WOW #044: Solving the Puzzle

Quote of the Week:
“Sometimes you just stumble onto something that works, and here I am a quarter of a century later.”
- Pat Sajak

On June 7th (last Friday), Pat Sajak hosted his last Wheel of Fortune.

The quote above was from 2008. 

It's now been a full 41 years since Sajak first “spun that giant wheel” into America’s hearts all the way back in 1983.

He's 77 now.
What's happened since?

- 7 different US Presidents have been inaugurated.

- 21 Olympic Games opened and closed ceremonies all over the world.

- 10 Fast and Furious movies came and went.

You get the point.

It's hard to imagine doing anything career or business-wise for 41 years, especially given today's connected global economy and fickle work transformations.

Granted, most people would look back on Sajak’s career and immediately think, “Why wouldn't he ride that gravy train until it careened off the tracks?”

• A hefty, multi-million dollar salary.
• The opportunity to be a hero and give money and prizes away to complete strangers.
• Being able to completely rewrite the phrase, “I could do this job in my sleep.”

With all due respect, Pat’s job wasn’t exactly about splitting atoms or passing the California bar exam.

Throughout the years (many times actually) I've stumbled upon the show while channel surfing and always wondered, how is this STILL on-air?

And when I think about Pat Sajak’s four-decade run, I think about something else besides the previous points above. Maybe being a careerist, business owner, entrepreneur, and humanist could all be wrapped up in a fairly simple concept for many of us:

Finding Significance in the Seemingly Mundane.

Every business has aspects of this. Even when your original passion, expertise, or interest eventually became a business, there were always those moments of soul-crushing repetition:

Running payroll.

Wrestling with DocuSign for important forms.

Filing business tax returns.

Like I said, our business lives and careers come with frustrating moments and tasks we grow tired of doing.

But there are gems hidden in the midst.

What are yours?

2 Takeaways:

1. Enjoy Meeting New People in Common Spaces. On any given night, the Wheel of Fortune welcomed a hodgepodge of 3 total strangers from all over America, (a 3rd grade teacher, a car mechanic, and a chiropractic student). It always sounded like the beginning of a joke where they all walked into a bar, but instead they walked into our living rooms with a shared goal: A potential financial windfall from solving puzzles while America watched. Most every night was civil and family-friendly. A far cry from today’s 24/7 news cycle.
   
   
2. Clapping for Each Other. While we’ll never know who the genuine clappers on the show were vs. the other clapping contestants who did so because it was being filmed and broadcast - it made for a nice, nightly scene of human decency. A place where contestants knew a chance of personal success was there, yet could live with the results if the wheel didn’t spin their way that night. Today, we could use a lot less clapping back and a little more clapping for.

1 Action:

At the end of this week, spend :30 minutes thinking about “Discovering Significance in the Seemingly Mundane.”

The moments are there if you choose to recognize and appreciate them. 

Hubert