Your service role will become elevated when you remember to simply pull away from those stories that diminish your worth and notice the abundance of evidence of how valuable you are.
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness blog – to which I am a regular contributor. It’s hard to boil down a practice as rich as mindfulness to just a few words…however it’s fun to try. Actually, here’s one single word: “curiosity”. To what extent can you plunge your attention into everything with […]
MoreMy quest to understand the state of mind that leads to a love of service is fed by questions like this… What does it consist of? Where does draw its energy from? How can it be acquired by others? What makes it resilient? What disrupts it? What kinds of mental conditioning prevent someone’s receptivity to it? […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute for Organizational Mindfulness. All service roles require trust, but not in the way you might think. It’s the kind of trust that keeps you both emotionally clean and connected to the true value of your work. In dealing with customers and clients, you can bring your best, most professional, […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness (IOM). For both your own fulfillment, and the people you serve, what’s a better service trait than the love of making others happy? Well, the first mistake you can make with this is a tendency towards “outcome-orientation”: the frustration from things not turning out how you […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. “Never let ‘em see you sweat.” I have very distinct memories of one of my mentors telling me this and urging me to laugh at myself more. Thanks to a terrifying combination of clumsiness and perfectionism, I was a young service professional that was prone to […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. A true person of service lives and works in constant readiness for celebration. I can see this principal getting misinterpreted by my former bar and restaurant colleagues as something to the effect of bartenders doing shots with the clientele. But you’re onto something here: real success […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. Service is full of mistakes. You’re dealing with endless highly-individual needs, unpredictable particularities, a minefield of emotional triggers that clients will readily punish you for ever-so-slightly feathering an insecurity of theirs. You’re also juggling technical demands and chances are you have the precision of a flesh […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. No service professional likes being run around. We retrace the same task for people who asked for one thing but needed another, we get absorbed by the endless questions of anxious clientele that aren’t even willing to listen to the answers. We carry the water of […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. Having worked in the restaurant industry for most of my professional life, I’ve taken for granted how unusual it is. Even though its product has a certain universality to it (facilitating some of the most fundamental human needs like food, comfort, and social connection), there are […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. Many that find success and fulfillment in the sales role probably know that they are doing a lot more than selling. On its own, the word “sales” mainly implies a simple monetary exchange: provide a product/service to a customer in exchange for money. What makes that […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. Periods of great difficulty are always a great time to reflect on what service means to us and the ideas we may have accumulated about it that may need to be revisited. I’m thinking back to an inspiring discussion I recently had with restaurant-owner Albert Bitton […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. Ichi-go Ichi-e is a Japanese parable translating to One Encounter, One Opportunity. It’s become the slogan of the practice of tea ceremony, which for many Asian cultures is the quintessential means of practicing mindfulness through action. It reveals how doing a simple daily ritual with […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. A new job or role might start out as a love affair. But so often after the first few months, it loses its lustre. We begin to feel deadened by the repetition of seemingly menial tasks. Why does repetition do this and can we change […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. Start paying close attention to how you serve, and you may notice things that you don’t like so much – like how little other people pay attention. It’s easy to get frustrated, which is why two other skills are key ingredients here: Try Some Non-Attachment: […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. Expand Your Communication Skills Have you ever gone to eat somewhere and everything is “perfect”? The person serving you recommends a wine pairing with a sniper’s precision. It arrives with surgically-executed food, both of which are timed like a Swiss monorail. And yet the experience was […]
MoreOriginally published here for the Institute of Organizational Mindfulness. Charity work is so attractive because of how gratifying it feels to help people who truly need it. The problem with most of the service contexts we face in our professional lives is that we’re not necessarily helping people who seem to “need” it. And sometimes […]
MoreThe resulting experience of each meditation doesn’t matter nearly as much as your mindset around your experiences. Meditation is not a state you reach, but an attitude you maintain.
MoreOne problem is that so many people think that their life truly begins after their service job ends. Their service job is a state of purgatory where they’re waiting for their real professional lives in some more noble industry to truly materialize. In a previous post, I mentioned the many people I’ve met that have […]
MoreThe resulting experience of each meditation doesn’t matter nearly as much as your mindset around your experiences. Meditation is not a state you reach, but an attitude you maintain.
MoreThe resulting experience of each meditation doesn’t matter nearly as much as your mindset around your experiences. Meditation is not a state you reach, but an attitude you maintain.
MoreThe resulting experience of each meditation doesn’t matter nearly as much as your mindset around your experiences. Meditation is not a state you reach, but an attitude you maintain.
MoreThe resulting experience of each meditation doesn’t matter nearly as much as your mindset around your experiences. Meditation is not a state you reach, but an attitude you maintain.
MoreThe resulting experience of each meditation doesn’t matter nearly as much as your mindset around your experiences. Meditation is not a state you reach, but an attitude you maintain.
MoreSuccessful meditation is effortless meditation. Not in the way of “I’m such an expert at it that it seems effortless.” You can be effortless during the first meditation you ever do. Effortlessness doesn’t mean there’s no discomfort. It doesn’t mean you’re having the most luxurious imaginable experience – relaxed, floating beyond the tension of the […]
MoreSo when you learn meditation, you’re given something to put your attention. Perhaps it’s your breath or, in my case, a mantra. Your first instinct might be to focus on that thing wholeheartedly. But in meditation ease and openness is truly what gives the practice power, and nothing takes you further from that than the […]
MoreWhen are shopping malls fun? When you’re a teenager. At any point in your adult life. At any point in your pre-teen years while getting dragged along by your parents. Some combination of options other than just a) (Really? Not possible.) Tell me you answered a). That’s my answer every time. Some people may enjoy […]
MoreOne might think that meditation is a matter of attention – and we can measure our success by where our awareness is at any given time. For example, we have a mantra to repeat or breath to focus on and the amount of time that we keep ourselves locked on it can then somehow equal […]
MoreBecause, y’know, we’re all monks now. Welcome to the new series Self-Hospitality. Its purpose is to give you everything you need to get the most out of meditation, self-care and this fresh new life we get to live with such powerful tools at our disposal. The weekly tools and principles I share will help you […]
MoreWhat if we could live a life where every moment is meaningful and every action, big or small, sweet or sour, is in service of something infinitely crucial? All it takes is a simple shift of mindset into a Yogic one.
MoreOriginally published here on Ram Dass’ Be Here Now Network. Service Can Give or It Can Take…It’s Your Choice. When we think of service, we often consider it to be a type of job you can have. Years and years in the trenches of the restaurant and bar industry resulted in me seeing only this […]
MoreThis article stands alone, but also serves as an extension of themes discussed in of part I. The Case of the Two-Faced Server. One of the most prominent bits of restaurant industry lore concerns an idea that the servers that are the most gracious, sweet and beloved by their guests are the vile once they […]
MorePowerful Ways The Service Environment Reveals & Tests Our Ability to Be Our Authentic Selves Probably the most played out bit of wisdom we get from people of all positions and disciplines is encouragement to “just be you” rather than whatever you think people expect of you. It’s something we always do well to be […]
MoreOriginally written for the Be Here Now Network. Check out the original article here. “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” -T.S. Eliot It’s many years ago, and a much younger Stefan is in the […]
MoreThe most recent Serve Conscious podcast episode was about living with an abundance mentality. The concept might have seemed more controversial than I first considered and probably would have benefitted from a more thorough explanation of what it is and what it is not. In case there are fears that this idea conflicts with your […]
MoreFor the first time in awhile, I don’t have a management role where I work. Right now, all I want to do is moonlight at a restaurant, rather than invest the hours into running some aspect of it. Currently, I have too much else to do. So I’m not a leader there. Technically. However, that […]
MoreOriginally written for the Be Here Now Network. What is service? On the surface, it sounds so simple: the act of identifying needs and working to fulfill them. Service is often thought of as oriented to others, but the target should just as often be yourself. Service is often thought of as a professional imperative (i.e. […]
MoreHow do we end up rooting for anti-heros? Film and television characters that aren’t 100% virtuous have always managed to get our full support. They don’t always do the right thing, but we want them to succeed at whatever they are doing (even if it’s something with questionable morality). In a sense, we aren’t cheering […]
MoreI used to think I took the art of service seriously…until I encountered tea ceremony. Both the Chinese & Japanese ways of tea have changed my life in different ways. Each have different priorities, and this article will focus on the Japanese tradition to reveal an aspect of service that I think no one trying […]
MoreIn part I of this article, I illustrated my current easier-than-usual work environment where I still find tremendous challenges to serving others. I’ve found that this is because of the innate limitations of being human and connecting to other humans. This exercise has allowed me to look at the finer points of service and […]
MoreYears ago, I retired from the bar/restaurant industry to take my meditation knowledge further and become trained as a teacher. Last year, I returned. For love, fascination…and, yeah…for money. I was excited to be back in my element. And dreading it a bit since I know the industry can take its toll on ones health […]
MoreOriginally written for the Be Here Now Network. Check it out here. A 2007 study by political scientist RD Putnam discovered that people are more likely to socially retreat when in ethnically diverse environments. Our tendency to hide away and avoid connecting to those that seem different than us was the focus of Grace Rodriguez’ […]
MoreIn different stages of life, we all have holes in our game that we hope others don’t see. “Impostor syndrome” is the belief that we are riddled with deficiencies. That we are fundamentally lacking in something (i.e. reliable skills) that makes us the useful, valuable human we are somehow obligated to be – and we’re just around the corner from being found out. The most successful people on the planet continue to get struck by this feeling every time they put themselves out there in a big way. But, everyday, even the smallest interactions can trigger it.
MoreThe ego is often misunderstood as something you need to get rid of. It’s more like a part of you that needs to be kept healthy. Those mystical experiences where the ego “dissolves” is more of a chokehold being released from your true self – the ego’s still there, just non-attached, not defining and limiting your experience. I discuss the unexpected ways that “enlarging” it helps you break out of its limitations. And provide some useful techniques that you can use to strengthen your ego so you can serve everything better and just generally live your full potential.
MoreMy first love affair with service and restaurants was with bartending just as it was becoming a highly respected craft in the Western world. However, the eastern approach revealed how much we were missing. How the Japanese Way of Tea and the one-pointed path of the Shokunin is just beginning to reveal the possibilities of serving as true hospitality people.
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