Are you in a personal funk and aren't sure how to dig your way out of it? Try service. Serving other's has the power to wrangle your negative attention on your own problems and redirect that energy into something positive as you help another human being. Understanding that other's need your help can break a mental storm, restore a sense of purpose and put your body in motion that lubricates your own motivation to get back on track with the forward march of your life goals. Connecting with others through service can be a powerful resource in your personal development. "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." - Ghandi Are you in a professional rut and struggling to gain momentum? Try service. As John C. Maxwell discusses in his book The 360 Leader, your ability to lead is not inhibited by your current position, you can lead from anywhere in the company. If you are not sure where to start, look to see how you can invest in those in your charge, seek out a peer whom you an assist with a project or listen for an opportunity to take a weight from your supervisor. Assisting co-workers with development, peers with progress and supervisors with optimization builds value for yourself, team members and for the organization. Collaborating with others through service can be a powerful resource in your professional development. “Leadership is more disposition than position—influence others from wherever you are.” - John C. Maxwell Looking beyond yourself may be the best means to get our of your own head as well as out of your own way. Connecting with others can broaden your perspective as well as expand your opportunities. Collaboration with others strengthens all parties involved and builds valuable networks for mutual advancement. Connect and collaborate so that you can conquer your setbacks by investing in others. Connecting over shared values and collaborating for creative solutions also creates accountability for yourself as well as your community. See our prior article HERE on family service for creative ideas on how to teach these principles at home. SHARE your experiences with breaking the funk, getting out the rut and serving others with us. If this article from IZ Ventures has not helped you with creative solutions, this video on Sally the Secretary from IZ Media may be of value:
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Service. What a ways that you can creatively discuss and teach your family to have a servant's perspective? We were throwing out ideas and decided that a few simple projects that we could do would be: 1) Dinner - at dinner time you cannot put food or drink in your own mouth, nor could you ask for anything. If you want to take a bite, you will need to wait until someone at the table sitting at either side of you offers. If you want a drink, something much trickier, you will have to rely on the stable hands of your fellow consumers. In service the point is to look for opportunities to help others and to work to reach people where their needs are in a manner that communicates care to them. Someone in our group noted that service means treating others how you would want to be treated and we discussed that in doing so it is important to think about how that person will receive it rather than just doing what you think you would want. 2) Chores - we decided to divide the family chores differently than we had to streamline the process and once the responsibilities were lined out, we then informed the members of our family that they would be responsible for the chores of someone other than themselves. For the duration of the experiment, you would make the bed of the person you were assigned to serve, you would clean their room, do their laundry and assume the responsibility for their assigned chores. As noted above, service entails attempting to understand what is important to the person you are serving, not only doing unto others as you would have them do unto you (the golden rule) but listening and adjusting to their perspective. No one likes chores, but they are things that need to be done. The dinner experiment ended up being pretty fun. Next time we do it we need to make spaghetti or something messy like that. What creative family experiments or projects have you tried in order to teach a principle to the group? Have you tried anything similar in a professional setting? Connect. Collaborate. Conquer. I thought I would write something, but Dave Chappelle does a good job of laying it out with his comments which have now gone viral, "I let go of the salt." For those of you who don't recognize Dave Chappelle, you should go back and review his comedy as in his prime he was pivotal in setting the stage for this generation of informed comedians. Dave challenged the boundaries of comedy in a time before that was popular. His story reminds us that it is important to remember that as we pursue our personal and professional goals, ask the question, "Am I gaining the world and yet forfeiting my soul?" What I like about both what Dave says and the quote mentioned, there is no one to blame but yourself - are you achieving your goals while keeping your values intact? When asked why he chose to walk away from his successful sketch comedy show in 2005, Dave Chappelle offered "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King a thoughtful analogy about survival, courtesy of a nature show. Dave Chappelle on how success became a trap. Dave's comments have gone viral, "I let go of the salt," as he literally walked away from what was the biggest show of it's time, he set the mic down before he reached the peak of his potential in the market, and yet as he shares it he is the better for it. Dave went from being everywhere to being nowhere and he did that by choice. Slate gave a good summary of the video in their article (read more HERE): Chappelle explained. “I think that that was the irreconcilable moment for me—that I was in this very successful place, but the emotional content of it didn’t feel anything like what I imagined success should feel like. It just didn’t feel right.” He told a story about how Bushmen use salt to trap baboons, who can’t pull their hands out of holes once they’ve grabbed onto lumps and subsequently lead the Bushmen to water—and how financial success can be a similar kind of trap. He, however, was smart enough to let go of the salt. (Slate.com) What are your thoughts on what Mr. Chappelle says? How do you maintain vision and values in your pursuits?
Connect. Collaborate. Conquer. |
AuthorThoughts on personal and professional development. Jon Isaacson, The Intentional Restorer, is a contractor, author, and host of The DYOJO Podcast. The goal of The DYOJO is to help growth-minded restoration professionals shorten their DANG learning curve for personal and professional development. You can watch The DYOJO Podcast on YouTube on Thursdays or listen on your favorite podcast platform.
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