This is one the famous quotes that Steve Jobs addressed to his team at Apple. As mantra sounds great – the journey is the reward – but that´s easier said than done…and felt.
I´m afraid this is not the common thinking. The reward has been always understood to come in a way of money, power, influence and public acknowledgment. With this in mind, the journey is just a path to walk or run through to achieve the mentioned milestones…and the shorter it is, the better.
The world we are living today of hyper – connectivity is transforming those natural needs we all have of social belonging and recognition into a real and new disease in some cases:
It´s what Guy Kawasaki calls the Internet Entitlement Syndrome: the hunger of be featured as influential, of being top rated at different rankings, the stupid desire of becoming trending topic, the ridiculous and continued exhibition of the big size of my social: the number of followers, the Klout index (does anyone in the room gives credibility to it?), the self appointment as social media guru, the social media close groupies, the narcissistic need of being socially exposed everywhere at anytime, etc.
[tweetthis]Work hard in creating a meaningful cause greater and larger than yourself…and your product or service[/tweetthis]
In the meantime, thought leaders such as Seth Godin, Malcom Gladwell, Steve Farber – among others – and even advertising agencies such as AKQA struggle against this belly bottom stream by stating the following: work hard and relentlessly in creating a meaningful cause which should be greater and larger than yourself…and your product or service.
Again, easier said than done. The journey is full of other people that make it difficult and jeopardize my personal – professional objectives. Cause during that journey I have to deal with adversities, setbacks, uncertainties, frustrations, regrets, failures…and very big failures. So, how can I bet for creating something greater than myself, this would put me in a weaker position in that tough and not easy journey.
But see this very truth picture from a different perspective. In this ephemeral life, we are here to serve to the others: family, friends, colleagues, enemies, companies and institutions we work for and of course to the whole society. Secondly, managing with all the negatives situations mentioned above is a must…and makes us stronger and wiser, enriching our vital experience. Lastly, failures have to be understood as our necessary friends during the journey. Facing all this makes you a privileged guy, no doubt!
I have to recognize that the day to day many times get me trapped in the worse and unhealthy thinking. But I have to confess you that more and more this is overcome by the belief that is worth doing working and living on creating something greater than myself. As a baby boomer, getting older has helped of course, but these almost seven years of entrepreneurship journey have been the key for getting this mindset.
[tweetthis remove_twitter_handles=”true”]Bringing into life @Ideagoras has helped me to understand what really matters in life: serving to the others[/tweetthis]
Learning from others, reading about different disciplines, travelling a lot, understanding the opportunities of the digital economy, connecting the dots with many generous people all around the world thanks to the amazing power of the Social Web, reinventing myself and having the chance of shaping and bringing into life Ideagoras has helped me to understand what really matters in life: serving to the others.
Many thanks to all them: my lovely family, my team, our clients, partners, collaborators, stakeholders and to all the dots spread at this new exciting and flat world.
Definitely, the Journey Is The Reward.
By Ángel González
Ideagoras
