When I worked with Steve Chandler, one of the themes of our work together was “creating wealth through profound service.”
I just love that phrase: “Wealth through profound service.”
Steve wrote a great book called Wealth Warrior and he’s the one who inspired me to look up the ancient meaning of the word “astonish.” It’s from the Latin ex “out” + tonare “to thunder.” It literally means “to leave someone thunderstruck.” Or, as I like to say, “to strike with lightning.”
Steve says that most people have the wrong standard. They’re thinking about “customer satisfaction.” But, he says, how uninspiring is the idea of merely “satisfying” someone? Much better, he says, to ASTONISH. I, of course, agree. 🙂
All that’s nice, but how do we do that?
Well, I think the essence of it is found at the nexus point of those three circles we talk about in the +1 called “How’s Your Hedgehog?” in which we talk about Jim Collins’ perspective on how great businesses (and lives!) are created.
In short: Collins tells us we need to find the nexus point of what we truly Love to do, what we can be Great at, and what the world Needs (and, if it’s a biz we’re talking about, what the market is willing to pay for!).
As I was preparing for Abundance 101, I was thinking about those ideas and also thinking about Cal Newport’s great book So Good They Can’t Ignore You in which he tells us about the perils of following your Passion Mindset at the exclusion of your Craftsman Mindset.
Longer chat but I don’t think it’s either/or. Which led me to sketch the three venn circles for the one millionth time. But this time I wrote: Passion Mindset + Craftsman Mindset + Servant Mindset.
I think that if we want to actualize our potential (in creativity, enjoyment and wealth) we need to truly LOVE what we do. My standard? You love it so much you’d pay to do it. That’s a Passion Mindset.
(Of course, as Professionals we need to do what needs to get done whether we feel like it or not, so I’m not saying it’s all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns but we’ve gotta start with the Love!)
And… If we want to actualize our potential (in creativity, enjoyment and wealth), we need to be ALL IN committed to mastering our craft and doing GREAT work. Enter: The Craftsman Mindset.
Finally, it’s not enough to Love it and strive to be Great at it, we need to find a way to share our Passion and Craft with the world. And, we need to do the often hard work of figuring out how to truly create value by giving people what they really want and are willing to pay for. Enter: The Servant Mindset.
So… Three Mindsets: Passion + Craftsman + Servant.
Find the nexus of those three mindsets. Optimize the bliss out of each. THAT is how we astonish.
And, over the long run (!), that’s how we create wealth through profound service.
Today’s +1. Sketch your three circles. Take a quick inventory. How’re you doing? What’s awesome? What needs work?
And, most importantly: What can you do today to Optimize 1%?!
Passion + Craftsman + Servant.
+1. +1. +1.
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