Very funny, George. But golf is your entertainment, not your work. And entertainment has its place in our world. But unless you’re a pro sports figure or an actor (and even those people work very hard at accomplishing what they do), entertainment will not bring you true joy and fulfillment. It will not give you a sense of satisfaction and well-being. Those kinds of feelings only come from what you accomplish, what you contribute, or what you do to make a difference.
Your work will provide you these feelings. Your true feeling of success will only come from what you give to the world through your work and love, while entertainment is based on what you can get from the world.
Jack Nicolaus worked incredibly hard on his golf game, and he actually gave a lot. A professional sports figure, he had millions of people follow him and gain pleasure from watching him play. That’s what he was getting paid for. So his level of play was a gift to sports fans.
He also worked at golf in a different way than we do. We just go out and play at golf, but it wasn’t play for him. It was a discipline, and he was only at his best when he transcended the play. The difference between Jack’s golf and our golf is that Jack’s golf was a gift to someone else, and our golf is only entertainment for ourselves. Giving versus getting—one of the deepest principles of hands-off professional success.
The ultimate functional question is this: “How can I contribute?” or, “What can I give?”
Most people in the workplace are focused on getting. They want to get instant results from their efforts. They are obsessed about the external and the negative. They fret about how much time off the guy next to them takes, and how much more pay the other person gets, and how much more time the other person spends on personal conversations. Their self-criticism turns outward all day.
But then there’s a happier, more successful person in the workplace who is living inside a different mindset. A different set of questions, such as, “How can I do a better job? How can I contribute? How can I make a difference here? What can I do to make this a better company?”
That darned person! She just keeps getting further and further ahead of the negative person next to her! The judgmental person next to her continues to become more and more resentful of her success. And for the life of him Mr. Judgmental cannot see what is causing Ms. Happy’s success—which is living with a different set of questions.
Success comes from the questions you ask yourself.
When negative people try to figure out other people’s success, they ask all the wrong questions. They ask, “Were they the first ones to work that morning and the last ones to leave?” Or, “Did they make sure they didn’t make a single personal call that day?” Or, “Did they make sure they didn’t take any breaks or greet people, visit people, and catch up in the break room?” Or, “Did they avoid making mistakes?”
They don’t realize that the success occurred because that person came to contribute. Not to compare. Not to worry about what she was going to get. She came to give. It’s amazing how the ones who don’t worry about what they’re going to get are the ones who always seem to get the good stuff. And those who come to get something wonder why they can’t obtain it! They wonder why life always feels so unfair. Those who come to give something wonder why they always receive a raise without even having to ask for one. They wonder why they’re the ones who are always considered for the promotion, when others have been there longer.
It’s fundamentally a shift from trying to force success to happen, to allowing success to occur through continuous contribution.
The hands-off manager models, inspires, and nurtures this giving approach. He or she mentors contribution. When you take your hands off people’s lives and let them give what they’ve got, you’ll be allowing them to succeed. They will look to see what’s inside them and figure out how they can give that to the world. And that is what allows them to be successful. They don’t have to strive for it anymore. They don’t have to force it. They don’t have to use rigorous willpower. They just have to do what they love to do. Soon they will always be thinking about how they can share their natural ability with those they serve.
* * *
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
* * *
Leigh was trying to trust this practice of contributing by doing what she loved to do, but she had a hard time making it fit into her lifelong negative belief system.
“I just have a hard time trusting that life will bring it back to me,” she said over coffee in the break room. “I don’t know, I’m having a hard time trusting life.”
So Leigh doesn’t want to give of herself completely until she can trust that it will be worth it. She doesn’t yet see that she has it backward: the giving comes first. Just do your job in an excellent way. Don’t worry. Be too busy to worry.
Soon, with mentoring from her hands-off manager, she started giving anyway. A year later she was talking differently.