Everyone one of us grew up dreaming of a life of love, comfort, joy, prosperity and luxury. You and I both know that that’s not the life those who help make our lives more comfortable live.
The truth is that there is not a single maid who grew up dreaming of cleaning up after you as an ideal life. Sure, she may have adjusted to her life and makes for a reasonably good helping hand most of the time, but the fact is that that is not the future she dreamed of as a little girl.
It is not surprising then that she is likely to experience mood swings about certain chores or working on certain days. Annoying and inconvenient as this may be to your schedule and comfort, her foul moods and “poor attitude” have very little to do with you and a lot with what might have been for her. The life she leads is not her ideal.
Un-related as it may seem, this very same scenario plays out on the corporate scene – a place where many an employer would willingly give a whole arm to have the elusive satisfaction and comfort of having hired better-educated, experienced, professional, ambitious and goal-oriented talent.
They suffer the same inconveniences ranging from unreliable staffers to disorganised ones to perennial late-comers and those who simply will not carry their weight in the team.
Then there are the “Do Littles” who even with great education, requisite previous experience, all the training, tools and resources at their disposal remain underwhelming performers.
They are in a job. They are not living their ideal lives. Dad, mom or some other authority figure may have charted their career for them based on what seemed marketable at the time, but not necessarily what they themselves would have wanted.
So they went to college, studied, acquired the necessary qualifications and landed a job. Period. They will perform their tasks with some pressure and a couple of deadline reminders from eight to five and not a minute longer.
There is a world of difference between doing a job and offering a service. An income sure is important and a job that affords you that enables you to manage your your immediate living requirements.
That however is all it will be – a source of income. If that’s all you need from a job, that is all you will attract from it - an income. Not fulfillment, not influence, not satisfaction, not status and most certainly not elevation or growth of any kind.
Being in service on the other hand is living in a totally different planet. Those in service are your high-performing over-achieving men and women of unbelievably consistently fantastic frame of mind. They stand to be counted when it matters most.
They serve in the ad hoc committees without any prospect of material or other recognition – and do a perfect job of it over and above their work requirements. They not only excel at their work but take an interest in the overall task at hand.
They are not interested in the bottom line. They seek to understand and aim to surpass the top line.
They are least bothered by the minimalist attitudes to work most of their colleagues live by. They pay even less attention to the disparaging remarks regarding their enthusiasm by the “Do Littles” looking to recruit others into their club.
They forge forward giving their best possible to the tasks at hand.
Because they are aligned to their goals and understand that the lucky enterprises they serve at as channels of income, not sources.
These are the progressive men and women who continually scale up within their organisations and onto the proverbial “greener pastures”.
They are the people who thrive in any situation. Not because all situations serve them but because they make the key decision to be in service as a means of achieving their individual ideal lives.
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