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One of the greatest thinkers in the
history of leadership development is
a hero of mine--a man named Dr. Warren
Bennis. And
Warren Bennis is a wonderful guy... A guy
who's helped me have a better life and
someone I've always looked up to. Warren
told a story once I'll always remember.
For awhile he was president of the
University of Cincinnati, and
he's not sure he wanted to be president
for all the right reasons.
He was president and he was giving a talk
in front of a group of people. And
one gentleman raised his hand and he said,
Dr. Bennis, do you love what you do?
Do you love being president? And Warren
said he stopped and
there was almost a minute of silence.
Eventually, he looked at this person and
said, I don't know. Well, that moment kind
of changed his career.
He realized maybe he wasn't being the
president for the right reasons.
Things like status, ego, feeling
important. Maybe those kicked in
over things like doing what I love doing,
and doing what's in my heart. Well,
I thought about Warren Bennis' example. Do
you love what you do? In the old days,
if you didn't love what you do, it wasn't
so
bad. For example, in 1979 IBM was my
biggest customer.
IBM was the most admired company in the
world. They were the God company. In 1979,
I could go to Armonk, New York, shoot a
cannonball down the hall at 5 o'clock and
hit almost nobody. These people worked 35,
40 hours a week, and they took five
weeks of real vacation. I recently talked
to the chief learning officer at IBM.
I said about those same people in that
same building, now work 60 hours a week.
He said, Wrong--70 hours a week. And by
the way, there's almost no real vacation.
When you take the cellphone with you, when
you take the computer with you, when you
go on that vacation, you're constantly
wired in. There's almost no real vacation.
Very important point for young people
today, very important point.
If you can work 35 or 40 hours a week and
take five weeks of real vacation, and
you don't love what you do, it's not so
bad. It's not so bad,
kind of like a half-time job anyway. If
you're working 70 hours a week and
you get no weeks real vacation... And you
do not love what you do,
you're living in a bad place called
new-age professional hell--and too
many people are living there today. Very
important challenge for
people at all ages, especially young
people. Realize you're probably going to
have to commit to your job. Realize you're
probably going to be working many hours.
Realize your occupation is going to be a
large part of your life.
Go back to that great question, Do you
love what you do?
And to the degree you can answer that
question yes, you're probably going
to be a winner in the game of life.
To the degree you answer that question no,
you're going to have some problems.
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