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Now, where does all of this fit with work?
I had the privilege of meeting several years ago
the owner ...
the founder and owner of the largest real-estate company
in the United States. Really, I think in the WORLD.
It was the Trammel Crow Company that was located in Dallas,Texas.
Mr. Crow
was a remarkable man, a remarkable entrepreneur
who had built this magnificent company from scratch.
And so naturally he was a saught after speaker in the business schools
all across america and many parts of the world. And so he's at Harvard Business School.
And he delivers his speech, and at the end of the speech he opened it up for questions.
Here were are all these bright
business majors sitting out there
and one them stood and said "Mr. Crow,
My question is this:
In all the years you've had in business,
what is the single most important thing
in business?
Characteristic of Mr. Crow,
he took off his glasses and
he rubbed his face.
And he looked at them and said:
"LOVE".
Isn't that a strange thing?
One of the greatest businessmen in the world...
and when asked 'what is the most important thing in business'
he said,
"The most important thing
is LOVE."
I think one of the places that fits is this:
I think everyone in this audience...
I think everyone of you
has done WELL.
I think everyone of you
has lived well. It doesn't mean you haven't made mistakes. It doesn't mean that
some things haven't gone wrong. It doesn't mean that you may have been released
from a job. But the thing that you most need to hear this afternoon
is that for all that has come -for all you've dealt with-
you've done
WELL.
When you think about your work
you still may be casting about for exactly the right career.
but I'd like to say to everyone of you here: if you've been through five jobs; if
you've been fired three times;
I'd like to say to you
that you've done well. You've done well !
And the real question for you to ask when everytime things do not quite workout ...
when it doesn't quite happen the way it should. But there's only one real question
for you to ask as you walk away from that disappointment.
And that is
the question:
What did I learn?
What did I learn?
And so I think in the world of work:
I think you've done well.
But there's another question
and that is:
Are YOU doing
WELL? As a human being?
Because when you get all the way to the end of life
what you've accomplished at work is going to be very important and will be a
a part of your story.
But how you've done as a human being
that's the story that your SON
will tell ...
your DAUGHTER will tell.
It's the story that your FRIENDS will tell.
How are you doing as a human being?
And so as we think about Life that Loves to happen at work ...
There are many books and there are many seminars that will talk to you -as Mike
mentioned- about time management and all the other things that go into making a
job really work well ... making a company work well. Where we're focusing
this afternoon is
but: Will YOU do well ?
I want to now move to that intelligent fish
the wise fish.
What is it that makes a person
WISE ?
And I'm going to give you
four ways to look at that.
That if you were right now thinking:
"Well you know, Landon, that does make some sense ... yet
you know i might do well I have a marriage or two marriages or three. I
might have one two or three children. I might have one, two or three jobs ...
but then my life keeps going and
I'm twenty
and I'm thirty and I'm forty.
I'm fifty, I'm sixty
I'm seventy three.
What about my LIFE ? What ? What
about the LIFE ?
Is my LIFE going well ? And will my life story really work and all these
important parts ... and will it work?
And so the thing that -if you are writing a note-
put down the question:
What is my story?
Because you know every living creature has a story. A bug has a story. An
insect has a story. A wasp has a story. A bird has a story. My aunt
Mildred who died at ninety four years old always had parakeets and her
parakeets could always talk.
And she had a little parakeet
and the parakeet would look at me and say, "My name is Ricky Saunders
and I'd want to say "Well, Hello!" Or
I'd sat down for breakfast, and the little parakeet flew down on the edge of the
table, looked at me and said, "You want to have some breakfast ?"
But my favorite line from Ricky the Parakeet was this one:
"My name is Ricky Saunders. I'm a parakeet. Praise the Lord !"
It almost intimidated me a little bit
as a human being. Every living thing has the story.
And YOU have a story!
But there's a difference.
And the difference between YOU and every other living animal
is you get to choose
your story.
No other living thing gets to choose
the story
that you will live out.
And as you think about your work and your work life ...which consumes so much of our
energy so much of our thought -as well it should ...
But when you think about all of that
you're also having to think about something else and that is
that this larger story ... because you need a story for your life that still works
for you if you get sick
You need a story for your life that doesn't devastate you if your doctor says: "You've
got cancer."
You need a story for your life thats big enough that if you lose a daughter ...
You've got to have a story thats big enough.
You've got a story that's big enough, when you're fired, that it doesn't
devastate you and destroy you for the rest of your life.
You've got to have a BIG ENOUGH STORY ... yes
that not only is big enough for your LIFE,
but is also big enough for your DEATH.
And so when you ask,
"What is MY STORY ?"
you get to CHOOSE this narrative.
that you're going to live out in your life
Now when we begin thinking about whole story of our lives
sometimes you can say, "Well, Landon I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
I don't know what my story is going to be tomorrow.
I don't know what i a story will be ten years from now. How can i write the story
of my life now?"
Well, it helps if I
sit back a moment
and think
"How does my life happen?"
"How does ...
How does my story happen ?"