WHO are you serving?
When you do whatever you do, are you conscious of the person or people for whom you are doing that? This isn’t just about your job or career or business, but even the family for whom you are cooking dinner, or the person you hold the door open for at the mall, or the charity that you are supporting with your donation.
WHO is it that you are serving?
There are plenty of answers when you look outside yourself at the examples above. But in all of those, are you serving yourself first? Remember that the airlines instruct you to put your oxygen mask on FIRST and then turn to help a companion or child. What good are you to that other passenger if you pass out from lack of oxygen before you can help them? Take care of yourself first so that you are better able to serve.
We think of that on airplanes but the same principle applies all throughout our days and our lives.
If you don’t take care of your own health, no one else can do it. You know this. You accept this. But what about your spiritual and psychological health? Your emotional health? Your mental health? Are you serving yourself by taking care of yourself in those areas?
If you are an entrepreneur or you work in an office, are you clear about the customers or clients that you serve? Are they real people to you or are you focused on tasks and not people?
As an entrepreneur I am very focused on the clients in my business. My work is to build a relationship in which I support them. If I were a secretary, I would be supporting a boss and needing to accomplish certain tasks for her. How much use would I be if I weren’t taking good care of myself and if I was thinking about the computer instead of the project that creates info that she needs? A teacher who thinks only about what he is teaching and not about the kids and what they are learning is not a very good teacher. A musician or actor or artist who isn’t thinking about how the audience is receiving their art isn’t sharing much of themselves.
We’ve all heard that ‘Energy flows where attention goes.’ If your attention is on accomplishing your to-do list, on everybody else’s to-do list, on getting things done and over with instead of on the people and the relationships, what do you think will happen to the people (including you) and the relationships?
Take some time this week to ask yourself the question, “Who is my WHO? For whom am I doing this? And have I taken care of myself first so that I can serve at my best level?”
Entrepreneurs are taught to identify their ‘target market’ or ‘audience’ early in their training, but most of us don’t get this lesson and broaden the perspective into everything that we do. Next time you are fixing food, ask about your ‘Who.’ Next time you hold a door, think about the person walking through it and smile. Smile before you answer the phone because there is (usually) a human being on the other end of the line. Think about the tasks on your to-do list in terms of the person/people impacted.
Who is your WHO?
Mystic Messages 
Who is Your WHO? – Richard’s Commentary
May 21, 2014 — RichardRosemary’s question this week is:
WHO is it that you are serving?
My first reaction to this question is to think about my Qigong students; they are my clients and I do feel that I am serving them when we are in class together, when I am leading them through a form, focusing on breath, gathering and storing Qi for health, well-being, and peace. The beauty of my “who” is I am serving myself as well. I am doing the research into Taoism, the basis for the effectiveness of Qigong. I am going through the form with my students, leading myself to health, well-being and peace. And I am working with the forms on my own as well, practicing the forms every day. I continue my research and reading on the subject to go deeper so I can take my students deeper.
In response to Rosemary’s statement:
If you don’t take care of your own health, no one else can do it. You know this. You accept this. But what about your spiritual and psychological health? Your emotional health? Your mental health? Are you serving yourself by taking care of yourself in those areas?
I can feel pretty good, right? Qigong covers all these aspects of my life. Qigong contributes to my health. And the study of Taoism supports my spiritual and psychological health. Reflection on the Five Elements, the basis for Traditional Chinese Medicine, helps me work through my emotional and mental issues. Through all these levels I am serving my students and I am serving myself at the same time!
If only it were that simple!
Everything I’ve written above is true. And Qigong does help my students and me work through issues. But what about others I serve?
What about Rosemary? She is my client as well. I support her business, TheScientificMystic.com, through managing the technology to operate the business, handling the finances, and helping her with the messaging and marketing of her services. How am I doing with that?
Here I can’t be quite as glib with my answers! Sometimes I grow impatient that Rosemary doesn’t work to my schedule! Whose business is this? Sometimes I get frustrated with the procrastination. But I am a great procrastinator! And too often I get bogged down with the technology rather than focusing on what drives the business – Rosemary’s talent!
So, I need to take Rosemary’s advice here:
My work is to build a relationship in which I support them.
My work with Rosemary is to create the best possible business relationship we can have in order to best serve her, as my client!
And I need to do this analysis for all of my relationships. Everyone is a “client” of everyone else. It is important to nurture client relationships and it is vital to nurture all of our inter-relationships.
Who are your clients? Are you nurturing them? Are you nurturing every relationship with others as if they were your client? Are you nurturing the relationship with yourself?
What a world it would be if this were the case!