I hate whiners. I don’t have time for them. They suck the energy from good, hard working people trying to stay focused and positive. To be a success in the world today you simply cannot afford to even be in the vicinity of a whiner; a complainer; someone who would rather look for someone to blame rather than create a goal, focus on the goal and work really, really hard to achieve that goal.
I was recently accused by someone at one of my workshops of committing a heinous crime. This person referred to me as a “workaholic”. And, yes as a professional business coach I occasionally do log in quite a few hours in a week. But my argument (and I’m sticking with it) to this accusation was surprisingly easy. I told him with some emotion and honest conviction that I was not a workaholic.
Here’s how I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this person was wrong. You see I believe that a workaholic should be defined as someone who works excessively at a job that they do not enjoy and many times actually hate doing! And, in fact, even though I put in a lot of hours, I absolutely have a fabulous time doing what I do. I look forward to getting up every morning and going to work. Really! I’m absolutely passionate about what I do and you need to be as well.
“If you don’t love what you’re doing you’ll fail. Who in their right mind would do what it takes to be successful in business, if they didn’t love it.” He went on to say, “You need a lot of passion for what you’re doing because it’s so hard without passion, any rational person would just give up.”
Steve Jobs quote I love being a hard working business coach, helping and advising the many business people and executives from around the world that I work with. I think that all of my previous life experiences were a dress rehearsal for being a successful business coach. I love my job.
Holy Cow What A Ride!
Understand that I was raised in an environment where my step father went to work every day, (until he was past 70) to a job that he hated. I asked him once why he did it if he didn’t enjoy his work. His answer was simply, “You’re not supposed to like it. You go to work, you work then you come home to get ready to do it again. That’s it.”
We’ll today I will tell you he was absolutely wrong! Life is much too short to force that kind of attitude upon yourself and your family. We get one and only one shot at life! So I believe that we need to make that one shot worth the effort.
If you’re stuck in a job that you don’t enjoy or don’t get a sense of accomplishment out of, or just don’t like, do yourself a favour and figure out a way to turn that around, or get out of it now. Do something you enjoy and your life will change. I see it every day in my business coaching practice where a business owner or executive is struggling with their business and it’s tearing their business and personal life apart. And, in many ways the struggle comes in a large part due to their lost hope, passion or desire for the job or challenge.
Do what you love and work hard at it. You and everyone around you will be better for it. I have a quote in my office from 83 year old Mavis Leyrer. Mavis says:
“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, “Holy Cow, What a Ride!”
This quote is attributed to Hunter Thompson.
