The other day a friend accused me of taking something ‘personally’. This isn’t the first time he has said it and I am somewhat convinced he does it because he knows it drives me nuts. When he says it, it always feels like an insult.
Why would I take the criticism that I take things personally, personally? More importantly why am I still thinking about it over a week later?
I’ve always held to the belief that you should have passion for your work. This is not the same as finding your passion and doing it. I doubt there are many people whose life passion involves sanitizing hospital bedpans however, if you do find yourself working as a bedpan sanitizer you should be passionate about being the best at what you do and you should take pride in your work.
In order to be passionate about being the best and to take pride in your work you have to have some level of personal investment. You have to want to succeed. You have to have skin in the game. You have to want to win. You have to be a good man in a storm.
Yesterday I dropped the ball. Actually I dropped the ball a few months ago but yesterday that ball came back to hit me in the face and leave bruises. I screwed up. Because I take things personally, because I am passionately invested, that screw up caused me to lose sleep last night. As it should. Everyone drops the ball occasionally. We humans make mistakes. If we care, we will learn and grow and improve.
I ran into a former colleague at a conference a few weeks ago. He was always one of those people who flew just below the radar. Everyone always wondered what his job was and what he actually did all day. Even he wasn’t great at articulating his job but he was just good enough to continue to receive a paycheck and avoid a layoff. We talked for 15-20 minutes. What struck me was his lack of passion or excitement or enthusiasm. At one point he even made the ‘it’s a paycheck’ comment. When I walked away from him, two thoughts entered my mind; ‘how sad’ and ‘I would never want him on my team’.
When I think about the people I want to surround myself with both personally and professionally, I imagine big personalities, heated debates, laughter and tears, joy and pain, bold success and courageous failure. I want to surround myself with people who will tell me when I am wrong and apologize when they are. And I want people who are personally invested enough to bounce back from the challenges and care enough to fight the good fight. I want to surround myself with people who take things personally.
“If you aren’t willing to fight for what you believe in, then don’t even enter the ring.” – Madonna