You Have to Serve Somebody

Bob Dylan wrote a great classic with the title You've Got to Serve Somebody. His lyrics were spot on: "It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you've got to serve somebody."

It's really like that. The act of genuine service transports a body straight to heavenly bliss. That is why the late, great Albert Schweitzer proclaimed that true happiness comes from service.

I spent one August picking up trash from the Mediterranean with little mesh nets, together with students from the Coaching for Leaders ten-day on Ibiza. When I arrived here the beach looked like a floating trash repository punctuated with algae. You had to wade through a couple of meters of plastic bags, cigarette butts, empty cartons and bits of seaweed infested foam just to get to open water. After ten days, with each participant scooping trash for around thirty minutes per day, you would be hard pressed to find anything floating in the waters off Santa Eulalia besides salt. The minds of the players became clearer and their hearts became more in tune with each other and with nature.

Now why on earth would business coaches attend a leadership course in which the participants pick up garbage? It works like this. Business leadership comes down to ego verses essence. Essential leaders aren't looking out for themselves at the expense of others. The human essence is a loving, selfless character that lives to serve. Ego leaders, on the other hand, can't understand why the world isn't living up to their expectations and devoting itself to their greedy desires. They use hostility and fear to manipulate people. So which kind of leader inspires participation and brilliant performances?

When you truly serve, your ego pops like an over-inflated balloon. Your essence flies free. Your decisions flow from the collective wisdom of your team. People drop their masks and play straight from the heart.

The moment you perform a service, you upset the exploitation and exchange mathematics your brain uses to calculate value. The mind spins out of control. Habitual meanings and interpretations fade. Your whole chemistry returns to an ancient state of balance.

Perhaps that is why volunteering vacations are outpacing sales at the hedonistic clubs that push alcohol to lower inhibitions. It's the difference between sharing a profound experience with unselfish people and getting so drunk that you can remain numb to the imitation pleasure you try to extract from other revelers. People return home exhausted from so-called fun spots. They return from volunteering vacations with peaceful minds and open hearts.

The formula for service is simple: Zen something. Clean something for the sake of cleaning. Help an old person across the street. Follow the wisdom of the bumper sticker that exhorts us to "Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty."

--Martin Sage