Celebrate the inauguration by making your work an act of service

Celebrate the inauguration by making your work an act of service Its a big day, and Im excited to take a pause from work with the rest of the country to watch Barack Obama give his inagural speech. In the meantime, Im thinking about the day of service. How Obama wants the country to come together in the name of service. And I heard MTV declare, last night, that the next generation is Generation S. For service. So Im thinking about service, and how all our efforts to help people, really, are aimed to make them more indepdent. And thats what work is about: Taking care of ourselves, mentally and financially. When you mentor someone in the work arena, you are providing that service. So often we pick the superstar to mentor. Or the up-and-comer. Or the one who can help us with our own networking. But you can use your work skills to help someone pull themselves out of a bad spot. A really bad spot. Work skills are very powerful. And so is mentoring. So when you think about service, dont think of it as separate from work. Obama stands for all the things that we do, on this blog: Personal responsibility, transparency, honesty, change even when its difficult. This inagural day is the beginning of meshing the public life and worklife so that we are living the values we believe in, wherever we go. Think about how you can focus on service at work. Each of us has a lot of tools at our disposal. If we take the time to use them.