Bad managers, good managers, great managers. What’s the difference? I understood the distinction when I was 18 years old. I worked at FedEx Ground, and I was protected by my Manager because I made him look good as a result of my breaking rules that hadn’t been broken but were bottlenecks to unrealized value; I unlocked that value by systematically breaking them!
We’re all biased, so biased that we love to hang out with people who think like us, read stuff that we agree with and do stuff we like to do. It’s all good and well, but what we get in enjoyment we lose in perspective; because that one perspective that we hold isn’t the complete picture of life.
Professor X, from the X-Men is not considered the most powerful mutant. But to me, he is because he has the most powerful superpower of all: the ability to read people’s minds. While we can’t read people’s minds like Professor X can, we can get into their heads with something we’re all born with.
“Be yourself”, is universal advice. You hear it in movies, songs, video games, and day to day life. Parents, friends, coaches, teachers, girl and boyfriends, co-workers; they’ve all told us. Heck, we’ve said it too to other people, “Just be yourself”.
Are you annoyed by co-workers who are not as passionate as you are about your job? Who, by your standards, don’t care as much as you do about their jobs? Oh yes! Those of use who are passionate about what we do have a different energy and vibe; it overflows from us. But there aren’t too many of us who come to work ready to make a dent in the universe.
Last week I wrote about how to take the sting out of failure. Today, I want to share with you snipet of a speech on success and how failure drives it. It all starts with mistakes, we’re taught in school (this needs to change) that giving wrong answers and making mistakes is bad. And it continues on to our jobs and our daily lives, society as a whole would rather never make mistakes than to make them.
Failure sucks. Nobody likes to fail. But failure is a necessary ingredient for success. Failure humbles you when you believe you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Failure, when approached well, can be your best friend.
