The Bottomless Pit
Photo by Neneqo Fotógrafo
What a Bolivian Mine Taught Me About Fundamental #8: Service Is Exponential
For the longest time in my life, I strived to reach higher. A more important role. More money. The next prestigious project.
I achieved a lot of things. And I was never fully satisfied.
It is a strange paradox. I want to grow, in every area of my life, as much as I possibly can. But growth chased for its own sake becomes a bottomless pit. There is always more. And a bottomless pit will always leave you feeling not enough.
Luckily, I have always had a deep need to serve other people. And in serving others, I found something achievement never gave me: real satisfaction.
I know how that sounds. Like a cliché you would find on a poster in someone's office. But it is true. You get more satisfaction out of helping others than out of helping yourself. I have had plenty of successes in my career. The experiences that have actually stayed with me are the ones where I truly made a difference in someone else's life.
A Mine Unlike Any Other
A few months ago I ran a workshop at a mine site in Bolivia, with a group of young professionals who were struggling to engage their workforce.
The mine had a structure I had never encountered anywhere else. The workers belonged to the community that owned the mine. In a real sense, they were the owners. They had the power to remove a general manager if they did not like him or her, and they had done it before. Some workers earned more than some of the directors.
Picture that for a moment. A group of recent graduates, sent in to lead people who could vote them out and who, in most cases, earned more money than they did. This was not a normal power dynamic. It could not be handled with the usual playbook.
I believe people are people. If you treat them right, if they feel seen, heard, respected, and treated with dignity, like the experts they are, they will respond in kind. That belief does not change because the org chart looks unusual. If anything, it matters more.
The Mistake Almost Everyone Makes
Here is the mistake I see young professionals make over and over. They try to prove themselves by being authoritative.
It backfires every time.
There is no version of a fresh graduate, or frankly anyone, who has more hands-on experience with a mine than the person who works in it all day, every day. You cannot compete with that. Walking in tough, acting like you already have the answers, trying to impose your will on people who know more than you do about the actual work, it never goes well.
In that workshop, the topic on the agenda was human and organizational performance. But I found myself talking about something more fundamental: how to actually be with another human being.
I told them to stop trying to dictate how things should be. To assume a position of curiosity and humility instead. To ask more questions than they make statements. To really listen.
Many of them admitted they were nervous, even scared, to speak to the workers. They were afraid of being rejected.
I Still Feel That Fear Too
I told them something else. I feel that fear too.
Twenty-plus years into this work, I still get nervous. I have made the exact same mistake they were making, walking in and telling people what to do, and it has backfired on me exactly the way it was backfiring on them.
What changed is what I do with the fear now. I ask questions instead of giving instructions. And it works, almost every time. People have a deep desire to share themselves, to contribute. When you make space for that by being genuinely curious, most people respond. Not everyone. There is always the person who is angry at the world for reasons that have nothing to do with you. But most people meet curiosity and humility with generosity.
The fear itself is real, though. Approaching another human being in a high-stakes situation, one tied to their job and their sense of being respected, is not comfortable for anyone. Including me. I have learned to use some of that nervousness as fuel. I prepare harder because of it. And when people tell me the nerves are there because you care, I choose to focus on the caring, not the nerves. That shift alone has changed the outcome of more conversations than I can count.
What They Told Me
By the end of the workshop, I had built real relationships with the participants. They opened up.
They told me how scared they were to approach the workers, certain they would be rejected. They told me that even though they knew better, they spent most of their time in the office on the surface, instead of going down into the mine to actually talk to people. And they told me that the few times they had gone down, it had not gone well. Partly because they tried to dictate. Partly because the fear got the better of them, and it showed.
Here is something I have learned over the years, and I believe it completely. No matter how superior we think we are to other animals, we are still animals. A dog or a horse can feel when you are nervous or scared, and it responds to that state. So can people. They may not be able to name exactly what they are sensing. But they sense that something is off.
I have learned not to buy into the fear. Instead, I focus on how much I care about making a difference. That focus has been exponential. It has let me create real relationships, do my best work, and actually change the trajectory of a client's experience. When that happens, when you feel that you have truly made a difference for another human being, no amount of money, power, or title can match it.
Her Eyes
I told the group all of this. That I feel the same fear they do. That I choose not to buy into it.
I told them that you do not have to believe every thought that shows up in your head, or let every emotion take over. Your thoughts and your feelings are not you. You have them, the same way you have hands and feet. But you are not your hands, and you are not your feet. You can choose which thoughts and feelings to buy into, and which ones to let go of.
I remember a young woman in that room. When I said that, her eyes went wide, like she was really looking at me for the first time.
That is my interpretation, of course. But what I saw in her face told me she had just been handed something completely new. Something that would change how she showed up with every worker she ever spoke to again.
That look was a gift to me. Worth more than any amount of money, any title, any prestigious project.
I want to be clear. I still like earning well. I still enjoy working on important projects. That has not changed and I do not think it needs to.
But being of service to another human being is the greatest gift you can give that person. And, strange as it may sound, it is also the greatest gift you can give yourself.
That is Fundamental number eight. Service is exponential. Not because it sounds good on a wall somewhere, but because I have watched it multiply outward, from me to a room full of young professionals, from them to workers who felt heard for maybe the first time, from those workers into their own families and communities in ways none of us will ever fully see.
Where in your work are you trying to prove yourself instead of serving the people in front of you?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
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Fundamental of the Week #8: SERVICE IS EXPONENTIAL
We are in business to make a difference wherever we touch lives – with our clients, one another, and our communities. We serve the greater good by helping people have more satisfying and productive interactions, and that service has an exponential impact.
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