Lesson 22: Serve others, and you will be rewarded.

 

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

                              I slept and dreamed that life was joy.

                             I awoke and saw that life was service.

                            I acted, and behold, service was joy.

—Rabindranath Tagore

We talked earlier about making yourself useful. Here’s another way to put it: serve others.

In his audio program Lead the Field, Earl Nightingale makes the point that the extent of your success will be in direct proportion to the extent of your service to others. Think about this for a moment, and you’ll see that it makes perfect sense.

If an organization had an employee who did nothing—just sat around playing Solitaire all day—that employee wouldn’t last very long. He or she would be dead weight. On the other hand, an employee who accomplished twice as much as the average worker would be considered indispensable, and would likely receive a higher paycheck and faster promotions than the average.

Employees will sometimes say, “They can’t expect me to do that extra work,” or “That’s not in my contract.” Then they complain that they’re not paid enough or are not appreciated. But they’re getting just what they deserve; to expect more is to deny reality.

It’s a pretty simple concept: you can’t expect something for nothing. You wouldn’t expect to be hired to manage a large corporation straight out of school; you’ve done nothing to earn it. By the same token, you can’t expect a big raise or promotion without making a sufficient contribution to deserve such a reward.

While all human beings have equal value as persons, some clearly have skills, training, and experience that are more valuable than others. One doesn’t make it into this group right away; it usually takes years of concentrated effort to get there. These valuable people are in great demand precisely because they are so rare. As a result, they usually command higher financial rewards for their work.

But money is by no means the only reward to be had from work—indeed, it’s probably less important than the personal fulfillment derived from a job well done. A fat paycheck is a hollow reward if it isn’t accompanied by a sense of accomplishment and the satisfaction that you are making the world better through your work. So embrace the idea of service. That’s where the real rewards are. .

Lesson 21: Never underestimate the value of experience.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

Life is half spent before we know what it is.

—George Herbert

  

Young adults usually don’t fully appreciate the value of age and experience. This frequently comes up during your first job search. The thought often goes something like this:

“They say they want someone with experience, but how can I get experience unless they hire me? And besides, my youth and energy more than make up for my lack of experience.”

Well, the truth is that experience is the best teacher you will ever have. And while youth and energy are wonderful (as you get older, you’ll envy those traits in younger people), experience is just as wonderful—and over time becomes even better. While youth and energy fade with time, your bank of experience continues to increase until the day you die.

We place a high value on those things that cost us a lot, right? Youth and energy are free; they are naturally present in young adults. But experience—ah, now that is earned. Experience is what Harry Truman referred to as “the school of hard knocks.” Its cost is measured in time, sweat, and pain—the pain of your own mistakes. Abigail Van Buren once said, “If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires.”

In his autobiography, Up Till Now, William Shatner describes how he learned to act, not by attending acting school, but by performing in plays. As a young member of a Canadian theater troupe, he played a variety of roles in a variety of shows in front of a variety of audiences. “I had no formal acting training,” he writes. “I had my own method: I said my lines as if I were the character…. The audience taught me how to act. If I did something and the audience responded, I did it again. So this experience of working every night…was my acting class.”

Think of the very best teacher or professor you ever had. Think of all the wondrous and important things you learned from her or him. All those lessons will pale in comparison to what you will learn from that greatest of all teachers: experience. You may not believe that right now, but I guarantee that you will one day. Class has just started.

Reread this in twenty years, and see if you agree with me then.

Lesson 20: Knowledge has its limitations.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

   Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

—Malcolm Forbes

Studies have shown that there is almost no correlation between how smart a person is and how successful they become. Superior intelligence—even combined with education and knowledge—just isn’t enough to make you successful. You need wisdom to go along with it.

I recently read about a young boy in India, Akrit Jaswal, who had an IQ greater than that of Einstein. In 2001, when he was seven years old, he performed a real-life surgical operation—I kid you not.

His eight-year-old patient had been so severely burned that her fingers had fused together. Living in a poor village, her family couldn't afford a real doctor, so Akrit was called in. The operation was a success, and before long Akrit became India’s youngest university student. He showed a great gift for medicine. At age fourteen, he became convinced that if someone would fund a laboratory for him, he would be able to cure cancer within a year.

He traveled to London’s Imperial College, where he met with some of the world’s leading cancer researchers. He amazed everyone with the depth and breadth of his medical knowledge. But the researchers soon realized that, despite his obvious gifts, his theories were unworkable. He came away understanding that—as smart as he was and as much as he had learned—he had a very long way to go.

The end of this story has yet to be written. Akrit Jaswal may yet cure cancer, but I suspect it will take many years—and he certainly won’t do it on his brainpower and knowledge alone.

Believe it or not, you’re sorely lacking in the knowledge department. Do you have any idea how rudimentary a high school education, and even a degree from a very fine college, is? As necessary as such an education is, it’s still just a start. Even scholars with doctorates often say that the biggest thing they have learned from their years of in-depth study is how little they actually know about their specialty.

Understanding the limitations of your present knowledge is one of the first steps down the long road to wisdom. The good news is that you already possess everything you need to succeed. Keep learning. The more you learn, the faster you’ll advance in your life and career.

Lesson 19: Use your God-given talents.

Author's note: I am a compulsive advice-giver-always have been.  When my own son was in high school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the hope that he might change his mind one day.  What follows is one piece of that advice.  I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.

Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

—Hunter S. Thompson

Broadcaster Earl Nightingale told the story of a clergyman who was traveling through a rural countryside when he came upon an extraordinarily productive and scenic farm. There were bounteous crops in neat rows, and all around the freshly painted farmhouse and outbuildings were flower beds and neatly trimmed shrubs.

The clergyman noticed the farmer taking a break from his work, so he took the opportunity to strike up a conversation. “The Lord certainly has blessed you with a beautiful farm,” the minister commented.

“Yessir, he has,” replied the farmer, wiping the sweat from his brow. “And I’m grateful. But you should have seen the place when he had it all to himself.”

Many people just show up to work and do the bare minimum. They complete the tasks that are given to them—and that’s about it. They never take the initiative to improve their workplace or to really serve the people around them.

Others see unexplored possibilities in even the lowliest of duties. They envision a well-tended farm where others see just a job. They throw themselves enthusiastically into every task, and as a result, they make everyone around them better.

You’ve been given a lot. You have a fine mind and at least a basic education. You have judgment and maturity, both of which will increase with time. And you live in a country filled with good people and limitless opportunities. So what do you plan to do with all these blessings?

If you believe in God, you may agree with me that he gives us the tools with which to make our own way and to make the world a better place. I don’t pretend to know the mind of God, but I suspect he has given us all these tools so that we can use them to make reasoned decisions, to take decisive actions, and to work toward the advancement of those worthwhile values and priorities we set for ourselves.

Use those God-given talents. Apply them to your work, and it will sing.