Your first job is to help other people. Your second is your actual job. The better you are at no. 1, the easier no. 2 becomes.
When you think about your career in this manner, nearly everything changes.
Job no. 1 forces you to value relationships and be other-centered. Instead of thinking first about your own self-interest, you think first about the interests of others: clients, peers, and even your boss.
"How can I be most helpful?" becomes the core of your actions. You constantly look for new ways to add value, and in the process, you become much more useful to the people around you.
For example, with clients, you become a person who serves their interests, instead of a pushy, aggressive type who is always selling something they don't need.
Job no. 2 is how you get paid, feed your family, and pursue the agenda of the people who hired you.
This is where many altruistic types fall down. They are so eager to help others that they forget about their own agenda. Instead of organizing that critical meeting, they end up spending all morning calling neighbors to see if anyone spotted the lost cat that may - or may not - have been wandering on the edge of their neighborhood.
You want to be helpful, but not hopeless.
This is why it is so critical to understand that you have two jobs. Your second job has specific, practical goals. It has deadlines. It probably even has some elements that don't always make sense to you and that may even drive you crazy. ("Why does my boss make me send him a report every Friday afternoon, even though we meet every Friday morning?")
Courtesy : Forbes