audio. Some students may listen to / watch some or all of the classes by recording at their leisure, sometimes emailing in questions to Bryan between classes. We applaud and support this practice. We know one well-known Australian professor who used to end his week listening to the recordings of Chris Peterson’s lectures on Friday evenings, drinking white wine and reclining in his hot tub.

Note: Watching all eight sessions of the class by recording DOES qualify the student to receive twelve hours of ICF CCEUs (Resource Development). For students who will be listening to Bryan’s classes by recording, this class is pending approval for twelve hours of ICF CCEUs (ICF Resource Development) from the International Coach Federation. To qualify for these ICF CCEUs, students must listen to all recordings and submit all class attendance codes within a week after the final class along with a short summary of each class. They may also be asked to pass an open-book exam over the course content.

21. Cancellation and Refund Policy

You may withdraw your registration at any time before the beginning of the second class and receive a full refund. You are responsible for the full tuition amount if you do not withdraw before the beginning of the second class.