Live to Serve, Serve to Live
What does it mean to Live to Serve? Why does it matter? Click here to find out more about our company motto, trainings and more!
For the last 20 years, I have been serving people in some way or another. What started out as a way to earn some extra spending money has turned into a lifelong passion of "doing the right thing". Because of that, I tend to have a very black and white sense of what customer service is, and what separates the good from the better in that regard.
In the last 5 years specifically, that vision has come into focus in a very unexpected way. I've been blessed to have multiple positions where I am the person that is sought out for the How-To of what many call "Kingdom Class Service" . Whether you want to look at that phrase as meaning service fit for a king of men or service befitting the Kingdom of God, it is a phrase that stands out as being the epitome of serving someone else. My own vision has narrowed down to a phrase...a phrase that is now the motto of Serve Business Consulting LLC: "Live to Serve - Serve to Live". What does that phrase mean? The simplest way to explain it is actually to look at it in reverse.
SERVE TO LIVE
"Serve to Live" is just what it sounds like. We all serve someone...clients, customers, family, managers, the state...the list goes on and on. We serve to live...we do something for someone else to get some sort of satisfaction whether monetary or otherwise. Everyone serves someone else so that they can also live their own life.
LIVE TO SERVE
"Live to Serve" is the tricky one. When we "live for something", that’s another way of describing the core or essence of our being. There are those who live for themselves...or those who live for their family...there are even those who simply live for chocolate! What if we all lived to serve, though? What would our society be like if we lived to serve someone else? Family, friends, clients, or random strangers? For me, serving others is the core of my being. The times where I am most happy are those when I am doing something simply because it's the right thing to do. Sometimes that means serving myself...that can include taking a step back or a break. Other times that's serving my community through volunteering or advocating for a cause. Then there are those times where I simply do something for someone else (and no, that's not always done for free).
This is what that sentence means. "Live to Serve - Serve to Live" is more than just a cute, poetic phrase. It's a mantra that forms the basis of #kingdomclass service, and it's the explanation of what Serve Business Consulting LLC exists to do.