Fun and Work

This is from one of the bet­ter and more inspir­ing speak­ers in our coun­try, Fran­cis Kong. Fran­cis J. Kong is Pres­i­dent of Suc­cess Options Pub­lish­ing Com­pany, Pres­i­dent of Fun­Works Inc. a mem­ber of the Cana­dian based Mad Sci­ence Inter­na­tional Group, the world’s num­ber 1 Sci­ence educational-entertainment pro­gram provider for kids and Found­ing mem­ber and Direc­tor of Inspire Lead­er­ship Consultancy.

You can hear him in his daily Radio Pro­gram “Busi­ness Mat­ters” which was given a Year 2007 spe­cial cita­tion by the Catholic Mass Media Awards.

You can read him through his Sat­ur­day and Sun­day col­umn of the Busi­ness Page of the Philip­pine Star.

You can see him as he reg­u­larly guests every Thurs­day morn­ing at the pop­u­lar morn­ing show Uma­gang Kay Ganda.

His web­site is here.

Work and Fun
Fran­cis Kong (Philip­pine Star Nov 15)

I train, I speak, I give keynotes and this is why I meet peo­ple all the time.

I see dif­fer­ent kinds of peo­ple all the time. I see peo­ple who are so happy and pro­duc­tive in their jobs and then I see peo­ple who look like
they have entered their career as the cruise direc­tor for the Titanic..

After my talks, par­tic­i­pants would come to me for advice. Our con­ver­sa­tion would go like this. As as I share this with you I want you to think it through as it may carry the answer to your ques­tions about your own work and fun issues.

Par­tic­i­pant: “I am not happy with my job Fran­cis, I am think­ing of resign­ing, should I or shouldn’t I?”

Fran­cis : “Well show me a job where you can be happy all the time andI will resign and join you!”

Par­tic­i­pant: “But there is no fun with my work, Francis!”

Fran­cis : “Sure, That’s why they call it work, and that’s what they pay you to do it! Had work been fun, it would have been called “FUN.”

Par­tyic­i­pant: “So what should I do? I heard a lot of speak­ers tell me that I need to love what I do but I sim­ply don’t.”

Do you get the point? Now let’s be real.

You want fun? Go to a cir­cus. But if you want to be paid, go to work, Duh!!

Work in itself is never fun. That’s why it is called labor.

Fun is the feel­ing part in you and work is the doing part you have to deal with.

Let me ask you a cou­ple of questions:

Do you like to be pro­moted?

Do you want to stay employed?

Do you use your pay check to pay for lux­u­ries such as pay­ing off your loans and buy­ing food for your fam­ily? Then it’s got noth­ing to do with your job. It’s got every­thing to do with you. Get this, it’s not what you feel. It’s what you do with what you feel.

Maybe there’s some­thing lack­ing in you /in what you do and this is why you are not happy. There are peo­ple doing the same jobs and they are happy aren’t they? Maybe age has caught up with you. You’re bored and you are tired. And you want to try some­thing else. It is not a bad thing. But you have to be practical.

Times are tough. Jobs will be hard to find. If you carry the bag­gage of not being happy with your cur­rent job,” you will bring it with you where ever you go and you will become more unhappy wher­ever you are.

Why not try some­thing else with what you are and what you cur­rently do?

Here are a few ideas.

1. You can pre­tend to be happy with your work. And you’re prob­a­bly say­ing, “But that’s not me.” And you are right. It’s that you that your office­mates and co-workers do not like to asso­ciate with. If you whim­per and whine and moan and groan all the time, not only do you make other peo­ple unhappy, they in turn will rein­force your not being happy. If you pre­tend to be happy, you might just get to the point of really being happy.

2. Be grate­ful. Do not look at things you do not have. Look at things you have and be thankl­ful. Be sat­is­fied with what you have but never be sat­is­fied with what you are and you are becom­ing which brings me to another point.

3, Grow and learn– Learn and grow. You need to work harder on your­self than you do on your job. Develop a pos­i­tive atti­tude. Get out of your com­fort zones. Read more books, lis­ten tomore tapes, attend more sem­i­nars and improve your skills. Accept more chal­lenges and make your­self a lot more use­ful that you cur­rently are today.

THE INTENSITYOF YOUR HAPPINESS–those moments when you are given a pro­mo­tion, when some­body swept you off your feet, when you won the jack­pot in a game show–are nice but they are not impor­tant. Fre­quency is. What mat­ters are those moments of quiet hap­pines that comes to you as being con­tent in what­ever sit­u­a­tion you are in your life.

There is a Swedish proverb that says: “Those who wish to sing always find a song.” Same thing: Hap­pi­ness comes to those who will to find it.