Introduction
I have struggle a lot in the past trying to figure out what is my purpose. I have never had a clear idea of what I wanted to do study or what my dream job was. Also, as everybody, even if I only had some vague understanding of what were my values, they were they main force pushing my decisions unconsciously. Luckily, in these last years I am starting to understand some things.
For the first time in I feel prepared to write this page: what is my mission/purpose/calling, and what are the values that guides how to fulfill that mission. I have been wanting to put them into words for a long time.
I believe they will vary slightly as they years go by. Specially as I learn to express this ideas better in words. This is just the v1.
My Personal Mission and Values
Mission
Be a positive influence and a reliable help of those around me.
As everybody, I want to be happy and have peace of mind. I have never understood how to achieve it. I was quite lost.
However a long time ago I heard something like: “if you don’t know what your purpose is, don’t focus on yourself but try to help others”. Although at the time I don’t fully understand it, this statement (which I don’t remember very well anyway) really resonates with me. I think this shift in perspective is very powerful. It remove the focus from us, and yet for some reason it brings a lot of internal clarity.
A couple of years ago, I was with my team mates in a company event. A couple of other coworkers from other teams were with us. Somehow, the conversation shifted into what we do at the company. “Pablo, and what do you actually do at the company?”, one of them asked. Before I could answer, one of my teammates jumped in: “Pablo is here to help us! You can always ask him and we will always try to find a solution for you”. That totally caught me off guard, but it has been an inflexion point for me ever since.
Even if my work didn’t have a huge impact in the world or even just in our business, it had a huge impact in those closest to me.
Values
Honesty and Respect are the first priority.
I a firm believer that honesty is a requisite of happiness. Even if it we make mistakes, if we can be honest with them we will be always in the right path.
However honesty and transparency is not a wildcard to disrespect anybody. They must be always together both when communicating externally and when forming your opinions internally.
This doesn’t mean I will not call out people when they are doing something wrong. But even in the most extreme situations I will try to consider respecting them as much as I can. Focusing on the actions and behaviour and not the person.
There is always time to help others.
Even if it is not immediate, I will never say no to help somebody that ask for it. It is important for me to not ignore those petitions, not matter how busy I am. I might need to postpone them or to delegate to others, but I will always respond to anybody.
Don't be afraid to change your opinion.
We must be a little selfish, and look to be always right. However, to be always right we need to be flexible enough to change our opinions. This is my way of saying the classic “continuous learning” approach that a lot of people follow.
Look for the long term sustainable solution.
We can put down a fire now, but then our focus should be to fix the root of the problem.
This is a lesson that I have been learning with my strength training practice over the years. It does not matter how much work you do in a day if you are so tired that you cannot train the rest of the week.
It is much better a low value sustainable solution that a high value un-sustainable solution. Even if the value is greater in the first month, it does not matter if it don’t last a year.
Quality is a requisite of sustainable value.
I have always wanted to do the best I can. I have always searched for optimum quality in almost all aspects of life. And, paradoxically, I believe that searching for this is what drive us to make the best decisions for a sustainable approaches.
Without quality, everything becomes much harder to maintain. It fill our time with inefficiencies. Much as a chef need to spend time sharpening their knives or seasoning their cast iron pans, we need to invest our time in increase the quality of the things we build and the tools we use. Both in our work and personal life.
Other Abstract Underlying Ideas
- This values are inflexible, there are non-negotiable. This means that they have to drive my decisions, but they are not my final decisions.
- At least 10% of your work time should be focused on making your job better. This means that if I work 8 hours a day, ideally I would dedicate 1 hour each day to improve my every day life at work: learning new things, investigating how to fix inefficiencies, investing time in my tools, organizing my work and my workspace… etc. This is effectively a compound interest investment and will enable me to increase the quality of what I do with less effort