Love what we do

I had a small battle internally over what to blog about this week.  There were a few different topics but what I wanted to write about was just a small piece of what was said.  It had to do with a video I watched of Marissa Mayer of Google.  She was talking about her people being given 20% of their time to work on “Personal Projects”.  These were things not given to them to work on, but the ability to use their own creativity to drive their work.  It turns out 50% of items actually developed came from that 20% of time.

What this shows me is that we have to be invested in what we’re doing in order to be successful.  When we’re happy, challenged, and trusted we can rise to amazing heights.  I see this play out in my own life on a weekly basis with schoolwork.

I’d much rather spend my Saturday teaching my children important lessons.  Some of them are not always fun, but they are still better than doing my homework, even if I enjoy the lessons I learn by my classes.  I also see it in how I gravitate toward my business classes because they engage me in a way the other classes don’t for me.

This is not new information, but when we love what we do we will do it better.  When we appropriately challenge ourselves while doing what we love we will grow.  When we do this over an extended period of time, we become successful.  My hope and goal is to spend more time doing what I love and being successful.