I wonder if this sounds familiar at all. Have you ever had this experience at work? Begun a meeting or a conference call, or even initiated a project, running full steam ahead and expecting others to keep up. Or perhaps you’ve been the one pulled by someone else. We do it all the time.

In my pursuit and practice of Working for Good over the past three decades, I’ve found that how we work is as, if not more, important than what we do. We can work in a green business, a social service organization, or some other endeavor focused on making the world a better place, but if we treat others and ourselves with disregard or disrespect in the process, we end up creating something far short of our intention. The process is the product.  And the process is about connecting.

The more I practice the skills of Working for Good–which I identify as awareness, embodiment, connection, collaboration, and integration–while carrying the intention to serve through my work, the more I relate to an insight by Mother Teresa:

I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time—just one, one, one. So you begin. I began—I picked up one person. Maybe
if I didn’t pick up that one person, I wouldn’t have picked up forty-two thousand. . . .The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin—one, one, one.

Working for Good is essentially about how we show up for one person at a time, and for each person we encounter. There is no “saving the world,” but there is co-creating it with one another. To do that, we have to truly be with one another. The place we start from is always the same. Right here. And the time of our departure is always the same. Right now.

Try this: Slow down. Connect with yourself. Connect with whomever you are with. And move from there.

Image courtesy www.sxc.hu.

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