Grumpy or Happy

Doc, Dopey, Bashful, Sneezy, Sleepy, Grumpy, and Happy are the names of the seven dwarfs…from the movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.

And, for the purposes of this message, we are going to drop five and focus on two…Grumpy and Happy.

Why? Because these two characters, these polar opposites beautifully demonstrate the best and worst attitude one can have as it relates to life and work.

HAPPY

A common misconception of work for far too many people is that they associate it with hardship, misfortune, pain, inconvenience, and stress.

However, when you look at your work as a curse, as a grind…as something you must endure…you are missing out on one of the greatest joys of life.

Kahil Gibran the Lebanese artist and philosopher said in his essay On Work that…” work is love made visible“, and I for one wholeheartedly agree.

The word love is appropriate because it is precisely right in both the meaning and the feeling that it carries.

Work can, should and must be about love…that is if you have any interest in making the most of this one life you’ve been given.

Loving what you do manifests itself in high intention, uncompromising standards, sincere effort, intelligent design, attention to detail, and skillful execution.

Put simply…loving what you do, expressing your core strengths and doing what comes naturally is the calling card of greatness…and the one sure way to make your mark on the world.

So, what is the work that whets your whistle? What is the mission that points you north, that guides, serves and inspires your heart to sing?

According to Aristotle, “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross lies your calling.”

We all have our own unique calling in life, a concrete mission, which intensely desires to be carried out. Thus, our upmost responsibility is to identify and nurture our natural gifts and talents.

Work requires innovation and energy. To achieve competitive results that matter, we need to bring out our natural passions, energies, and creativity to the game.

GRUMPY

Fewer things are sadder than watching a person with potential waste away in work that makes little use of their natural talents.

Work can be one of your greatest sources of success, fulfillment and happiness. Yet, too often, the opposite is true and work becomes your greatest source of misery and unhappiness.

To achieve success with fulfillment, it is critical to find work that pays us for what we naturally love to do.

When the work you do is the work you love, the results are a shining testament of quality, the true mark of greatness and a demonstration that you understand that…

Everything Counts!