Service

Hello everyone! Today I’ll be writing about S number three: service.

Let’s recall that my four s philosophy comprises skill, self, service, and sales, as a comprehensive vision for success in business, and while skill and sales refer exclusively to business, self and service are more personal. Service, here, refers to helping others and teamwork, to contributing to a community and reaping the benefits thereof.

It has cost me many years to learn that life is a sharing plan, a team effort, and even though it might at first seem counterintuitive, the fastest way to success is to focus on others’ needs in addition to your own. It might not be the route that we prefer, and it might not always be as fun as focusing only on our own needs, but it is the quickest route to victory.

It is extremely important to contribute to the needs and wants of others while accepting the parts of others that you don’t like or with which you don’t agree because:

1. A group is more powerful than the sum of its parts- it can accomplish more when it works correctly. In a community you draw on the strengths of others while at the same time contributing your own abilities.

2. You need roots. A community may seem like a burden sometimes, but it can also be a source of strength when you need it. An independent person might be successful while everything is going right, but when there is a big problem he or she will not have the support he or she needs. So we need to be interdependent! For more information on Stephen R. Covey’s spectrum of dependence-independence-interdependence, it can be found in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

“What if I’m a dependent person and not even an independent person?” you may ask. Well, we are all dependent on something sometimes, but in general, to be independent and then be able to take the next step to interdependency we’ve got to leave our crutch behind. For that I suggest reading my most recent blog on Self, the second s.

Of course, teamwork and community imply conflict. There will always be conflict in any relationship or group. Which leads to the conclusion that someone who is really giving it a go will have conflict in his or her life. But it’s about resolving conflict, not creating it. My idea is not to be afraid of conflict but to accept it with my chin up and eyes open as a necessary part of being a team player. Good luck, everyone.  🙂