to worry about what she was going to get. She came to give. It’s amazing how the ones who don’t worry about what they’re going to get are the ones who always seem to get the good stuff. And those who come to get something wonder why they can’t obtain it! They wonder why life always feels so unfair. Those who come to give something wonder why they always receive a raise without even having to ask for one. They wonder why they’re the ones who are always considered for the promotion, when others have been there longer.
It’s fundamentally a shift from trying to force success to happen, to allowing success to occur through continuous contribution.
The hands-off manager models, inspires, and nurtures this giving approach. He or she mentors contribution. When you take your hands off people’s lives and let them give what they’ve got, you’ll be allowing them to succeed. They will look to see what’s inside them and figure out how they can give that to the world. And that is what allows them to be successful. They don’t have to strive for it anymore. They don’t have to force it. They don’t have to use rigorous willpower. They just have to do what they love to do. Soon they will always be thinking about how they can share their natural ability with those they serve.
----
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
----
Leigh was trying to trust this practice of contributing by doing what she loved to do, but she had a hard time making it fit into her lifelong negative belief system.
“I just have a hard time trusting that life will bring it back to me,” she said over coffee in the break room. “I don’t know, I’m having a hard time trusting life.”
So Leigh doesn’t want to give of herself completely until she can trust that it will be worth it. She doesn’t yet see that she has it backward: the giving comes first. Just do your job in an excellent way. Don’t worry. Be too busy to worry.
Soon, with mentoring from her hands-off manager, she started giving anyway. A year later she was talking differently.
“Life will give back to you whether you trust it or not,” Leigh said. “Life doesn’t require my approval or trust. It just delivers the way it does.”
Leigh learned that life doesn’t always give you what you want—life gives you what you believe. You can only see what you believe is there. The more you trust the process, the more you can stop worrying about what you are going to get back and just give, trusting the process of life where you know one way or the other, you get back what you have been giving out.
If you believe one of your employees is lazy, you can only see a lazy employee, and even if he takes extra time to perfect a report he’s writing, you see the extra time as procrastination,laziness, and failure to complete his work. This judgment gets in the way of his greatness and your ability to enjoy the potential that’s really there.
Sometimes a new manager will take over an old team and the productivity soars. Why? It’s because she didn’t believe anything negative about the new team. Instead she met with each team member and asked the questions, “What can this person contribute? Where is the particular greatness in this person? What does this person love to do?”
Steps to hands-off success in your life
Three action steps to take after reading this chapter:
1. Meet with yourself. Ask yourself what your gifts are and how you can best contribute to the overall good of the mission.
2. Meet with each person on your team. Take a lot of time with each to talk about his or her gifts. Some won’t think they have any, but you’ll find them by asking what they most love to do. Those are their gifts.
3. See the whole team as a beautifully harmonized network of contribution. Draw a map of your team on paper with a big circle for each employee, with their
It’s fundamentally a shift from trying to force success to happen, to allowing success to occur through continuous contribution.
The hands-off manager models, inspires, and nurtures this giving approach. He or she mentors contribution. When you take your hands off people’s lives and let them give what they’ve got, you’ll be allowing them to succeed. They will look to see what’s inside them and figure out how they can give that to the world. And that is what allows them to be successful. They don’t have to strive for it anymore. They don’t have to force it. They don’t have to use rigorous willpower. They just have to do what they love to do. Soon they will always be thinking about how they can share their natural ability with those they serve.
----
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
----
Leigh was trying to trust this practice of contributing by doing what she loved to do, but she had a hard time making it fit into her lifelong negative belief system.
“I just have a hard time trusting that life will bring it back to me,” she said over coffee in the break room. “I don’t know, I’m having a hard time trusting life.”
So Leigh doesn’t want to give of herself completely until she can trust that it will be worth it. She doesn’t yet see that she has it backward: the giving comes first. Just do your job in an excellent way. Don’t worry. Be too busy to worry.
Soon, with mentoring from her hands-off manager, she started giving anyway. A year later she was talking differently.
“Life will give back to you whether you trust it or not,” Leigh said. “Life doesn’t require my approval or trust. It just delivers the way it does.”
Leigh learned that life doesn’t always give you what you want—life gives you what you believe. You can only see what you believe is there. The more you trust the process, the more you can stop worrying about what you are going to get back and just give, trusting the process of life where you know one way or the other, you get back what you have been giving out.
If you believe one of your employees is lazy, you can only see a lazy employee, and even if he takes extra time to perfect a report he’s writing, you see the extra time as procrastination,laziness, and failure to complete his work. This judgment gets in the way of his greatness and your ability to enjoy the potential that’s really there.
Sometimes a new manager will take over an old team and the productivity soars. Why? It’s because she didn’t believe anything negative about the new team. Instead she met with each team member and asked the questions, “What can this person contribute? Where is the particular greatness in this person? What does this person love to do?”
Steps to hands-off success in your life
Three action steps to take after reading this chapter:
1. Meet with yourself. Ask yourself what your gifts are and how you can best contribute to the overall good of the mission.
2. Meet with each person on your team. Take a lot of time with each to talk about his or her gifts. Some won’t think they have any, but you’ll find them by asking what they most love to do. Those are their gifts.
3. See the whole team as a beautifully harmonized network of contribution. Draw a map of your team on paper with a big circle for each employee, with their
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