A couple of days ago I read a post by my friend Steve Borek titled Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda. The basic premise of the post was that many of us get to a certain point in our lives where we look back on our past and wish we'd done something different, or lament that we didn't take a shot at something when we had the chance. I liked what I read and I commented on the post, saying this:

"This is one of those things I think about when I wonder why I started trying to work for myself. I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed every day since I did, but I’ve had some great days that only would have come because of it."

His response back to me was this:

"Mitch, you probably got into your business because you wanted to make a difference. I’m sure you’ve done that many times over."

I have to admit that it made me start to think about my last 10 1/2 years of working on my own. I thought back to when I started on this venture and why I did it. Of course I had the reason that pushed me into it, but I also had a goal back then, one I hadn't thought about in a long time.

When I decided to work on my own, my intention was to only work in leadership and management training. My mission was to help improve companies and, well, the lives of others by helping managers be better, improve their relationship with their employees, and in the long run help companies run better, which increases profits and makes everyone happy.

That's not a bad goal, is it? Trying to make others happy in business often ends up being very profitable. Companies make products that make us happy, whether directly or indirectly. Other companies provide goods to keep us healthy, which makes us happy. And companies like mine, or people like me, provide services that ultimately hope to make someone happy because it hopefully makes them better, leaves them better, and they see positive results and thus are happier, and the people who work with them are happier because they know they're working for someone who has their overall best interest in mind.

Oftentimes I think most of us tend to get into the mindset that what we're doing is mainly to make money. That's not the worst goal in the world, but when we forget that a major part of what we do is provide fulfillment, our focus might change and we may not enjoy what we do as much. We also might not be as focused as we should be because none of us can ever afford to forget the human component of what we do. And everything has a human component to it; there are no exceptions.

I thank Steve for making me think, and I hope this article, and the link to Steve's article if you check it out, helps you to think about what you do in a much different light. If you're not doing what you do for fulfillment purposes, maybe you should think of doing something else.
 

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