Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 39 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Your first day, every day
— From This Is Day One: A Practical Guide to Leadership That Matters by Drew Dudley
Drew Dudley, leadership guru with one of the most watched TED Talks (“lollipop moment”) has published a new book, This is Day One, and I love it!
In the book, Dudley recalls the story of Mustafa, his tour guide in Qatar who had the most wonderful and infectious energy of anyone he’s ever met: “he vibrated with energy.”
As they were dune bashing (“flying off sand mountains at 70 miles an hour”), Mustafa was “cackling with laughter” and having an incredible time, whereas Dudley was trying to brace himself as much as he could.
What follows is the exchange that took place at the scene, as Dudley describes it. I left it verbatim because the story is absolutely beautiful. It left me with an a-ha! moment and a powerful lesson—I hope it does the same for you!
[As] he pushed the accelerator toward the floor [we] were absolutely flying toward what appeared to me to be a sheer drop and Mustafa was having the time of his life.
Bracing myself against the dash, I looked over at Mustafa and shouted: “Mustafa! You’re having a better time than I am! You do this every day! How do you stay so excited about it?”
Mustafa looked over at me, and with a smile that showed every one of his teeth, bellowed back:
“Oh! It’s my first day!”
I just about crawled out the back window.
Look, I understand that everyone has to start somewhere, but if your job involved driving me off of a sand cliff (hell, if your job involves driving me off of any cliffs really), I’d rather prefer not to be assigned the new guy.
I’m going to assume that thought showed very clearly in my expression because Mustafa let out a laugh and hit the brakes. The 4×4 skidded to a halt maybe twenty feet from the edge of the dune.
At that point I had both feet on the on the dash and had pushed myself basically up to the roof. Mustafa put the vehicle in park and looked at me with pure amazement.
“Mr. Dudley,” he began, leaning in. “Don’t you realize? You want the new guy!”
My heart still in my throat, I managed a weak, “I’m not so sure, my friend.”
“Think about it, Mr. Dudley,” Mustafa replied. “Think about your first day of work! On your first day of work you show up early; you dress your best; you try everything you can to impress your boss. You are patient with your coworkers, even the ones you know right away you’re not going to like. You ask all the questions you have because there’s no shame in doing that when you’re new. You double-check everything that you do. You stay late. You are never more committed to your job than you are on your first day. You are never more convinced it is going to be the best job you have ever had than you are on your first day.”
He leaned closer and continued, “As soon as your second day of work begins, all of that starts to stop being quite so true, doesn’t it?
He leaned back with a broad smile.
“The first day that I ever came to work at this job was seventeen years ago, Mr. Dudley. But I had such an incredible experience that I promised myself something. I promised myself that I would NEVER have a second day of work.”
He paused to look me right in the eye.
“Mr. Dudley, it has been my first day of work for seventeen years. Five years ago I bought this company. All I ask of anyone who works for me is that they treat every day they come to work like it is their first day. The customers love it. It’s why we are the best tour company in the country.”
ACTION
TODAY: Go back in your memory and relive the excitement of your first day of work. Take that enthusiasm, energy, and can-do-it-all attitude with you throughout the day and see how this changes your approach to things.
FUTURE: Adopt the first day mindset and share it with those that surround you. If, as the saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20, imagine what your wisdom of hindsight plus the energy and excitement of the first day can do for you and your business today: simply magic!
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