Engaging with the mundane

Amidst today's complex business environment, the formula for staying motivated to do good work remains the elusive golden chalice which most employees and middle managers pursue. We spend years in pursuit of just the right conditions to create the ideal work environment. Everyone pursues it but most are not necessarily willing to allow their will to "die" in order to attain it. Death, in this instance, does not refer to a physical event, but rather a philosophical, even metaphysical occurrence. Unless a manager is willing to think and act outside of his or her own comfort zone and put the interests of the employee, albeit subordinate, above his or her own immediate desires, the subject of one's attention will seldom experience the personal nirvana needed to push them through and upward to a higher level of performance and, most importantly, productivity.

Allow me to elaborate. Isn't it interesting that all those many years ago, while we were coming to understand what the Industrial Revolution really did for the worker and how it came to impact American work, as it were, we remain dubious of how to interact with one another in the basic exchange of goods or services? Instead, rather, we continue to place value on how to dominate one another, to come out on top of the exchange. Perhaps, in fact, the key is not so much in procuring the perfect position after all. Perhaps the key is in understanding one's position and assessing whether or not he or she has the capability to do anything to contribute to the body of work in said area. PhDs and the like do it, and make a living, albeit usually a modest one, revisiting basic premises and massaging their characteristics and traits to ascertain what could possibly be done better. How can we reduce symptoms associated with the flu; what is the most efficient way to deliver energy to a certain type of matter; how can we arrest the growth of cancerous cells without killing the host? These are all questions that warrant our preponderance and our attention; how much more important then would it be for us to ask similar questions regarding those seemingly mundane tasks we encounter on a daily basis?

In fact, the most ingenious of us, the most resourceful of individuals engage in this level of discourse, i.e., how can we build a better mouse trap, or what app can we develop that can make being "busy" a little bit easier? We call these individuals "entrepreneurs" and we call what they do "disruptors." These are seemingly simple improvements in how we approach doing something very mundane that changes how we do things so fundamentally that it redefines the industry landscape altogether. These entrepreneurs, by vocation, inhabit a sacred space that is often subject to social scrutiny and both private and public jeers. Nevertheless, every now and again one's persistence pays off; we've heard of countless accounts of inventors, scientists, serial entrepreneurs who kept at what they were passionate about, remained steady on course, and reaped the benefits of their labors.

We keep it real. We stay true to our roots, as the saying goes, and hope that our continuous circles will intersect at the heart of the elusive "issue," the problem that we are destined to fix. So if for no other reason than belief that hard work should never be deemed a waste of time, it's important that we continue to keep up our meager efforts, ever working on our cog in the wheel. If you consider yourself entrepreneurial and full of a lot of great ideas, also consider yourself in good company. In fact, embrace the mundane: It's just practice for the next big thing getting ready to happen...