Love the people you do the thing for.
Written by Ashleigh Brady
For longer than I can remember, I've held dear to the phrase "Do what you love. Love what you do." We even have a screen printed poster of this phrase framed in the office. (Thanks Ugmonk)
And then another phrase found its way into my life.
"Love the people you do the thing for."
Boom.
Picture some animated version of a mind explosion and little thought people racing around my brain at an average speed of 100mph.
In roughly 5 minutes, I felt a shift in thought. It's like this thing that had been jumbled up inside of me surfaced and actually made sense.
I don't have to love what I do, as long as I love who I'm doing it for.
For me - this was a moment of freedom. I could finally let go of the pressure felt from the previous phrases. And while I'm not abandoning them entirely, I'll be keeping them at bay. Because while I think it's important to pursue the things we love doing, there is a greater importance to base your life's work on how you love others — be that a job, volunteer work or serving as a parent or mentor.
Contrary to what you see on Instagram, we don't love everything about what we are doing. Elena and myself both have full-time jobs. Elena serves the role as Business Developer and Admin in her brother's local civil engineering firm. I work at Active Endeavors in West Des Moines serving as their Marketing Department (web, social, design and event planning). We both work in small businesses wearing multiple hats outside of our own small business. The days can get long and the to-do list is often never ending. And still there is always one thing that remains — we love the people we are doing the work for.
We love our families, our friends, our peers, and the people we have yet to meet. Essentially, we love our community.
You're the reason we took the plunge.
You're the reason we put our heads down every day and we will continue to do that until we no longer can.
So, as we move into the month that marks ONE YEAR of this thing, becoming an official real thing - we wanted to say thank you for believing in us, supporting us and challenging us.
We're excited to keep doing this alongside you and play a small role in our growing community.
Keep doing big things Des Moines (and beyond). We're here when you need us.
— The TSG Crew (Ashleigh, Elena, Pete & Thulee)