Loving What You Do

There is an old quote people love to use to support the idea that you should love what you do. “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.”

The quote has been attributed to lots of people, so I can't pin this stupidity on any one person. Too bad, as I would love to.

People who use this line are people who have probably never really worked a day in their life. Even if that work is something they love to do. I don't care how much you love something, eventually it becomes work!

I have told the story many times from the stage that I hate what I do for a living. The audience gasps in some cases. I love that part! I go on to explain that they think that standing on stages giving my speech is what I do for a living. No. I do that about 75 hours a year. I travel about 150 days a year to do that 75 hours of speaking. I love the 75 hours of speaking and hate nearly every minute of the 150 days of travel. The key is that I love the 75 hours of speaking enough to put up with the 150 days of travel.

And it doesn't matter what you do or how much you love it. You can love fishing but if you did it for a living, eventually it would become work.

You can love baking cookies. At home. In your kitchen. For your kids. You say to yourself, “If I could just bake cookies for a living, I would love it! I would never complain. Nothing could possibly ever be better than baking cookies for a living.” Then you find yourself in a commercial kitchen, with several ovens, dozens of employees, thousands of demanding customers, government regulation, taxes, and more, and your passion and your love of baking has become a job and there are many parts that you flat out hate.

If you are set on loving something about your business, try this: love what you do enough to become amazing at it. There is nothing more rewarding than being amazing at what you do. It will make you more valuable to your employer and your customers and it's the quickest way to give yourself a raise.

It's amazing how being good at something makes you like doing it more. Before you decide you don't like doing something, become excellent at it.

Parental Responsibility

• Parents are going to have to teach their children the core value of self-sufficiency.
• Parents are going to have to stop being enablers of their children. Parents need to teach the skills necessary for success: work ethic; communications; and respect for authority, coworkers, and customers.
• Parents are going to have to force more accountability on school systems to teach basic skills.
• Parents are going to need to guide their children toward an education in marketable skills.

School Systems

• School systems must make sure that kids can read, write, do basic math, and follow directions.
• Schools also need to teach computer skills that are useful in the business world.
• Schools are going to have to refuse to pass kids who can't do the necessary work.

Business Training

• Businesses must grasp the concept that the cost of an untrained workforce is more expensive than the training.
• Businesses must be prepared to educate the new workforce since school systems and parents haven't and probably won't do their jobs.
• Businesses are going to need to budget both time and money to teach the skills they need their employees to have.

In order to turn things around in business, both bosses and employees are going to have to change a lot of what they are doing. Here are a couple of lists that every boss and employee needs to remember.

Employers Need to Remember

• If you have lousy employees, it's because you are a lousy employer. Your employees will be no better than you are. Fix yourself first. Your employees only reflect back to you who you really are as an employer and company.
• Your job is to make your company the best place for a customer to do business with. That means you must hire the best people, give them the best training, be the best example for them to emulate, and drive the concept of “value” home with every person who works there.
• Stand up for what is right. Don't even think about whether it is the easiest thing, the cheapest thing, or the fastest thing. The right thing is sometimes the hardest, the most expensive, and the slowest thing you can do. Do the right thing regardless.
• Your employees can't read your mind. Don't expect them to know what you want until you tell them and teach them.
• Hire slow. Fire fast. Most employers have this one backward.
• If you put up with it, you are endorsing it. Do you endorse rudeness, lousy service, being late, stealing, being lazy or disrespectful? No? Then why do you put up with it?

Employees Need to Remember

• You are paid to work—not to make personal calls, do your social media, or any other personal activity. Employees should stop and ask themselves, “Is this what I was hired to do and am being paid to do?” If not, you are stealing from your employer and should stop.
• You are an expense. If the cost to employ you exceeds your value, then there is no reason for the company to employ you. Always be adding to your value.
• No one likes a whiner, complainer, gossip, or troublemaker, but everyone loves a person who will do what it takes to get the job done, is willing to be of service to anyone, and can be counted on.
• Businesses don't exist to make employees happy. They want their employees to be happy, but that is not the reason they are in business. They are in business to be profitable. They do that by having products and services their customers want and by serving those customers well. It's a simple equation. Employees need to understand it and contribute to the profitability of the company in order to have job security.

Yep, I'm a hard-ass.

What Are You Worth?

You typically earn what you are worth. Now, I can tell you from experience that this idea bothers nearly everybody. People love to think they are worth more than they are. And I am not talking about worth as a human being. I am talking about worth as a member of the workforce.

The guy who taught me the most, back when I first started on my own journey of personal development, was Jim Rohn. Rohn said, “People who earn $5 an hour provide $5 worth of service and it takes them an hour to do it. People who earn $5,000 an hour provide $5,000 worth of service and it takes them an hour to do it. The difference is not the hour, the difference is in the service.” There is a profound lesson there for everyone. When you look at your paycheck, be clear that is the amount of service you provide and not a reflection of the number of hours you work. It is a representation of your value in the marketplace. It doesn't take much to say, “You want fries with that?” That's why it isn't worth much. That's why those jobs are rapidly being replaced with machines. You can argue this point all you want and it won't change the truth: you are worth what you are paid.

The key is to be worth more than you are paid, so eventually you can be paid more. Constantly increase your value to your employer, your customers, and to the marketplace in general.

Be worth more than you are paid so eventually you can be paid more.

Think of it this way: If you weren't there, how much would you be missed? Place a number in it. That's how much you are worth to your company. If they can just as easily do the job without you then you aren't worth much. If they can find someone else to take up your slack then you aren't worth much. The more valuable you are, the more you will be missed. That is how much you are worth.

Again, don't overestimate your worth like most people do. Be honest with yourself. Regardless of how valuable you think what you do is, chances are that it can be done just as well, or maybe better, by someone else and for less money.

The solution is to add more value every day. Figure out how to take on a little more responsibility. Be willing to go the extra mile. Don't constantly focus on doing just enough to get by. That is a contradiction to the core value of adding value.

There are no secrets to success.

Solve a problem.

Add value.

Be worth more than you cost.

Outwork everyone.

Repeat this process daily.

Unions Are Ruining Business

People complain about prices being so high—want to know why they are? Unions. Companies can no longer afford unions' inflated demands, so the only way to pay their employees what unions negotiate is to raise prices. If they keep raising prices, eventually customers won't put up with it, and the company goes out of business. Or the government bails it out and that costs us all.

Want to know why more jobs are going overseas? Unions again. Consumers want low prices. You can't have low prices when something is made in the United States, because Americans cost so much to employ! Why do they cost so much to employ? Unions!

There is an old saying, “Don't bite the hand that feeds you.” Unions have not only bitten the hand, they went ahead and gnawed off the whole arm. They went from being organizations that kept employees safe and treated fairly to vampires that are bankrupting our businesses as well as our governments. Unions have sucked the life out of budgets by demanding so much that businesses can no longer afford to pay their current employees, and governments cannot keep the doors open because they are paying for the bloated pensions of past employees.

And speaking of government unions, also known as public employee unions, I say BS. Total BS. Government employees work for the taxpayer. We pay their salaries. Federal employees are already paid 78 percent more in total compensation than private sector workers. And then they believe they have the right to demand more and to strike when they don't get it? No. Government employees work for all of us and their job is to keep the government open.

The same applies to teachers. I know they aren't paid enough. Good teachers are worth their weight in gold. However, they are paid with taxpayer money to teach our children. They can claim they need more money (and they do), but striking to get it and putting families in a bind scrambling for childcare is not the way to get it or to win community support. Holding someone hostage doesn't create a winning situation—it creates resentment. By the way, teachers knew what the salary was before they took the job, so to take the job and then complain about it because you don't like the pay is absurd.