The people you admire when you are a kid really have a huge impact on your own personal ethics as an adult. One of the people I admired most growing up was my primary school principal.
He truly was a great motivator, but the message I remember most from him was simple:
"Be the best"
Yeah, I know, cliché self-help crap at its best. He was however, good enough to elaborate. He told us that it didn't mater what we did in life so long as we strived to be the best at it. He told us that he didn't care if we became a garbage man so long as we strived to be the best garbage man*.
He was a charismatic man and our ten-year-old minds were sold by his speech and I am sure that we worked just that little bit harder in class that week and did just that little bit more homework.
But the impact of that speech really didn't come home until adulthood. For some reason it niggles at the back of my mind and challenges me to do better even to this day. Especially to this day.
I have had some dodgy dull jobs and I have had some great jobs. My principal's message is always there in the back of my mind telling me to do my best regardless.
I worked in an abattoir where we monotonously slaughtered and prepared animals for the dinner table. I could have shrugged it off as a job not fit for me, something for others. But after a few weeks there, I noticed people who took great pride in the repetitive work of the slaughter house. They were the people I strived to emulate. They became people I admired. I sort to find something to learn from the experience and did my damnedest to be the best at what I did.
I took pride in my knifemanship and keeping a keen edge on my knife. These are skills I still cherish and use today.
I was surprised to find that I got recognised for my hard work and attempt to do my best quickly and was soon moved onto more challenging tasks. When I left for university I was shocked to find out that the foreman's were were quite upset by my departure because they were grooming me to be a foreman.
Teacher, student, pizza boy, pool boy, soldier; I have strived to do my best and people surprisingly respond well to that and you start to quickly earn their respect. Not only that, but you start to enjoy what you are doing no matter the task and you will always have a valuable skill to take away with you.
I think taking pride in my skills and striving to be the best at what I do made me better at what I did. It wasn't some magical force that I would passively gain. It was that little bit of self-competition that urged me on to do a little better each day.
Doing my best also made me more interested in learning the intricacies of my job and observing what my betters did...well...better.
My old principals message is part of my ethos today. Something I am.
*in hindsight this may have had an unfortunate result for the assembly that day. I do recall many a student who proclaimed that the garbage man's life was exactly the career they were now going to be the best at - You win some, you lose some.
No comments:
Post a Comment