On Passion (go back »)

A good employee is one who is able to create a mission out of a job. For some jobs, like rescue or social work, this is easy. But for the lowly ranked executive, this might be a bit hard. A person who creates a mission out of his or her job is one who cares about how his or her job will affect others and affect the big picture. However, there is a risk that by caring too much, the person would become too emotionally involved with his or her job.

I once had a job as a telemarketer where I injected myself personally. My mission was to break the records for number of successful calls I could make. However this led to stress as well as burnout. If I did not make the highest number of successful calls that day, I could take it personally. By injecting my self-esteem into the job, I let the job affect my self-esteem, whether positively or negatively. The good news was that I managed to break the record for the most number of successful calls. However, I quit the job in the end.  What I learned from this is that it is important to regulate how much I took the job personally. Pardon the cliche, but work life balance is important.

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