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Enjoy Work Not Endure it
Life Is Supposed to Be Enjoyed, Not Endured: A Business Leader’s Guide to Success with Joy
This post is about how to enjoy work not endure it. Let me ask you something: When was the last time you actually enjoyed your workday? And I don’t mean that fleeting satisfaction when you close a deal or finish a project. I’m talking about genuinely enjoying the process—the meetings, the challenges, the daily grind that fills most of your waking hours.
If you’re drawing a blank, you’re not alone. After speaking to Fortune 500 companies and organizations across the globe for over three decades, I’ve noticed something alarming: most business professionals have convinced themselves that success requires suffering. That meaningful achievement must be painful. That if you’re not stressed, exhausted, and barely holding it together, you’re not working hard enough.
Here’s the truth nobody’s telling you: That’s complete nonsense.
Let’s talk more about how you can actually enjoy work not endure it.
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: The Corporate Endurance Contest Nobody Signed Up For
Somewhere along the way, corporate culture turned into an endurance contest. We celebrate the executive who pulls all-nighters, admire the manager who never takes vacation, and promote the person who responds to emails at 3 AM. We’ve glorified misery and called it dedication.
I know this game well because I used to play it—not in the boardroom, but on stage as a national headline comedian. I shared stages with Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy, and Rodney Dangerfield. And let me tell you something about Rodney that most people don’t know: despite achieving massive success, he was one of the most unhappy people I ever met. He had everything—fame, money, respect—but he never learned how to enjoy any of it.
That’s what happens when you endure your way to the top instead of enjoying the climb.
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: Why High-Performers Are Burning Out
The statistics are staggering. According to recent workplace studies, executive burnout has reached epidemic levels. High-performing leaders are leaving their positions in record numbers. Why? Because they’ve spent years checking boxes and climbing ladders without ever stopping to ask themselves a fundamental question: “Am I actually enjoying this?”
Your mindset determines whether you enjoy your career or merely endure it. Let me be crystal clear: I’m not talking about some fluffy, feel-good philosophy here. This is about sustainable high performance, building companies that thrive and about leadership that inspires rather than exhausts.
Here’s what I’ve learned after interviewing hundreds of C-level executives and industry leaders: the most successful ones aren’t the ones who suffer the most. They’re the ones who’ve mastered the art of enjoying the journey while achieving extraordinary results.
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: The Hidden Cost of the Endurance Mindset
When you adopt an endurance mindset, you pay a price that goes far beyond your personal wellbeing. Your team feels it, and so does your family. Your bottom line feels it.
Think about it: What kind of leader are you when you’re merely enduring? You’re reactive instead of creative, managing problems instead of seeing opportunities, draining energy from your team instead of energizing them, and making decisions from a place of stress rather than strategic clarity.
I learned this lesson the hard way. At the peak of my comedy career, I walked away from it all. People thought I was crazy. I had achieved what most comedians only dream about—regular gigs, national recognition, a Showtime special. But I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. It had become something I endured rather than something I loved.
That decision to walk away and pursue my true passion—helping people discover greater joy, enthusiasm, and success—was the best career move I ever made. Not despite leaving success behind, but because I chose fulfillment over mere achievement.
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: The Business Case for Enjoying Your Work
Let’s talk bottom line, because I know that’s what matters in business. Companies with engaged, enthusiastic employees outperform their competitors by 147%. Teams led by positive, energized leaders show 31% higher productivity. Organizations that prioritize employee wellbeing see 41% lower absenteeism.
These aren’t just nice-to-have benefits. This is competitive advantage.
When you shift from enduring to enjoying, several things happen:
Your decision-making improves. Research shows that positive emotions broaden your thinking and help you see solutions you’d otherwise miss. When you’re in endurance mode, you develop tunnel vision. You miss opportunities. You make defensive decisions instead of bold ones.
Your influence multiplies. People don’t follow leaders who are suffering through their roles. They follow leaders who are passionate, enthusiastic, and genuinely engaged with their work. Enjoyment is contagious. So is misery. Which one are you spreading?
Your resilience increases. Here’s the irony: when you enjoy what you’re doing, you actually become better equipped to handle the inevitable challenges and setbacks. Enjoyment isn’t about avoiding difficulty—it’s about having the energy and mindset to tackle it effectively.
Your innovation accelerates. Breakthroughs don’t come from grinding it out. They come from minds that are engaged, curious, and open. When you’re merely enduring, you’re in survival mode. Survival mode doesn’t innovate. It simply tries to avoid failure.
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: The Shift: From Endurance to Enjoyment
So how do you make this shift? How do you move from enduring your career to enjoying it? Let me share the strategies I’ve taught to thousands of business leaders.
1. Question Your Suffering Story
We all have stories we tell ourselves about why work has to be hard, why success requires sacrifice, why enjoyment is somehow unprofessional or immature. These stories aren’t truths—they’re choices.
Start paying attention to the narrative running through your head. When you catch yourself thinking, “This is just what it takes” or “Successful people have to push through pain,” stop and ask: “Is that actually true? Or is that just what I’ve been conditioned to believe?”
I was told by a guidance counselor that I didn’t have the intelligence for college. I was voted “Least Likely to Succeed” in high school. Those were stories other people tried to write for me. I could have endured life believing them, or I could write my own story. I chose the latter. You can too.
2. Redefine Success to Include Enjoyment
Most business leaders define success purely by outcomes: revenue, market share, promotions, titles. But here’s what nobody tells you: if you’re miserable while achieving those outcomes, you’re not successful—you’re just accomplished at suffering.
Redefine success to include how you feel during the process. Ask yourself: “Am I bringing enthusiasm to this project? Am I energized by this challenge? Am I growing in ways that fulfill me?”
Success without enjoyment is just a prettier version of failure.
3. Build Enjoyment Into Your Daily Systems
This isn’t about waiting until Friday to enjoy life or planning a vacation six months from now. This is about finding moments of genuine enjoyment in your daily work.
Maybe it’s the creative problem-solving in a strategy session, or the collaboration with a talented team. Maybe it’s the satisfaction of mentoring someone. Whatever it is, identify what you actually enjoy about your work and intentionally create more of those experiences.
One CEO I worked with started each Monday morning staff meeting with three minutes where team members shared something that made them laugh over the weekend. Sounds trivial, right? But it transformed the energy of those meetings and set a tone of positivity that carried through the entire week.
4. Master the Art of Positive Reframing
Our brains have a negative bias. We’re wired to focus on threats, problems, and what could go wrong. That’s great for survival, but terrible for enjoyment and innovation.
The good news? You can train your brain to see things differently. When you face a challenge, instead of immediately going to “This is terrible,” get in the habit of asking, “What’s the opportunity here? What could I learn? How might this turn out better than I expect?”
I call this getting your SHIFT together—and it’s one of the most powerful success strategies you can master.
5. Stop Glorifying Busy and Start Honoring Energy
Corporate culture loves to celebrate busy. “I’m so busy” has become a status symbol. But busy doesn’t equal productive, and it certainly doesn’t equal enjoyable.
Start paying attention to your energy instead of your calendar. What activities energize you? What drains you? How can you design your work life to maximize the former and minimize the latter?
This isn’t about working less—it’s about working smarter in a way that sustains your enthusiasm rather than depleting it.
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: The Leadership Multiplier Effect
Here’s where this really gets powerful: when you shift from enduring to enjoying, you don’t just transform your own experience—you transform everyone around you.
Your team watches how you show up. They notice whether you’re energized or exhausted, observe whether you approach challenges with curiosity or dread, and feel whether you’re present or just going through the motions.
When you model enjoyment, you give your team permission to enjoy their work too. You create a culture where people bring their best thinking, their creative ideas, and their genuine enthusiasm. That’s the kind of culture that attracts top talent, retains high performers, and outperforms competitors.
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: The Unstoppable Attitude
I’ve spent my career teaching people how to start each day with an unstoppable attitude to succeed, regardless of their circumstances. But here’s the key: an unstoppable attitude isn’t about grinding through misery. It’s about finding joy in the journey.
When you genuinely enjoy what you’re doing, you become unstoppable. Not because you’re working harder than everyone else, but because you’re working from a place of enthusiasm, creativity, and genuine engagement.
Obstacles don’t stop you—they intrigue you. Setbacks don’t defeat you—they inform you. Challenges don’t drain you—they energize you.
That’s the difference between endurance and enjoyment. Endurance runs out. Enjoyment fuels itself.
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: The Choice Is Yours
Life is too short to spend it enduring. Your career is too important to approach it with resignation. Your team deserves a leader who’s genuinely engaged, not just going through the motions.
You have a choice right now. You can continue believing that success requires suffering, that achievement demands sacrifice, that professionalism means suppressing joy. Or you can make a different choice.
You can decide that you’re going to enjoy this journey. You’re going to find moments of genuine satisfaction in your daily work, and lead with enthusiasm instead of exhaustion. You’re going to build a career and a life that you don’t need to escape from.
This isn’t about positive thinking or pretending everything’s perfect. It’s about making a conscious decision about how you want to experience your professional life.
Because here’s the truth: You’re going to spend the next decade building your career either way. Why not enjoy it?
Enjoy Work Not Endure it: Your Next Move
So what’s your next move? How are you going to shift from enduring to enjoying?
Start today. Not next week when the project’s done, or next month when things calm down. Not next year when you get that promotion. Today.
Find one thing in your workday that you can genuinely enjoy. Maybe it’s your morning coffee before the chaos starts, or a conversation with a colleague who makes you laugh. Maybe it’s that moment when you solve a problem that’s been bothering you.
Find it. Acknowledge it. Appreciate it. Then do it again tomorrow.
That’s how you build an unstoppable attitude, create sustainable success, and transform from someone who endures their career to someone who genuinely enjoys building something meaningful.
Life is supposed to be enjoyed, not endured. Your career is supposed to fulfill you, not deplete you. Success is supposed to feel good, not just look good on paper.
Make the shift. Get your SHIFT together. Start enjoying this incredible journey called your career.
Because the world doesn’t need more exhausted executives grinding their way to the top. It needs more energized leaders who’ve discovered that success and enjoyment aren’t opposites—they’re partners.
Now go out there and prove it.
About Steve Rizzo: Steve Rizzo is a Hall of Fame inspirational speaker on mindset, former national headline comedian, and bestselling author of “Motivate THIS!” and “Get Your SHIFT Together.” He works with Fortune 500 companies worldwide, teaching business leaders how to shift their mindset from failure to success, from unhappiness to fulfillment. Learn more at www.steverizzo.com
