The Midweek
 Motivator

Audience Development Group
Winning is Habit; Unfortunately, So is Losing         January 4, 2012
Tim Moore
Tim Moore, Managing Partner Audience Development Group

Managing Partner

Audience Development Group

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Greetings!

"The moving finger writes and moves on...not all your piety nor all your wit, can lure it back for one more hour nor one more day." 10th Century Persian poet Omar Khayyam wrote those words in the Rubaiyat.

 

The inevitable motion of time endows another year and we continue our forced march toward the prize. The pure and simple truth of it is neither pure nor simple; ours are the most uncertain and unforgiving times of the last hundred years. Doors open, doors close, but in the time ahead, winners and losers will be separated by a much thinner margin.

 

As the year closed down, during our dinner conversation a hard charging company officer off-handedly remarked, "I guess I'm a workaholic." I posed the question, "which kind?" He was confused by my reply. I explained I'd long had a theory that the original definition of "workaholic" was negative; meant to describe someone immersed in their daily regimen, subordinating recreation or amusement, but that I've long believed there are two versions of workaholic. The original breed defines their life by tasks completed, budgets met, awards framed, or profits tallied. Many companies and causes have been fathered by just such titans. But in growing battalion strength come a new version of Positive Workaholics who, while equally immersed in their role, do it not to escape life, but to balance and enhance it. Positive Workaholics are people with avarice for change. They look forward to today more than yesterday, and instead of subordinating their personal lives actually view their professional specialty as a wave to ride that's not really "work" at all. So, on the way to 2012 take our "Positive Workaholic" test:

 

  1. Do I love what I'm doing or have I slowly settled for it?
  2. If my career ended tomorrow does my self-worth end with it?
  3. Have I been a mentor to successful people?
  4. Am I happier than I expected to be when I started this run?
  5. Does my self-esteem come from who I am versus what I produce?
  6. If I only had 24 hours to live and could make one call, to whom would it be and what would I say? And what's stopping me?

In the year ahead most of us will face a series of opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations. Traditional Workaholics sometimes turn set-backs into catastrophes. Positive Workaholics say, "If at first I don't succeed...hey, skydiving is probably not for me."

 

Every person dies but not every person lives. The most distinguishing feature of workaholics, positive or traditional, comes with their intensity of purpose. In the process some pain is certain, but misery is optional.

 

Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Tim Moore

Tim Moore

Managing Partner 

Audience Development Group

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