Latest / From Chad / Meaning #1183
Transcript
- 0:00The same task can be menial or meaningful.
- 0:05There's a story behind that. This is your daily message from
- 0:09Chad for 1183 to upgrade your mental gain today by telling
- 0:12yourself a better story. Because the most important story
- 0:15you hear is the story you tell yourself.
- 0:17This message is dedicated to Doctor Rob Gilbert of The
- 0:19Success Hotline, 973-743-4690. Congratulations on message
- 0:26#13,000 today. Recorded every day since January
- 0:3022nd, 1992. Here's the upgrade.
- 0:35A task may look menial, but upgraded?
- 0:36Think he knows the fine line between menial and meaningful?
- 0:40Here's the story. A writer once visited a small
- 0:45shop in Milan famous for handmade shirts.
- 0:48The cut was a work of art. Sleeves tapered to a trim cuff
- 0:51collars with the exact amount of tie space for the knot In the
- 0:55corner sat in an elderly man, white haired, bent over a
- 0:59cutting table. It was the owner's father.
- 1:02He had been cutting shirts for over 60 years and had just
- 1:05turned 84. The writer asked him his secret.
- 1:10The old man thought for a minute and then answered through his
- 1:12son. He says he has no technical
- 1:15answer. He says that to make a beautiful
- 1:17shirt you don't cut with the knife, you cut the cloth with a
- 1:20love. Cutting fabric is about as
- 1:24menial a task as exists. You can do it fast, do it cheap,
- 1:28do it careless. Nobody watching would know the
- 1:30difference for a while. That's the exact warning the
- 1:33critic John Ruskin is remembered for.
- 1:35Quote. There's scarcely anything in the
- 1:37world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little
- 1:40cheaper. And the person who considers
- 1:42price alone is that man's lawful prey.
- 1:45In quote, the old tailor. And Milan refused to become that
- 1:49man. He knew the difference between
- 1:51artwork and factory work was never in the task.
- 1:54It was in the meaning he brought to it.
- 1:56Stitch after stitch for 60 years.
- 2:00Doctor Rob Gilbert has been doing his own version of that
- 2:02for 34 years. A short 3 minute recorded
- 2:05message. Nothing about it looks
- 2:07meaningful from the outside. It would be the easiest thing in
- 2:10the world to skip a day to cut corners, to let it slide into
- 2:14something menial. Instead, he treated it the way
- 2:17the shirt maker treats a shirt. Nobody would call 3 minutes on a
- 2:21recorded line significant. The three minutes done with
- 2:24care, repeated day after day for 13,000 days without missing 1,
- 2:29become something Ruskin's cheap man could never produce.
- 2:33Today he records message #13,000, and what started as a
- 2:38small recording has become one of the most respected traditions
- 2:41in his field of performance psychology.
- 2:45The better story to tell yourself is I get to decide
- 2:48whether what I do is meaningful or menial.
- 2:52Tell me about a task you've turned from menial into
- 2:54meaningful to from chadsmith@gmail.com.
- 2:58Send someone a text today and tell them.
- 3:00Call this recorded message at 973-743-4690.
- 3:06You get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the
- 3:08World by going to from chad.gumroad.com.
- 3:12The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are
- 3:14always available at www.fromchad.com.