I am an avid stumbler. I love it. I was pressing the stumble button the other day when I came across a page on the abolition of work. It’s a very insightful post but that’s not why I am mentioning it. It got me thinking. Why do we work and what do we want to work for?

Why do we work?

In a blog post I have a limited amount of space to answer a question of this magnitude. Some do it for joy, they love what they do but I would think that most of us do it to stay alive. Simple answer. The question is: what attracted us to the line of work we are currently undertaking? For me, I liked the idea of teaching and doing research. My kind of research is pragmatic so I am aiming to improve something and study how it’s done. That said, I only really do that 10% of the time I am at work. 90% of the time I am doing admin or some other requirement of my job. So why do I work?

I do it because I have to, not necessarily because I want to. I was reading this morning that we were made to enjoy our life. There are two groups of people I think. Those that do something they enjoy and make it and those the don’t. Those that end up living their live and enjoying it are far and few between. I rarely meet individuals who have taken steps towards their dreams. Perhaps it’s the overwhelming security complex we have as people I can’t say for sure.

I remember a while ago I was blessed to spend time with a life coach who showed me something about myself I didn’t realise. Every time we talked about something I was dreaming about or something I really wanted to do I had automatically created the excuse for why it wasn’t possible. I was particularly afraid of promoting myself. She taught me to visualise a stinky Mullet every time I felt that fear. After a few times of doing it I no longer felt that fear. I suspect the most successful of us don’t stop to anticipate what might go wrong for too long. If they do I can’t say that it bothers them all that much.

I think we work out of necessity but when you get right down to it… I believe we work because we have to. Obviously when you see people enjoying their work and succeeding you have to wonder… what is it that they do that’s different to me? I have found this one thing. They pursue their goals relentlessly as though they already had it. I will leave you with that thought.

What do we work for?

Why we work is really a no brainer. What we work for is definitely a more complex question. I believe it’s a question of how we identify ourselves. We usually make the mistake of attaching our ’self’ or ‘identity’ to our work and make that apart of us. Who told you had to work the same job your whole life? You are not your job (thanks Fight Club). What you do is not you. You are you. You with all your personality traits, habits and problems that’s you. What you do… you do out of necessity because you have to do to survive in this culture. If you are a go getter you will reach your goals and do something different. But guess what you will still be you and not what you do. Try this: next time someone asks you what you do for a living say, ‘Well I work for such and such doing this or that.’ Don’t say, I’m a lawyer because you’re not a lawyer that’s what you do… that’s behaviour… it’s not you.

I believe the majority of us work because of our identity. We think or have been brainwashed more likely, into thinking that work is us. You are a human being. You can’t be anymore than that. You have a uniqueness, talents, gifts which you need to offer to the world (I am saying this to me big time). But, you are not the job you have. You are not what you drive where you live or what you eat. You are you. That’s it, baby.

As you go about your weekend why not relax in the knowledge that you don’t have to be anything. Work is what you do for money. I am hoping that when I can come up with something of more value to offer instead of a 9-5 then I won’t have to work as much. I am certainly going to have to stretch myself to get a house. As I heard someone say once: You don’t work for money you have something of value you offer to someone who exploits it so they can make more than you. Put another way, you have been hired because of your value to solve a problem. That doesn’t mean you will do it forever. One day you may come up with another way to add value and people will exchange more money for that. It ain’t the money it’s the value you create.

So we work out of necessity (most of us) and we work for our identity. I wonder if you accepted a different identity if your behaviour would change? What if you began seeing yourself living a dream? How would that impact your life?

This part two of an on-going series of articles about bringing the heart back to business.  Click here to read part one.

When I left school I had a very bad overall position score (SAT equivalent). So bad that I am not going to tell you how bad it was. Some people know and they may spill the beans but I won’t. Let me just put it this way. In my final year I had eight subjects (let’s say) and I failed six of them. I did so bad that I got the fourth worse score you could get at the time. I was devastated.  Now I am a lecturer.  Remember… if you fail it’s not the end.  Here’s why.

You can come back from anything … except death

As Frank Sinatra said, ‘When I fall down flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race… that’s life!’  You are never so down that you can’t get up.  I know that some people think that a setback is the end.  It’s not.  I can tell you from my life experience that a bad result at school doesn’t mean the end.   What it means for you is that you may have a harder road than most as you pick yourself up BUT you will be all the better for it.   Those that have success without really trying learn a different sort of failure later on.  But that’s another topic. Unless you’re dead, gone and done get up and start again.

If you fall that means you can get straight back up

A man I have come to admire is my father.  That man has had more setbacks than anyone else I know.  Yet whenever he makes a mistake or does something stupid he turns it into an opportunity.  This may sound like a cliche but your greatest mistake so far, can be turned around into your greatest victory.  When I got my bad score I had real sook (as we say in Australia).  But, I realised after a while that life was happening and I needed qualifications to do something to make money.  So I found the worse college in Queensland and enrolled.  The college was so bad that my score was the cut off point!  What if I decided to take no action… I would not be where I am now.  Sure, I’m no millionaire but I am employed by a University Full Time and I handed in some revisions for my PhD thesis last week.  In April (God willing) I will be a doctor.  That’s another post for another day BUT if I can do it, so can you.

So what’s your choice going to be?

Life is full of losers.  Don’t be one of them.  Being a winner takes guts, faith, determination and courage but most of all it takes heart.  When life kicks you in the doodads you have two choices.  You either wind up what you’re doing and go home or you take a lesson from Steve Waugh (a great leader and a former captain of the Australian Cricket Team):

It doesn’t matter how pretty you look it’s how many runs you get. 

In other words: Get up and build a better life.  It’s my prayer that if you read this you will take what I have said to heart and begin to get up, dust yourself off and go on to glory.  I know you can do it.

I have found out recently that [tag]Greenpeace[/tag] have filed a suit against [tag]Apple[/tag]’s new [tag]iPhone[/tag]. The question that I think us business minded people are asking is: how will this kind of negative word of mouth effect the [tag]toxic iPhone[/tag]? Even though it’s clear to me that the phone violates laws and as a result could have major problems for the future of the planet, people seem to showing support for the iPhone. When I read this I thought… why is this the case?

What we have here is a clash of value systems. The first is based on materialism and the other is based on [tag]environmentalism[/tag]. A materialist philosophy puts ’stuff’ ahead of people and other concerns, whereas an environmental philosophy puts the planet and it’s concern to the fore. In my book materialism wins hands down and always will. Why? Because largely we are a materialistic society. Economics come before the environment. However, this environmentalist concern against the iPhone is a business problem. What can they do to appease environmentalist concerns? Should they even bother?

Yes they should, I think, make some kind of statement about the toxic chemicals and how it can be best dealt with, environmentally speaking. I say this for two reasons. I think that a company has to show a human face (which Apple do regularly). It would be consistent with their marketing strategy for the mac as well as for their iPhone product. Secondly, people are much more aware of environmental concerns these days thanks to the constant coverage it gets in the media. We are having an election here in Australia in a short while and what each party thinks of a pulp mill project in Tasmania is a source of hot debate.

This is a business problem for Apple. Granted, not a major one but I think they need to show their customers that their values are appreciated and that they take the environment problems seriously. After all this is one of their promises to their clients is it not? How they do this could be in the form of an impact statement, a plan to recycle old iPhones that leads to their safe disposal, an reduced price upgrade option for iPhone users if they want a version that’s less toxic and so on. Companies cannot afford not to take such issues lightly in modern times.  More importantly for a greener Apple, there needs to be some decisive action on their part.

I often read stories about [tag]bloggers[/tag] making money and I think to myself wow, I wish I could do that. But wishing does not make it so. What makes things so is faith and faith by the bucket loads. That said, you don’t get to the end by overnight. You build great things by taking one step at a time. It takes time, which is a given, but more importantly I want to highlight that it takes one step at a time. I have just completed a PhD that took me a long time to finish. I started in late 2003 and I have just submitted it to be examined. Each day presented new challenges and new problems. I think at the best of times I have felt like I couldn’t do it but I got there. When it came to the writing parts, I wrote something each day. Whether it was seven pages or two words… each day I made progress.  Let me tell you though it wasn’t easy.

Why am I saying this? There is this underlying assumption that all we need is the right elements and everything will work. What a load of crap. Things take time. All of the great entrepreneurs of this era all built there businesses one at a time. The question becomes… how long is long? As long as it takes. Here are some examples of progressive growth that I have found from life, work and the web:

1. Problogger

Okay so I am partial to this guy because he lives in Australia and yes he is good as what he does. Sucking up aside, let’s look at the reality of problogger’s growth. Check out this graph:

Note the growth pattern down the bottom (you can read more on the story here). As far as I can tell it was almost a whole year before problogger became even close to a “money maker”. For those of us who write for a living, that’s a lot of hours. Let’s also be honest… there’s the knowledge involved in that as well. Knowledge, comes as a price. Everything I know about business has come from study (over ten years) and two failed attempts at startups. You better believe that has cost me. Think about all the hours of work with little noticeable difference. Could you do it or are you in it for the insta-hit?

2. Richard Branson

I recently read his book so it’s an at hand example. Sorry about that. I am not sure if this man is a hero or a villain I just can’t work it out. However, in following his life I found that he has developed a long term view of things perhaps mixed with short term megalomania! Reading his story though you get the impression that building the Virgin empire that has taken his entire life. That’s a long time, though each business and each [tag]failure[/tag] provided growth for him as for his fortune. He began in the late sixties with his magazine, then he moved into music (1970’s) then everything else (1980’s-now). That’s a brief summary but think about the time, the daily decisions, the commitment. I know what it takes to fail… but this kind of success comes with a tremendous sacrifice.

3. Peter Spann

I have to say at the outset that I think this man is one of the most interesting people I am yet to meet. You can learn more about him here. His story of how he made millions from being dead broke is inspirational if not more than a little strange. He took time and stuck to his plan day in and day out. His story is very inspirational, even if some of the financial advice is hard to follow. Still, that systematic [tag]decision making[/tag], step after step, led him to becoming a fairly wealthy bloke.

4. Joyce Meyer

As a leading Christian author Joyce Meyer now enjoys a wide audience spanning several million people. I had the pleasure of seeing her in [tag]Brisbane[/tag], last time she was here and she was talking with the a pretty severe flu.  What I admired the most was that despite this and having to been helped on to the stage and off again she got through her message.  Now that’s dedication.  When I am sick I can tell you that I am the first to pull the sympathy card.  Not this lady.  I was listening to her story on a CD and she was talking about the years she spent not being able to get access to speaking engagements because of her obscurity and being a woman and so on.  It was interesting to me how she kept doing what she could day after day and despite the setbacks took one step after the other to get where she is today.

There are so many more people I could call up as examples (Ricardo Semler).  All of them made it by taking one carefully thought out step after the other.  So how do we get there?  I don’t know and maybe you don’t either.   I know this: I take one step and then I can take the next one after that.  Until I take that first step, I can’t take the other.  So in short: do something lest you do nothing but make sure you are doing it slowly, confidently and with full assurance of faith.   Slow but steady growth is the order of the day.

I recently had the pleasure of buying a can of [tag]Dr. Pepper[/tag] from a local man in a shopping centre. Considering we don’t have Dr. Pepper here in [tag]Brisbane[/tag] the price was considerably more expensive that you might think… but I didn’t mind paying it. Why? Every time I go into the store the man greets me with a smile and always has something great to say. You can just tell he absolutely loves what he does. How can I tell that he does? Because his [tag]heart[/tag] is in what he is doing.

The opposite of what I am saying

Yesterday I bought my very first table at a local furniture store. The man who runs the store was sitting in a recliner with his eyes closed and didn’t even acknowledge us as we walked in the store. Probably didn’t help that I said, ‘Wow, they are dead on a Saturday,’ as we walked in. Whoops! The table we had picked out of the catalogue was ordered and the man hardly moved. Now I am not one to make[tag]judgments[/tag] on the spot but I would say he was not happy with his job and his heart was somewhere else.

Where is your heart?

My heart is in creative, idea generating things. I like to make new things out of old combinations and build things. Now, I don’t know which end of the hammer to pick up but in my heart this is how I am.  The point of this post to ask … is your heart in what you do?  Check yourself.  Ask yourself… do I want to do this for the right reasons or the wrong reasons?  Look at the mirror and ask yourself what’s the deal?

How do you know your heart is not in it

When you go to work do you feel the ‘ugh’ feeling?  What do I mean?  A while ago a colleague of mine walked up to the office he was in and he had recently quit.  I said to him, ‘Why?’.  He said to me, ‘Every time I walked up the stairs to come to my office I would get depressed.’  I instantly saw his point.

Now I have to caution you here.  Sometimes you have to build something else in order to move forward before you make the shift.  But, don’t lie to yourself.  Tell the [tag]truth[/tag].  If you know you aren’t putting your heart into it… find out what you should be and go for it.  That however is another story for another post.

I am moving house at the moment and we finally got to see the place we are moving into today in full detail.  I have NEVER in my life moved into a house that was so filthy.  Normally, I wouldn’t blog about this kind of thing but I mean MY GOD!  The windows were dirty, the walls had black scuff marks on them, the oven was unclean and so I could go on.  Have you ever had this [tag]problem?[/tag]  Here are four reasons why shouldn’t do the same thing.

Remember the Golden Rule? 

Do unto others?  Why not think of the poor sucker who is going to move in after you.  How about them?  Now we have to clean the house just to make it habitable.  Why not buck current trends and scare somebody by doing something helpful.  I sure wish the person that came before me in my new house had done me this way… now that I have all this CLEANING to do!

A sense of personal respect

To me somebody who leaves a rental property in that kind of state (unless physically or mentally incapacitated) is saying, ‘you know what I couldn’t give a royal damn about whoever is coming after me.’  I see this kind of thinking on the road all the time.  Why do people compete for a space on the freeway?  Don’t you know that one day you will be DEAD and then where will you be rushing too?  Take you time and be courteous.   People who have no personal respect treat others the way they have been treated themselves.   Without recognising it we become the very thing we desire not to become by virtue of the fact that we are displaying the very behaviour we find so abhorrent in others.   So have some personal respect and do something you admire so others can likewise admire you.  Starting thinking about how you effect people’s lives and especially what you can do to make a positive difference… even if they never see you doing it!

All I have really said in this post is that you should display the behaviour that you yourself think you deserved to be treated with.  Now, this is a note to remind us in the world of business not to think that we must not have a different mindset when we rub shoulders with our colleagues.   Who you are on the field is who you are in life.  Don’t give me that, ‘yeah but this is business,’ poppycock … that means you choose to be an arrogant so and so who shelves his morals when convenient.  Don’t do this!  Be different by really [tag]being kind[/tag] and caring about those you know.  Why not frighten the hell of them by doing something out of the blue for someone you hate?  I am telling you this a really liberating way to live.

Really the golden rule could be put this way, ‘Do unto others what you think you deserve (or would like) done to you.  I think Jesus got this right!  Now, if you will excuse me I have packing and cleaning to do.

Have you ever noticed that [tag]Virgin[/tag] are the same no matter where they are? Consider people that [tag]work[/tag] for them… they all look like they are having fun don’t they? I have worked in a few places that felt like death on a stick. If you met someone who left there and you talked about it what is the thing they remember most of all? How bad it was to work there! In most places there are [tag]strategic[/tag] level values that filter down to the place where we work. The day to day reflects the bigger picture ‘feelings’ and ‘values’ that are at work in the organization. What is it that you wish your [tag]business[/tag] to be known for? A good ‘heart’? A fun place? Well here are some of the things you will have to think about in order to make that happen.

What do you want your values to be?

[tag]Gloria Jean[/tag] have worked well in this country to portray a loving image. They are very public with their charity work and make it known what their [tag]values[/tag] are. What do you want people to think when they think about you? Work it out. For me, I want people to engage with me (either through my work as a lecturer or whatever) and feel like they got something out of it. If my business is teaching… I want people to say certain things about me… so I set strategic values that I live by in my teaching. For example, I want people to leave with a concept… so I use a narrative structure and teach around one idea. If nothing else you will leave that lecture with that idea.

Say you are a tree-lopper. You want people to think something of you don’ t you? You want people to say, ‘that tree-lopper is the best damned tree-lopper that I have ever used I want to use that person again!’ What is the impression you want to give to them? What are the values you want them to recognise? Get the picture? If not, consider it this way. What do you want people to say (i.e. word of mouth marketing) about your business? Write down a list immediately!

Building in values from the top down

Most westernised business have some semblance of a traditional hierarchy. Now before you pick up your rocks let me explain what I mean. There is usually a managerial structure in place that allows you to recognise a so-called chain of command. The person who is at the top of the chain has to create the flow on to the other people in the business. Once you have worked out what you want your business to represent you need to begin working in the values as a matter of practice. This is not an easy thing to do especially if those in the business are resisting it. However, you must persist with this over an extended period of time. Think of ways you can demonstrate these values without the use of coercion and [tag]bullying.[/tag] Be clever!

Finding leaders to work with

Every movement in the history of man is based on a set of values. Setting these values should NOT as spurious as a mission or value statement. Nothing wrong with such things but there must always be practical outlets on a day to day basis. Hiring the right kind of people who share your values is more important than hiring people who are competent. I didn’t stutter! Your [tag]business[/tag] would do better strategically if you had people with passion in the stead of good skills because that passion will flow on to your customers and they will recognise it.

Being consistent

The final phase after working in the values you want your business to reflect from the top down through key leaders is to be consistent. One thing you have to admire about a business with values like Virgin for example, is the consistency of their approach. Sure, they don’t always get it right but each time I have encountered them either on a plane or someone else I have found their approach to be consistent and my engagement with their brand likewise. This is clearly a strategic vision that has been cautiously worked in over time. It’s this kind of consistency that has made it what it is today.

Working with the right people

A general manager friend of mine said something which I have not forgotten. He said that it’s very hard to flow with people who don’t have similar values. It’s easy enough to say but without the right people willing to work with the strategic value set you have chosen for your business it simply will never come to pass. Author John Scott says that the highest form of [tag]power[/tag] is [tag]collective mobilisation[/tag]. When people work together it creates cohesion that no other social power can match. The problem can be that people often get sidetracked by career, selfish goals and other things at the neglect of the strategic vision. Nothing wrong with having goals or looking to get ahead, that’s important. A careful balance is suggested here.

A good strategic set of values is only as good as the environment it’s going into it. Think of your business as a seedbed that grows values overtime. With the right group of people growing the values day after day the right kind of results can ensue and good leadership is always important. Without these elements… you will NEVER have the values flowing out of your business that you desire.