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Encouraged to come up with “an elevator speech” – a verbal calling card explaining what I do – I describe myself as being a
resource to people who are committed to leading worthwhile businesses and worthwhile lives. Worthwhile not in my judgment, but in your own. All of my work is about helping you
to discover your gifts and then to commit to sharing those gifts; about finding your voice, and then connecting your voice to your touch. It is about dreaming and then acting to
make those dreams real.
Because for the first two decade of my professional life, I was privileged to be a student at one of the great universities of customer
service of our times – Nordstrom – my work is usually categorized as being around service. However, service is the outcome; commitment to developing and contributing personal excellence
is the dynamic. So not service per se, but service leadership is my focus: Service leadership being unrelated to a position on an organization chart, rather being a belief about
one’s personal meaning and purpose in life.
A BBC-made video captures a telling moment in the life of Mother Teresa. A reporter asks, “Mother Teresa, many say you are a living
saint. Are you a saint?” She hesitates just a moment and then answers, “Yes, I am.” Her inquisitor can barely contain his smirk: he has caught this holy woman out in a
moment of oh too human pride. Then she goes on, and his expression changes radically; “ I am called to be a saint. Just as you are called to be a saint in your work. We
are all called to be saints.”
Her point: whatever it is we do, that we give it our best is our calling. Who is calling us? The world, which
so needs our contribution. So let the saints come marching in! Into our homes and into our communities. Into our workplaces and into our government offices. Into
our heads and hearts and hands and voices.
I look forward to the opportunity of sharing ideas on how we might work together. And I hope the point Mother Teresa is
making to all of us stimulates in you your own committment to sainthood!
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