It was a typically sunny Saturday at of our California home. Seven years old, I was running around our backyard excited about something I do not even recall.
When I stopped to take a breath, my dad spoke words that etched themselves into my heart. "Chip, I hope you never lose your enthusiasm."
At seven, it never occurred to me that enthusiasm was something you could "lose" – something that might slip out of your pocket & slide down the drain.
My dad was right about the risk, of course. Many times since then I have tumbled into valleys where dismay shoved enthusiasm into the shadows.
Fortunately, my passion to accomplish something meaningful never dimmed. It was when that passion rediscovered its enthusiasm that I became an effective CEO. Dozens of staff have told me that it was the bright energy they felt from me that helped inspire them to transform Nashville's Baptist Hospital into the home of Radical Loving Care.
"The successful [person] has enthusiasm," President Harry Truman wrote. "Good work is never done in cold blood; heat is needed to forge anything. Every great achievement is the story of a flaming heart."
High purpose provides the light that illuminates your caregiving. It is passion & enthusiasm that enable you to lift your work from "just a job" to your true calling.
-Erie Chapman, III
Snapshot, "Jill Rutkin & Chip" by Erie Chapman, Jr.
Journal of Sacred Work 
Leave a comment