“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” /Vince Thomas Lombardi (1913-1970)
To those who don’t know who Vince was – ‘one of the greats’. Vince T. Lombardi was an American Football Coach and is best known as the Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers in 1960s. In his time with the team he led them for 3 straight and 5 total NFL Championships within 7 (!!!) years! Additionally he won the first two Super Bowls in years ’66 and ’67. Impressive indeed.
Now, I see a lot of people around me that want some kind of success in their lives. It doesn’t have to be professional success specifically. Though, work for most of us takes A LOT of our time. So, the question is – what are you going to do about it? Are you going to complain your every working hour about how shit everything is? Are you going to do the job badly, because of a variety of excuses? They pay me too less, this is not my business, this job sucks, I could do better if I wanted – I don’t have to do this. I have seen and heard all of this, heck, at some part of my life – I had some of the these thoughts and questions myself. I didn’t know any better. I surely do now.
Some of my teachers back in Secondary Professional School used to say: “How are you expecting to do the job for the money if you can’t do it properly for free?” Back then I didn’t understand the importance of this question. Now it has become one of my corner stones in work ethic. Do your job as best as you can – always. It doesn’t matter if or how much you get paid to do it. As most of things in our lives – this is a decision you simply have to make! You have to decide that, from this day forward, I will do my best work I can. Be it working at your employer, your business, solopreneur, cleaning your bathroom, mowing your lawn, helping your neighbour or random stranger. Make a decision to do the best work. Always.
This takes a discipline and this disciplinary practice will convert also to other parts of your life! As I mentioned above – we spend A LOT of our time working and when we are not working (as in employment for money) we do other kinds of labour to keep ourselves going, right? So, the work doesn’t go anywhere. Go with the Nature – accept work as a part of life (which it is). Be positive! As work consumes our waking lives – don’t fight against it… This is not how our World works! Flow with the stream. This brings us to second decision which should be made simultaneously:
Enjoy what you are doing. There is no escaping doing the job, so you might as well make best of it and enjoy it, learn from it.
- Make a decision to do your work as good as you can.
- Make a decision to enjoy whatever labour you are performing.
This is what makes all the difference between normal everyday people and people like Vince T. Lombardi. They have made the decision. Their decision is good work ethic. Their decision is to demand best of themselves and if you want to work with them – demand best of their peers. You don’t have to become ‘one of the greats’. Not everyone can, not everyone must, but we can learn from them and make OUR everyday lives better. Heck, maybe one day you will also become “one of the greats’.
Decide and enjoy,
~V.R.