Take A Risk, Hit A Home Run

David Freese hit a walk-off home run in the 11th inning last night to give the Cardinals the victory in game 6 of the World Series. Earlier in the game he had dropped a pop fly that most Little Leaguers would have easily caught. There is a lesson here for us. David Freese knows that he will fail often during a season. He knows that there is a good chance he will fail often even during a single game. He knows that the top hitters in baseball fail 2/3 of the time, yet they still go to the plate and take their swings. They still take the field, even though they openly acknowledge there is a great risk of failure. Fear of failure is not an option for a professional baseball player. When he begins to fear failure, his career is probably over.
What if we approached our jobs the same way? What if we were not afraid to take a chance? What if our manager continued to put us in the game, even after we had failed once? Or twice? Or three times? What would happen? Would we see more innovative ideas? Would we see a work force that was more comfortable with adversity? Would we see more people learning from their experiences and gaining confidence that they can persevere and even win? I think so!
Does that mean we don't try to manage the risks? Of course not! Baseball teams manage their risks very well. They practice and practice and practice before they take the field. There are six weeks of training before the season. The players take batting practice, fielding practice, and practice throwing EVERY DAY before the game. They scout the other team to know what to expect and prepare accordingly. They put together a game plan, but know it will likely change during the game. The manager watches each player carefully and puts them into the right situations to give them the greatest chance of success. All of that is to manage the risks.
We will never hit the game-winning home run sitting on the bench. We have to prepare to win, practice often, and take risks if we are going to win. Wayne Gretzky once said, "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." If we are going to win, each of us needs to get off the bench and take our best shot!

Rekindle Your Passion

Gas for the car. Food for the body. Electricity for the home. These all provide the power for the object that needs it. Without gas, the car won't move. Without food, the body dies. Without electricity, few things in our home will work. Without passion, our jobs are boring and unfulfilling.
Passion provides the greatest incentive for our work. It helps us get up in the morning and look forward to the the day. It keeps us motivated when the job is not going the way we would like. It motivates us to higher levels of quality and productivity. Passion truly is the fuel that keeps our engine running at work!
What do we do when demotivators hit us in our jobs? What happens when imperfect people (which are all of us!) say or do something that hurts? What happens when we are passed over for the promotion we thought we deserved? What happens when the hours are long and the stress levels are rising? We must return to our passion and let it refuel us to keep us motivated.
We can feed our passion by taking a look backwards. Remember how excited you were when you started your new job? Why were you excited? Didn't you feel a passion for the work? Didn't you see how this job was a good fit for your skills and abilities? Weren't you focused on how your job piece fit into the larger company puzzle to serve the community? Going back and remembering can help refuel our passion. In our day-to-day routines, we often forget what was once obvious in the beginning.
We can also feed our passion by counting the benefits the job has for us. Obviously it brings money into your family; hopefully the job has other benefits too! Do you have some good friends that you wouldn't have known without this job? Have you learned some new things that you would not have known? Have you seen other people's lives improved directly or indirectly from your work? Counting our blessings can refuel our passion.
Speaking of seeing others lives improved, I believe the best way to light our passions is by taking our eyes off ourselves and focusing them on other people. When we strive to be helpful to others, when we are encouraging others, when we focus on being for others what we would like them to be for us, we will find a stronger passion than we dreamed was possible. I don't believe our jobs are ever about "us"; every job is about serving others. Regardless of our job or title, we are serving someone.
Refueling our passion rarely is a one-time event. We may rekindle some passion for our job, only to have a demotivator hit us and we are in danger of losing it again. Like anything worth having, passion needs to be constantly rekindled and nourished along. Maybe we should take a few minutes at the end of each day to look back, count our benefits, and consider how we have helped others. Maybe that would help us keep our passions high, which will result in higher job satisfaction, higher productivity, and better quality in our work. Come to think about it, those results ultimately lead to promotions, more responsibility, more recognition, and so on - all things that further fuel our passions and make the job more enjoyable!