We live in a world of instant gratification and entitlement. A world that screams, “Move me ahead tomorrow and pay me today for ten years’ worth of future earnings. I’ll take them in bearer bonds.” There is a fundamental law that exists in life and business: There is no escaping the dirty work. You can’t dress it in lingerie and call it sexy. You can mess with it a bit and call it a game, but at the end of the day it’s still a four-letter word: work. You have to do the hard work—the unglamorous stuff that gets your nails dirty and maybe even breaks a few.
When you live true to your internal voice and pursue life in the spirit of authentic direction, you become the embodiment of purpose, passion, and conviction.
In business there are no shortcuts to success—especially if the shortcut violates professional conduct. There are always faster, more efficient, more effective ways of doing things, but these means and methods can never come at the cost of our personal and professional standards.
You have to do the work. Sometimes the more diligently you search for something, the further removed it is from your grasp. Searching for purpose or conviction will blind you to its embrace. Experience and feel it—it can’t be contrived or fabricated. When you actively search for purpose, you are in the dark without a flashlight. When you live true to your internal voice and pursue life in the spirit of authentic direction, you become the embodiment of purpose, passion, and conviction. When you become immersed in the work, there will be the feel of something that is beyond the job description, something that attaches to purpose.
Purpose will find you when you become immersed in the work.
