Not all good deeds get punished

Not all good deeds get punished

The trick is knowing which ones, or one, go unpunished.

I had lunch with a friend of mine awhile back. He's a vendor partner and kind enough to take me to lunch. And we got to talking about family and what a wonderful universe that can be. He reminded me of the saying..."No good deed goes unpunished." Yeah, we both had some rich stories about family.

You never know. That's the trick. You never know which good deed goes unpunished. And you're always surprised by those that do get punished...in a wow, that...huh...how's that work...we did this and in return...ok, whatever kinda way.

But the real surprise, the one that makes it all worthwhile is the one where someone appreciates it, says it, shares it, maybe even builds on it, adds to it.

And a friendship's created.

You know what I'm talking about, I hope. That friend that...just stays your friend for freakin' forever. Ups and downs, marriages, divorces, job changes, changes of living...they're always there. It's a puzzle why almost everything you do in that friendship goes so unpunished...more than that...goes rewarded. They're your fans. Fanatics. Loyal. Even evangelical.

You think there should be cookie cutter you buy. Do x; get y. That's not how it works.

And that's why so it's so rare to duplicate. Why we treasure it when it happens.

You hear a lot about creating loyalty and even evangelical feelings among your customers and employees for your company. It's silly, really. Trying to generate the depth of feelings among true friends by some modulation of a product or service or packaging or clever viral email cartoon...

But what if you had that as your company goal? Sure, it's unlikely you'd ever reach it. Reach for the sky and all that. But seriously. What if...what if you took the same care and commitment, patience and honesty, compassion and forgiveness, you have with your best friend and your spouse and you brought it to your interactions at work.

(I'm not encouraging you to assign pet names to your co-workers or customers. Years ago my wife and I picked the schmarmiest sappiest pet names for each other. Just for kicks. We'd heard a couple nauseate us with theirs. So being the competitive types we wanted to match or exceed them...hey it's a dynamic that works for us. The names stuck. Hers stuck, anyway. Punk n' doodle. See: nauseating. It's since been shortened to Punk. )

But back to the topic. Sure, much of your efforts would go unrewarded at first. Some would be punished. And only a small percentage of your interactions would yield that gold. But what gold that would be! Whew! Such loyalty from both sides: theirs and yours. Just like the best of friends.

And what of the others? What if you failed to reach that with all the other calls and emails...think how much closer you came.

I don't know. It's Friday. Punk's waiting for me to come home. But as I think through all the hoops and leaps we all do to market our services, to differentiate them, to motivate our colleagues and co-workers and all the blah-blah about emotional bling-bling with customers...Just treat 'em like your best friend, treat 'em like I treat Punk...the rest will work itself out. Just like with friends.

Friends are the ones who never find a good to punish.

Have a good weekend.

Work life balance or the lack of it...

" Every sunrise and sunset is unique as you are"

Work / life balance….

I have been asked about this before and my views have matured over the last few years on the subject.

• I have heard the “insurance policy “ reason for work now life later, I will work hard now and then when I cash out I will retire and do what I really want to do. The problem with this is that you may never get to do what you really want to do!! And you have spent 10, 15, or 20 years doing something that you don’t like. We have on average 30,000 days of life to use, to spend 8,000 of them on something you don’t like sounds like a waste of time to me.

• There is “nothing else to do excuse”, what else can I do, I am sorry for you, a brain the size of the universe and an imagination as big as you want, and the only dream that you have is what you are doing at present, you can do what ever you want to do, so what if you don’t succeed, you have tried and had fun in the process.

• There is the “work-a-holic” who slowly becomes so involved in the job that they forget and neglect real life and the people around them. There was one start up company I worked with that had the top three guys divorced and one become to dependant on the “sauce” within a few years of starting up, all could be related to there work ethic, was it successful, yes, in one a way, a good trade sale and cash out, but the emotional capital it took could never be regained.

The reason I was thinking about this was because of the drive in to work this morning, I saw an awesome sunrise and thought how cool would it be to be taking a few pictures of that now, record it for the future it would never be seen again, there is more to life than work, there is a life which encompasses all that we do and are, it is up us to make the most of it for ourselves and for the world we find ourselves living in, what do you want to be remembered for in this life.

Slainte

Gordon