Do you have to be a star to do Great Work?
Do you know who the richest sportsman (or woman) is New Zealand is?
Part of the ferocious All Black rugby team, perhaps?
Or the Tall Blacks basketball team?
Or maybe a past legend, like the distance runner John Walker?
In fact it’s none of these. It’s Steve Williams.
Steve Williams, you ask? Yes – Steve “I’m Tiger Woods caddy” Williams.
Apart from how cool it must be to have that particular job, there’s something else important here.
Great Work isn’t necessary being the star, being the hero, playing the lead.
Great Work is as much doing the work that is your particular best in whatever context. Playing a supportive role may absolutely be your Great Work.
In fact, Marcella our office manager has taken the title “VP of Everything Else” – and we’re both clear that her best work is to be behind the scenes playing a supportive and close-to-anonymous role.
So who do you support?
And what would it take for it to be Great Work for you?
- “the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is…” (Great Work quote)
- Outside the Lines – How to Break the Rules
I just wrote a play about this very issue for our service on Sunday. The play is about Lydia, from Acts 16. She is a wealthy business woman in Philippi, and it is suggested that supported Paul financially on his mission trips. In my play, she is frustrated because she can’t be a missionary, like Paul. Finally she realises that she can use her money to aid Paul in his journeys. She won’t have the “up front” glory of Paul, but her great work (to borrow a phrase) will be to enable his great work.