Puttin’ Your Nose To The Lovestone
I made a comment to one of my Mastermind buddies a while back, while in the midst of a big project. I said something about “putting my nose back to the grindstone.” He replied, “Dude, take a moment and get back to the lovestone. The grindstone will just grind away passion, creativity, and aliveness.”
Do you think of your work often as a “grindstone?” I know I used to – which is why I decided to go into business for myself. I was all-too-happy to trade in the “9 to 5″ working for someone else for the “8 to 6″ of working for myself.
And yet even though I love what I do, there are moments of “grinding” that go along with any job. Po Bronson, in his book, “What Should I Do With My Life?”, writes about how finding your passion can carry you through those times of “grind”, because you’re loving what you do.
And I think he’s right. Most of the time.
All of us drop out of “wanna” mode and into “gotta” mode from time to time. Just because I love helping people live more richly spiritually-infused lives doesn’t mean I jump for joy when it’s time to do my taxes.
You may or may not love what you do, but I’ll guarantee you there are tasks in your business life that you are less than gung ho about.
What you’re dealing with, however, is two conversations:
- the Macro: loving your work’s context (what you do for a living), and
- the Micro: loving your work’s content (what you do as you do what you do for a living).
If you have passion missing in either the Macro or the Micro, then you’re in “grindstone” country.
Let’s take a look at MacroLand first…
“Wait – I know what you’re going to say – but I can’t change jobs!”
Who said anything about changing jobs? Now, if you’re in a dead-ender, and you want to get out, then get out. I’m the last person to tell you that you’re stuck in your job forever, and I’m a big believer in the “you gotta do what you love” philosophy of life.
It may be a quick shift, or you may need to transition out with a long-range plan; but if you want to make that kind of change, you can do it in a way that works for you.
But there are lots of times when you can’t – or just don’t want to – change jobs. And I understand that. There are ways to find the passion again, even if you’ve got to stay put.
Sometimes finding your passion is as easy as giving yourself permission to do what you love the most in your job. If you love serving others, but you’ve gotten lost behind a mountain of administrative brouhaha, then make the time to get yourself back in front of the people so you can remember what you’re doing it all for.
Other times, however, it may not be so easy to see. You may not see so easily what it is about your business that you enjoy, or what your business does that’s so important, or so valuable in the lives of others.
I found (and I’ve used) an exercise from Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, called The Five Why’s. You write down what you do on a piece of paper, and then ask yourself “Why?” (as in ‘why is that important?’) five times. It helps you get to the root of the reasons for your work.
Example:
“I sell tires.” (Why? Why is that important?)
“Because people need to get to where they need to go.” (Why?)
“Because if they couldn’t, people couldn’t do the things they need to do.” (Why?)
“Ambulances couldn’t run, fire trucks couldn’t run, kids couldn’t get to school, food couldn’t get where it needs to go, etc.” (Why?)
“Society would break down, and opportunities and lives would be lost.” (Why?)
“Because people deserve to have good, safe, fulfilling lives.”
Now, instead of “I sell tires,” you could say, “I help people live good, safe, fulfilling lives.” Would that make it easier to get out of bed in the morning? You bet it would.
Now that the Macro is handled, let’s move into the Micro.
“Feeling Like Hurricane Katrina…”
The Micro level is about dealing with the tasks in your business that you may not like. Okay, let’s be honest – you may absolutely detest doing them, with the raging fury of a Category Five hurricane.
But that doesn’t mean you’re going to jump ship, either. Just because I don’t like doing taxes doesn’t mean I’m going to go work for someone else so I don’t have to deal with taxes as much.
If you’ve got a task you despise (and who doesn’t?), here are some ways to handle it:
- Farm it out.
If it’s accounting, hire an accountant. If it’s cleaning your office, hire a cleaning person. If it’s marketing, hire a VA (Virtual Assistant) that does marketing.
The upside of this is that it frees you up to do what you enjoy even more, which can often result not only in less stress for you, but also more time to do income-generating activities that can easily offset the cost of the contracted service.
“What would I even farm out?”
A friend and VA of mine suggested this exercise: for a week, write down everything you do (you can leave off things like ‘eat’ and ‘go to the bathroom’, if you want…). Then look at that list and see what’s essential that you do (calling your clients to perform your service, for example) and what someone else could do (calling your clients to verify, arrange, or change appointment times, for example).
There are aspects of your business that your voice, written or spoken, is really crucial. And, there are plenty of administrative tasks that don’t require your unique touch, and if you farmed them out, could free you up considerably.
- Find a new way of doing it.
It could be that the thing you don’t like isn’t because of the thing itself, but because of how you’re going about the thing.
I talked with a friend the other day who was lamenting one of the frequent “necessary evils” of his business – dealing with audio files (editing, posting, etc.). Not only did we come up with a number of new ways to help him get it done faster, but he got some insight around how to do things differently in a way that would free up a lot of his energy as well as his time.
Take a moment to re-examine the way you are going about your tiresome tasks, and see if there is something that could be added, or taken away, to make it more juicy for you.
For example, I never clean my office without good music going, I don’t write an article unless I have fun doing it, and I don’t teach a workshop unless I really love the topic. (And my office is clean, I write at least an article a week, and I’m teaching three workshops at the time I’m writing this.)
- Find someone who loves what you hate, and learn from them.
Don’t like taxes? Dealing with marketing? Phone calls? Writing? Sure as the sun sets in the west, there are people out there who just get all giggly doing those exact things (yes, they’re strange, but we’ll forgive them).
Does that mean you should farm all of it out to them? If it works for you, sure. But if it doesn’t, then at least learn from what they do – and how they do it.
Google a few, check out their websites, and see what makes them tick. They just might share a perspective or two you could learn from.
Once you’ve sorted out the Macro, and tended to the Micro, having farmed out the non-essentials, found new ways of doing old tricks, and learned from the pros, take another look at your work.
Are you seeing a stone you’d like to put your nose to now?
Adam Kayce
View all articles by Adam Kayce
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