Today, Kathy Sierra notes the disparity between success in the corporate sense and doing that which one loves.
Isn’t it about time we quit measuring professional success in one dimension, vertically, and start considering how much your actual work matches your desired work?
Businesses have a similar choice to make in terms of measuring success; each must decide if they are going to be measured by an ability to move vertically and accumulate wealth (or shareholder value) or map out their own standards.
Clif Bar has created their own success standards:
We asked ourselves what would make us proud at the end of each year. We knew it wasn’t all about the money for us…the term sustainability came up again and again… (from Raising the Bar)
Given their interest in sustainability, Clif Bar measures their success not by company wealth, but by their ability to sustain their brands, business, people, community and the planet!
Here at Needmore, we’re passionate about sustainability as well as art and creativity and have been working to incorporate both into our everyday existence.
For example, we’re constantly looking for ways to leave a smaller ecological footprint while sustaining our community. We’re using renewable energy, supporting local businesses (such as our weekly Organics to You Delivery) and are seeking new ideas for continual evolution of this goal; we know there is much more we can do!
We are also individuals who are most joyful when being artistic. Thus, we seek out projects that not only allow us to work with fabulously creative people, but also to be creative and overall enjoy what we do. This often means saying no to paying work! And, we’ve decided that this is OK because we’re measuring our success by our enjoyment, not necessarily our pocketbook.
We also focus our time and resources on pursuing our own artist, through classes and events. Lately, we’ve had a fantastic time as bustling away getting ready for our first Neighbormates event tonight (The show…Hello! Video, The Kelley and Jason Show, bands…at Holocene, 8 pm, $5) .
Overall, our question is continuously, what are our passions and how can those passions be a part of each day here at Needmore.
