How Did You Feel Coming To Work Today?
June 25th, 2007 by Thom
A few weeks ago several members of our Office we fortunate enough to attend the Maximum Impact leadership conference. In this short blog I’d like to touch on related ideas that two of the speakers discussed. Tim Sanders spoke of “The Power of a Positive Mind”. While John Maxwell’s talk was entitled “Talent is Never Enough”.
So I’d like to pose a couple of questions for everyone out there to think about and interact on. First question: Are you using the talents God has blessed you with? Second question: How do you feel going to work every day?
Both these questions are related, just as the two talks were related. Following are just a few of the insights I gleamed from the talks and how they were related.
Talent is never enough. We all have been blessed with talents. Hopefully we are using them. But talent alone just won’t make for a fulfilling life. You need to have a passion for what you do. If you have passion you’ll have energy. If there’s no passion there will be no energy. But how can you have passion if you don’t have a mission, a purpose in life. We each have a purpose. Do you know what yours is? If so, are you following it? If not, why not? And if we don’t know what our purpose in life is how do we find out? My humble response is get closer to God. He’ll show you. What do you think?
John Maxwell stated: “ Only a life lived for others is worthwhile.” If we invest our lives in others good things will happen. There will be a ripple effect. The lives we touch will touch other lives and on and on it will go. It’s the “paying it forward” principle at work. If we make someone else happy and share generously we become part of the solution instead of being part of the problem. And don’t we all want to be a part of the solution?
The more you believe in yourself and your mission, the more you’ll accomplish. It’s much easier to go to work in a positive mood if you believe in your mission there and if your talents are being used. Studies show, if you go to work in a positive mood you’ll be more productive. You’ll have more energy and excitement. You’ll feel good about yourself and what you are doing. And so will those around you. You will be impacting other lives in a positive way.
That’s what I want to do. I want to use the talents God gave me for the purpose God has directed me. And I want to affect other lives for the good and give God the glory in the process.
What about you? How did you feel coming to work today? Let me know.
Let’s see- first question: Am I using the talents God has given to me? You are certainly right that talent is only one ingredient. I have a talent for design and architecture but it wasn’t until I realized that my gifts from God includes my love for children that I am able to fully apply my talent. How do I feel each day going to work? I enjoy work but I have to admit that at times it is a struggle-being a mom of four children (5,7,9,12) requires me to balance especially since my gift is the love of children. Fortunately, I am at an office that understands the importance of family and they allow me the flexibility to balance the many demands of work and family.
It is funny- I always have had a heart for children but never put 2 and 2 together.
Am I doing all I can? Certainly not- everyone of us has that to do list and mine includes “building” a children’s collection of “morals and family” books using children’s illustrations. It is in the early stages.