Saturday, November 3, 2012

I received the following as an email recently and wanted to save it - and share it...
Michael Hyatt: Intentional Leadership


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Monday, October 22, 2012





Recently, a woman approached me after I finished a keynote presentation. In the speech, I had mentioned the importance of living with intention.
A Wooden Kitchen Match Striking on a Grey Slate Surface - Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/TheCrimsonMonkey, Image #7829867
She got stuck on that thought and realized she had not been intentional, particularly as it related to her career.
As it turns out, she was a doctor with a very successful business. She was making more money than she had dreamed possible. She had a very busy practice. But she was deeply unsatisfied.
“If I’m honest, I think I became a doctor because my father was a doctor. It was expected. I didn’t think I had a choice,” she confessed.
Her eyes welled with tears.
“But I hate it,” she continued. “I only get to spend a few minutes with each patient. I feel like a factory worker on a conveyor belt. It’s all I can do to make myself go to work.”
She was good at what she did. Her practice was exploding. But she had lost her passion.
As I later reflected on her situation, I realized job satisfaction requires three components.
  1. You must be passionate. This is where it begins. What do you care about? What moves you? What problems do you want to solve or issues you want to address? If your heart is not in your work, you have a job but not a calling.
  2. You must be competent. Passion alone is not enough. You have to be good at what you do. Being good-enough will not give you the satisfaction you desire. You have to excel at your craft and be awesome. Mastery is the goal.
  3. You must create a market. To enjoy a successful career, people must be willing to pay you for what you do. You don’t have to get rich, but there must be a market for your product or service. Otherwise, your career is not sustainable.
If you have all three of these components, you experience satisfaction. Few things in life are more rewarding.
I envision it as three overlapping circles. (Jim Collins has a similar model in Good to Great as it applies to companies.) At the intersection of all three is true success.
3 Components of Job Satisfaction
Be wary of only having two:
  • If you have passion and competence without a market, you have a hobby. We all know people like this. Living in Nashville, I know musicians who love what they do, are accomplished on their chosen instrument, but can’t pay the bills.
  • If you have passion and a market without competence, you have failure. If you aren’t willing to put in the hours honing your craft, it will eventually catch up with you. You will struggle to get hired or simply be flushed in the next round of layoffs.
  • If you have competence and a market without passion, you have boredom. This was the doctor’s problem. On the surface she had it all. But in her heart, she was missing the one piece she needed to find satisfaction in her work.
You can get by for a time with only two of the three elements I have described. But if you want to succeed at the deepest level, you must incorporate all three.
Questions: Do you possess all three of these components? What is missing? What could you do to become more satisfied in your work? 
Quote Post
I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.””

Maya Angelou
Worth Repeating: More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2003), 310


©2012 Michael Hyatt
P.O. Box 1221, Franklin, TN 37065



The treasure of John Wilt's shoe

John Wilt's shoe is in my office.
One shoe. I bought it for $5.
I'm sure John didn't know where his shoe went. I'm sure when John was asked to paint his shoe, he probably did so happily - or at least I would think so, because his shoe is bright and colorful, with happy mushrooms and designs.That's why I chose his shoe. That's why I wanted this reflection of John Wilt's life. It made me happy to see it. This happy shoe was also used as a planter for a happy-looking little flowering plant. The plant wouldn't remain happy without real sunshine, it took up residence in real garden dirt at my house while a little fake greenery found a home in John Wilt's shoe.

His shoe was part of a silent auction at an event I attended last spring. John worked at a local facility called Marimor, which enables people with developmental difficulties to be productive. Productive is good. Productive is happy. And John's shoe looks like it came from happily productive hands.

The man's face in the picture known as John Wilt is smiling - a smile of a child: innocent, free of care, without pain or fear or worry or concern. I see John Wilt's face and I see others like him. Children who are born to be loved because that's their world. That's what they can understand. John Wilt would never have a space in an office like mine, a life like mine, or even children as I do. John's Wilt's life was meant to happily share his happiness - and the innocent smile I see in his picture - under the care of others.

I'll never get to meet John Wilt. I've had his shoe, along with his picture and a brief written introduction to John, in my area of the office since that March event. A number of people have walked past the shoe, because it sits on the shelf next to our one and only office printer. I wonder if anyone has ever wondered about the man in the picture that painted the shoe that I have on the shelf in my area of the office? I have many times. I even asked a Marimor staff member about John Wilt, and they smiled and said, "Yes, I know John Wilt." His smile made me smile, and I've always smiled as I've thought about the man behind the brightly painted shoe, John Wilt.

I'll never get to meet John Wilt because he died last month. The man's name that painted the brightly colored shoe was printed on obit page. One day I was reading through the online edition of our local paper and the name "John Wilt" leaped off the screen and into my eyes. John Wilt. John Wilt, with his picture and a recap of his life here on earth.

As I read, it became clear. John Wilt left a legacy. A legacy of love, and apparently a broken heart as his mother died the very next day. His obituary and her obituary were laid side by side on the screen before me, and the legacy of their life of love was shared in yet another newspaper article. It seems that John Wilt, in his shoes and with his smile, were part of many local sporting events as he and his Mom were inseparable. Their smiles and their love were welcomed by many, and there will a space at future sporting events for this Mother and her son. I picture a Mother who deeply loved her son, John Wilt, and who cared for him so deeply that they were inseparable - even to the place where she couldn't live without him. A son named John Wilt, who wore smiling eyes on a face of innocence as he painted his shoe - brightly and happily - because he was asked to. He shared his love, and I have have that treasure to make me smile while his legacy lives on as a brightly painted shoe in my office.

John Wilt - thank you for happily painting your shoe - and for giving me this reminder that there's an innocence and beauty to be found in the joy of life... and that's the best place to leave a footprint... :)