Make It All Beautiful

Take-Home Message: Find a way to create so much value, that if you left, people would miss you. If you can’t be more effective, be more positive.

When I was 17, I began working at Jumbo Foods, like every guy with a car that age in Enid, Oklahoma. It was the first real platform for learning about the real world for me.

I learned pretty quickly that I was only supposed to bring six (6) carts in from the parking lot at a time. I learned that I was supposed to be cheerful and polite to customers. I learned that I was supposed to ask “Paper or Plastic?” I learned how to use a dust mop. I learned that tomatoes and bananas are bagged separately.

Needles to say, I learned every day on the job. But, as I began to learn many of the recommended practices of the day-in and day-out of a grocery store, I learned many ways that the efficiency of tasks could be improved.

At points, I even questioned why many of the practices existed at all. Except, I realized that, not everyone is looking around for ways to create value. The only reason I did when I began the job was because my dad ingrained that in me from a young age, and I didn’t want to earn a bad reputation as a poor worker.

Quickly, though, I realized that looking for ways to create more value, to do more tasks proficiently in less time was fun. I found it as a way to constantly challenge myself and to tap into unused potential.

Working at a grocery store took patience. Sometimes people weren’t the friendliest. Sometimes there were messes to be cleaned up. This is true in all walks of life, though, and I think the themes I learned early on at that first job translate well into all workplaces.

Sometimes, I find myself doing menial tasks even in the work I’m doing that I love. Have you ever compiled a hundred different short-answers into one excel spreadsheet? That’s just an example, but the point is that there are likely better ways to go about doing tasks that  aren’t the most enjoyable, even if it’s as small as changing my attitude.

Whatever the case may be, unless I’m looking for ways to do things more effectively, I tend to get bored when it comes to these types of tasks. The repetition makes me feel like another cog in the machine, and I hate that feeling. So, one of the things I’ve been challenging myself to do is look for ways to make tasks more enjoyable by searching out more effective tools for accomplishing them, and by turning these tasks into a game.

My challenge for you and one that I’m employing for myself is this: Look for ways to be innovative at every turn. If I can’t improve the efficiency, then improve my attitude when doing it.

I’ll leave you with this quote:

“The truth of the matter is that it isn’t natural for human beings to spend the
majority of their lives doing the same thing over and over and over again every day,
until the day we’ve finally had it, and we crack…open a bottle of wine and gulp to
the grave.
It might seem normal, since that’s what everyone around us does, but just because
a lot of people do something, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
It means it’s popular, and there’s a difference.
Being popular doesn’t mean proof of genius, quality, or even just a good idea. It
means that a lot of people think it is.”
–Ash Ambirge, “You Don’t Need A Job, You Need Guts”

So, don’t be another brick in the wall. You have more potential than that. Go out and turn the world on its head. Go turn something dull into something beautiful. Take an hour-long job and find a way to do it better in thirty minutes.

Let me know about your successes. I’ll be recording my failures and triumphs here along the way.

Best of luck. May the odds be ever in your favor.