This edition first published 2015
© 2015 Lucy Whittington
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ISBN 978-0-857-08592-4 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-857-08596-2 (ebk)
ISBN 978-0-857-08597-9 (ebk)
Cover image: © istock.com/shaneillustration
We all know when we meet someone who is doing their Thing. They are more interesting. More engaging. They wave their hands about more when they talk. They are more passionate – about work, about life, about everything. And generally speaking, they are better at what they do. They know more about it. They have thought more about it. The world is a better place because of all these things.
Lucy Whittington is definitely someone who is ‘doing her Thing’. When you hear her speak for the first time you know there is something different. Something resonates. You know what she is saying is true, even though you might not have heard it expressed precisely like this before. It catches something inside you and you begin to see possibilities you hadn’t seen before. Her vision is a world where everyone is doing their Thing. Her Thing is helping that happen, one person at a time.
As she speaks, that world unfolds before us. Imagine if everyone you interacted with had that same glow of passion around them. Plumbers, doctors, artists, teachers. We’ve all met some of these, and we all know the difference. Sometimes they appear in unexpected places: the school caretaker who greets everyone he meets with a cheerful smile and ‘hello’; the gardener who wants to talk at length about plans and designs and progress every time you walk past – whether it’s your own garden they are working on, or an unrelated garden five doors up the street; the shoe shop owner who goes to great lengths to get you the right fit, and explains it all in detail, and the shoes they finally sell you feel like you were born with them on your feet…
Imagine if everyone you met had similar passion for their work. Everything would be done well. There would be no customer complaints departments, and all the unhappy people who work in them could be recycled back into the workforce, ready to find and do their Thing; customer service would be a totally different world, a place where supporting the customer joyfully would be rewarding work for the people whose Thing that is.
In a world of everyone doing their Thing, everything would work. Inanimate objects would do what they are supposed to do, when they are supposed to do them – can openers and air conditioning systems and mobile phone networks – because the people who design them and the people who make them would be focused and creative and innovative, filled with the energizing joy of doing their Thing.
