Emotional labour is a term I’ve borrowed from the inimitable Seth Godin, and his excellent book “Linchpin: Are you indispensable?”. Emotional labour, in the words of artist Hugh MacLeod, is “Work that you put your heart and soul into. Work that matters. Work that you gladly sacrifice all other alternatives for.”
That’s the sort of work I want to do, every day. Don’t you? If you can’t put your heart and soul into it, why are you doing it? Don’t your customers, your employees, your family, deserve to get the very best of you? And, isn’t life too short to spend doing work that doesn’t really matter to you?
Passionate work is productive work that you are proud to put your name to. Applying emotional labour is an old fashioned ethic that has found new legs in the Information Age, because when customers can choose from so many faceless competitors, so easily, the trust and credibility emotional labour brings you will make you indispensable.
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