Who is a perfectionist?

I don’t know about the accepted or worldly meaning. I think perfectionists are -

1. People who cannot compromise on quality.
2. People who will always take the extra step to make things just right.
3. People who trade laziness to hardwork.
4. People whose never have “almost” in their dictionary. It is either done right or not done.
5. People who rarely compromise on the result of their work.
6. People who are meticulous and pay attention to every detail

Doesn’t this make them fascinating and wonderful employees? More so, wonderful people?

Some great points to add from http://vinylart.blogspot.com – Daniel.

4. in the extreme can get one in trouble, not starting until the end is assured. I’m still learning how to just start and that listening to my gut will lead me through.

3. can go the other way as laziness can inspire great activity bourne out of a desire for efficiency.

A Daily Affirmation

You intrapreneurs, here is a daily affirmation to follow. Print it if you want, stick it on the wall of your cubicle or office or monitor…

“I am an intrapreneur. I will constantly think about how to succeed in my organization. I am a perfectionist. I will put extraordinary efforts on any task I chose to do. I will not compromise on quality and not get swayed by politics. I am a visionary and I will always think of new ways to improve the quality of work. I will think about our customers and how the quality of my work affects them. I will silently prototype and grandly launch an idea. I will not waste my time in the office politics or empty gossips. For me, enjoying my work is as important as finishing it on time. I will constantly improve myself by reading blogs, books, journals etc. I will share the credit and work my way into success.”

A Rubber Band

If you have a lot of colored pens on your desk and a paper, how long does it take you to draw beautiful mulicolored lines or multicolored lines evenly spaced apart? Now, take a rubber band and tie the pens together and in one stroke, you will find this possible. This is now trivial. The power is not in the pen or paper or you, the power is in the way your small rubber band held everything together.

One common problem always in an organization is that everyone is like a colored pen wanting to exhibit the beautiful things they can draw. But very few people want to be the rubber band that brings everyone together to make the drawing beautiful and even better, easy.

To be a leader, be the rubber band. That is where value and useful experience lies.

Hold them together

A Minor Bird

A Poem by Robert Frost…Brilliant one.

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

This has such a simple and deep meaning. Don’t try to silence any song that is bound to be sung. Enjoy it if you can, but do not curb it. Amazing lesson in life. Simple, yet brilliant!

Keep Singing..O Bird...

Habit

Developing a habit is hard. Once developed, breaking it is even harder. Hence, it is important to develop only good habits. I understand that definition of good here is relative, but there are some universally accepted definitions that I am going to base myself on.

If you know you are developing a habit that is not desirable, nip it in the bud. Every habit is associated with thought. Habits plant thoughts in our mind, and thoughts keep cropping up like the weeds in a garden…They never give up! Hence, it is important to deal with them as soon as possible. Simple things like email and internet obsession while working, watercooler gossips, feelings of incompetance and peer pressure…can get complex habits that are hard to get rid of.

Remember – Good habits and good thoughts go a long way towards making a successful person!

Excellence vs. System

Almost every experienced person in an organization would tell you that there are rules you should follow, there is hierarchy, politics, etc that will add friction to your growth. I would say, otherwise. You can take your chance in the system with your excellence.

By excellence I mean, extraordinary efforts on tasks, stretching your limits and tackling the challenges that person at your level would not dare to do, consistently delivering and rebuilding, etc. My big assumption here is that you love what you are doing. If you don’t, read my previous post about three types of work.

Your excellence will add a counter force to the frictional forces affecting your growth.

Dangerous not to evolve

This edition of “Fast Company” has their list of the world’s 50 most innovative companies. Amazon was there alongside others for their revolutionary Kindle, which sold more in its first year than ipod did. That is saying something..considering the ipod’s market.

Anyway, Jeff Bezos in the interview mentions something that captured my attention – “it is dangerous not to evolve”. This is very true for everybody, intrapreneur, entrepreneur, father, son, friend, etc. Evolving is just consistently stretching yourself to encompass greater qualities than what you had previously. If we do it, all the challenges will slowly fall within our limits, I guess.

Here is a small exercise. I found this image on google  (I credit this image to whoever created it) when searching for evolve. Can you describe what evolution means to you using each of these words? You can then probably use this image as an affirmation to keep evolving

Evolve to me means...

Fame, an unnecessary byproduct..

I believe that – Fame is a sometimes unnecessary byproduct of  things you love doing.

It distracts you from your main passion if you are not strong enough. Your focus changes. It adds insecurities and makes you conscious of your actions. How many times have we seen really smart people (inside and outside an organization or society) come up with an absolutely brilliant idea and then ride on it for the rest of their lives?

It is important that you regroup, restart and start fresh after fame touches you or it will pull you down eventually.

Do not be a one hit wonder.

Don't be this...

Three types of work

1. The work you want to do
2. The work you don’t mind doing
3. The work you don’t want to do

If you think your work is the third type, change it! You are neither going to be successful nor happy.

If you are somebody who is an extremely rare employee or an entrepreneur or a professor or … , and you fall in the first category, bless your soul! Way to go.

Most of us might be in the second category. This is not bad as long as we remember it is temporary. We want to reach the first category. I saw an awesome picture of a duck paddling in water in my friend’s office. It said “On top, appear calm and unruffled. Underneath, paddle like hell!”.

Stay calm and unruffled in your current work, but definitely paddle like hell to reach where you want to go or do what you love doing for your living. There will be zen afterwards…

Paddle like hell, underneath!