Just finished reading an article in Fortune on the Google guys and all their economic success. It inspired a torrent of ideas (reading’s like that, isn’t it?). It got me thinking about the importance of showing up fully at work — giving the fullness of your brilliance and playing up fully at work. Being wildly passionate about your
To Do’s. Being breathtakingly committed to your big projects and best opportunities. Being a rock star in whatever you do each day to put bread on your table.
Work gives meaning to our lives. It influences our self worth and the way we perceive our place under the sun. Being great at what you do isn’t just something you do for the organisation you work for — it’s a gift you give yourself. Being spectacularly great at your work promotes personal respect, excitement and just makes your life a lot more interesting.
Good things happen to people who do good things. And when you bring your highest talents and deepest devotion to the work you do, what you are really doing is setting yourself up for a richer, happier and more fulfilling experience of living.
How do you feel after an ultra-productive day? How do you feel when you’ve given your best, had fun with your teammates and gone the extra mile for customers? How do you feel when you’ve brought more heart to what you do for a living? How do you feel when you reached for your greatest goals and grabbed them? It feels pretty good, doesn’t it?
And you don’t need to have the biggest title to do the best job. This point makes me think of the words of Dr Martin Luther King Junior— one of my heroes — who once observed: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as
Michelangelo painted, or as Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’ ”So be a rock star at work today. Walk onto the stage of this day and play you heart out. Give the performance of your life. Wow your audience and get them cheering for you. Be the Bono of selling staplers. Be the Keith Richards of accounting. Be the Jimi Hendrix of human resources. And when you get famous and people from all over ask you for your autograph, make sure you drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you.
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