On our ‘Engaging People, Powering Companies’ podcast this week Amrit was inspired

by watching someone who had gone through a near death experience and come out the other side with a renewed sense of purpose. This lady didn’t go on and radically change what she did for a living, she continued to do the same job, but in this very ordinary job she chose to show up in a totally new way.

This woman had changed her perception of how she was to interact with the world, how she saw her place within it. This job (let’s say cashier) was no longer mundane and just a means to an end, but an opportunity to impact as many people’s lives as possible. Instead of dreading it, moaning about it and dragging herself through the door, wishing she could be anywhere else, she flipped it. Every shift, every interaction, an opportunity to make someone’s day. To reach out, to really see and acknowledge people.

The Sunday night feeling, head in hands, dreading Monday, is something we feel passionate about helping to remedy and we usually talk about an organisations culture, leaders and managers and the crucial roles they play in improving the world of work for people. There is plenty we can all do in this space to help employees feel a sense of belonging and find meaning and purpose in their roles. We have responsibilities as employers. And/also as individuals.

Let’s ponder the potential impact of holding a different belief personally, as an employee, about the value we can bring to the roles we do. About finding meaning and purpose in whatever the role, through making a choice that as individuals we can show up more compassionately for ourselves and others whenever we choose to. Life, and the days of work within it, can potentially feel somewhat unfulfilling if we are just seeing work as a means to an end, to put food on the table or as nothing more than to create wealth.

Now I know that we must work, we need to support the family, pay the bills and what not. It is the world we live in. It is also true that we can decide how we show up every day. We can use the routines and experiences we have at work to touch the lives of others and be something positive in their days. The author Christopher Moore said “the value of the work we do is the value we give to it” so if we think it is just an absolute pain in the you know what, meaningless, then that is what we will get. If we think it is a marvellous opportunity to forge connections and make people smile, well, same.

This is simplistic. I appreciate that. Perhaps without a near death or life altering experience it can be hard to shed ourselves of the beliefs we hold around the experiences we have at work. We deserve to be treated well, to be seen and heard and looked after. We do and we and billions (!) are working hard out in the world to help employers nurture their people for the good of all humankind as well as business! That said, there is another side to that coin that exists regardless of the challenges we face at work, and that is the experience we are creating for ourselves.

Perhaps we could consider as individuals on this earth the real value of what we are doing daily, has to life. We are interacting, contributing whether we think we are or not. Can we reframe the mundane into opportunities to connect, smile, to acknowledge that when our leaders and managers could be doing a better a job that they are probably having a tough time themselves. Maybe everyone is doing the best with what they have and that there is always another side, another person having an experience and that is what we humans are here to do – experience!

Where focus goes energy flows. If you don’t believe me, next time you are in the shower with your mind wondering all over the place, stop and focus on only the water on your body, how it feels. Watch what happens - as soon as we draw focus to it, goose bumps galore! If our mind is racing on other things we miss out on the tingly experience! Where focus goes, energy flows.

Where is our focus going at work? On how hard, boring, repetitive, and unfair it is, or on the value we are bringing to it? We often miss the value we are adding by not even recognising the good stuff we do ourselves. Instead wait for someone else to acknowledge it, validate it, so that we feel good about it.

We do great stuff, every single day and the more we bring it in to focus the more we will reinforce it, allowing us to send more focus and more energy into what adds value. Not just to bring home the bacon, but to live out a purpose of improving the lives of anyone we encounter.

The value of work is the value we give it. What value are you giving the work that you do?

Listen to the podcast here.