I have had many conversations with business owners and leaders around the core element that keeps things alive and vibrant for them, inside and outside of the workplace. For some of them, it is completely obvious what is necessary for hobbies or their relationships with their significant others to continually be fresh, interesting and engaging. The quality of being fascinated- inexplicably drawn to being with someone and / or doing something is essential. I also notice some of them somehow compartmentalize this – in other words, what must be true for what they consider their “personal” lives to work somehow don’t apply to their “business” or “work” lives.
It is important to continually realize that because something drew you yesterday it does not necessarily mean it does today. Relying on yesterday’s sense of being drawn to something or someone means you are focused on how things and your relationship to them were then, not how they are now- and it is a given that change has happened. For example I can certainly see change in my 18-month old more easily because of the way she physically changes at this age, but I need to continually make the decision to reside in the orientation where my fascination remains obvious to me so I can notice it in people and situations which can otherwise seem to look and be same over time.
When you have the ability to gauge what fascinates you on a consistent basis, you may very well find that you are still fascinated by what and who has fascinated you even a moment ago, but it is an experience that is renewed, fresh and in response to what is true now, in real time.
The quality of fascination has universal elements, regardless of the context.
I do not list these qualities a way of somehow teaching you something – that would be ridiculous – but instead as a way of pointing out what you inherently know already but may have forgotten.
- When you are fascinated, your attention is “outside”. The idea of “you” you are perhaps used to toting around like big bulky luggage is non existent. You are continually aware of what is going on around you, and responding to it, rather than what you think might be going on based on internal self-referencing ideas. Any idea is at least one step behind what is actually happening at any given moment.
- When you are fascinated, you have a sense of being “drawn toward”. Your sense of time is narrowed to the moment you are in while simultaneously having a deep sense of moving toward something in the future.
These are the qualities that most of us came to our businesses with. It can become easy over time to let the day-to-day demands dim this necessary experience. Then it can become seductive to concentrate solely on goals and deadlines. It can become confusing, as though these elements of “doing” will somehow feed and effectively keep you in touch with the core experience of “being” that is essential for keeping any business alive and growing in a way that will make it a true success.