Do you fight the fire or light the fire?

What You Lack In Talent Can Be Made Up With Desire, Hustle And Giving 110% All The Time.” – Don Zimmer

We are all good at handling whatever is thrown at us. Whether at work or with our personal life, we always strive towards completing any task assigned to us. In other words, we are all good at fighting the fire. But what really makes a person succeed is lighting the fire. What is lighting the fire?

Let us delve a little deeper and explore.

Showroom sales
Steve and Joan are two employees working for an automotive dealership. Both of them were provided with a job description at the time of joining the company. Steve strictly follows the responsibilities mentioned in the description and attends to each customer walking into the showroom with great interest.

Joan also follows the job description given to her. Additionally whenever there are no walk-in customers to attend to she makes it a point to call up the existing customers and makes sure everything is going well with them. This leads to Joan getting more referrals.

Steve was following the instructions given to him to the T whereas Joan does the thinking for herself as to how she could improve her performance. Joan’s probability of getting promoted is higher as Joan is lighting the fire whereas Steve is just fighting the fire.

Fighting the fire vs. Lighting the fire
When we handle anything that is thrown at us, it is fighting the fire. Whereas when we take initiatives to do something which is over and above what is expected of us, it is lighting the fire.

Entrepreneurs always light the fire as they think beyond the job description.

Client proposal
Ted and Alice both had to prepare a proposal for their clients. The company rule mandates that every proposal should have at least two options. Ted prepared a proposal with two options. However, Alice did not limit herself to the company norms and prepared a third option. 

In this scenario Ted was fighting the fire and Alice was lighting the fire. It is self explanatory on how their careers would progress.

You can light the fire in your personal life too and not just in the corporate scenario.

A gift
It was Mark’s wife, Jane’s birthday. Mark had promised Jane to reach home at 6 pm from work so they could go out for dinner. Mark enters the house sharp at 6 pm as promised but to Jane’s surprise he also walked in along with a gift.

In the above scenario, coming home on time and keeping up the promise is fighting the fire whereas, coming along with a gift for his wife is lighting the fire.

Looking for growth, light the fire!

Now let me guess what you are thinking? I know this; There is nothing new. Alright.
Can you please think of one instance in the last week where you have consciously lit the fire 🙂

Have you been lighting the fire at work or in your relationships? Please let us know in the comments below. Would love to hear from you.