Sharing in the vision and energy of your team is a key factor to success and happiness at work.

Putting Your Dreams On Hold

When I started at OrderedList there was one product I was really passionate about because I had done most of the work on it. I quickly realized though that I needed to put that passion on hold, or better said, redirect it towards Harmony, so that I could help push the vision of my team forward. I needed to share their dreams and hopefully incorporate mine at some point.

As soon as I dug into Harmony, fixing weak spots in the test suite, spearheading the move to Rails 3, working on a new feature (that I’m dying to tell you about), my heart began to change, my passion became their passion, and I was happy again and part of the team.

Sharing The Energy

Almost as soon as I really started getting passionate about Harmony John came home from sick leave and had this crazy idea to build a web analytics service, which we now call Gauges. At first all I could think was, boring, but hanging around Steve, John, and Brandon I started to catch the buzz, the energy, and the excitement!

This is when I began to realize that I didn’t necessarily have to put my dreams on hold, I just needed to share in my teams excitement and get them excited about what I’m excited about by letting them see my own energy.

Every team is different, but letting your coworkers see your excitement and passion about a product/project and sharing in their dreams at the same time is one easy way to stay happy at work and be excited to go to the office every day.