The Value Of Working In Service Of Others

Written by: Orion Webster

Before starting FourthEye, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what things were worth working on and really drilling down on why I thought I was justified in choosing the things I did. I often found that I would fizzle out, not because of burnout, or because I had so many other things going on, but because I simply didn’t have a fire for the things I was doing. I was doing the,”right things”, one might say, since I was picking things that seemed to create value for myself and others and that were complex and difficult enough to keep me interested, but eventually I always grew tired of working on those things I claimed to care about. I told myself what I thought was true about myself, that I was fundamentally motivated by the opportunity to grasp power and achieve whatever was necessary to play out my whims of course, all the while, I peered through the window into the lives of my mentors and wondered why they were successful and I wasn’t. Did they torture themselves more than I did? This didn’t appear to be the case. Did they work harder than me? Perhaps. Were they simply smarter than me beyond what is amendable? Maybe. I constantly asked myself, “What do I lack that they possess? “, “What is the difference between us?”.

As you might imagine I found my inability to stay interested in my chosen work agonizing, and my inability to ascertain the difference between myself and those I looked to for wisdom and direction frustrating. One day not to long ago though, I listened to a conversation on Tim Ferriss’ blog with a man named George Raveling. It is not often the case that my whole world is changed by a single conversation, or a single sentence, but after absorbing the concept that this man and his life embodied, this idea that if you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get what you want, I realized a few things: one, I already knew that the value you get in life is proportional to what you give, this is merely the law of equivalent exchange, but I never thought to put the focus on other people rather than myself. Second, I realized that I didn’t know exactly what I wanted or what would make me feel fulfilled, but I had a sense that if I lived my life by the dictum he offered, that I might figure something out, and hence I started FourthEye shortly thereafter, pursuing something that I really enjoy, blogging and podcasting and sharing and receiving ideas and taking that in a new direction from what I’ve done before.

I’m sharing this story not because I want you all to know the background of FourthEye in particular, as I don’t know how useful that might be, although I suspect the story of strife and overcoming my demons might be inspiring to some degree, but rather I want to offer to you, that figuring out what motivates you and what gets you out of bed in the morning is not just a cliche, it’s truly key to leading a fulfilling life. I realized that by changing my focus to others and thinking about how I can serve people everyday, that I’m living a much more fulfilling life than ever before. I’ve found that I have always been poorly motivated by doing things purely for myself, but when others are involved I suddenly shift into a hard working, happy, reliable person, and this shift in my thinking has been so powerful that the way the colors of the world look to me has even shifted and I feel a sense of purpose as I navigate throughout my life.

The moral of the story and the key element that I think is worth mentioning, is that even when I was questioning what the differences between myself and others were, it becomes clear as I tell the story, that I never had a grasp on the person that I am versus who I think I am. I think it is important to notice the reality that whatever story you come up with about why you do or don’t do things, number one, is probably wrong and number two, must cause you to trend towards the outcomes you want, or it is functionally useless.

Anyway that’s my story and I hope that you can find some use in it, in your journey to be the best version of yourself. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day.