Work Like It’s Your First Day
Act like you give a damn.
In his story about accidental leadership, Drew Dudley talks about a man named Mustapha. The driver of a dune-blasting excursion company, Mustapha referred to each day at work as his “first day of work.” Mind you, Mustapha had been working in that very job for 18 years. He explained his philosophy to Drew as such:
“I go to work every day like it’s my first day. On your first day of work you dress your best, you listen the hardest, you are nice to everyone that you work with. On your first day you work to impress your new bosses and your new coworkers, and you hope and believe it will be a job you love. But we let that all start to go away on our second day.”
— Mustapha
Mustapha’s idea is a simple, yet profound one. It is possibly the strongest underpinning of The Concurrent Project, for achieving concurrence is dependant on peak performance. Think about your first day — your energy, drive and enthusiasm was were all at peak levels. What if we could systematically sustain those circumstances?
How can you reconfigure each day to be just like your first day? What factors would you need to replicate? Lifehacker.com summed it up in their article titled “What’s Expected of Me on the First Day of a New Job?” Here’s the gist of it:
Show up on time
Learn from your mistakes
Be honest
Remain open-minded
Have ambition
Care about the quality of your work, even if you aren’t at the job of your dreams
Lifehack.org featured a similar piece titled “A New Employer: 8 Steps to Put Your Best Foot Forward.” The steps listed are as follows:
Write it all down
Be social
Do your work, but don’t push it
Make your desk home
Check in with your supervisor
Take care of the HR department
Learn by doing
Last but not least, a seminal book on the topic of hitting the ground running at a new job is The First 90 Days by Michael D. Watkins. Key lessons* include:
Promote yourself
Accelerate your learning
Match strategy to situation
Secure early wins
Negotiate success
Achieve alignment
Build your team
Create coalitions
Keep your balance
Accelerate everyone
Working like its your first day isn’t easy. It requires a complete shift in attitude and behavior. But once you’ve supplemented it with working like you’re going on vacation, you will have effectively entered into a sustainable state of working harder, faster and smarter. In turn, you will have multiplied your capacity for more, several times over.
I decided 18 years ago I would not have a second day of work. I decided I would just redo my first. I have been redoing it every day since then. I am blessed to do what I love, and I think that is the best way to keep loving it.
— Mustapha
*A breakdown of each lesson can be found in this Globe & Mail article.
