Being OF Service v. Being IN Service

What’s the difference? I found myself asking this question yesterday afternoon, after meeting with Anne Flynn , a colleague in my industry. Before accepting the new job she just stepped into, she told her potential employers that she wanted to be in a position of being of service to her agents. As one of Anne’s agents now, I can attest to the involvement and genuine interest she takes in our success. That phrase really stuck with me – being of service. She said that’s what we’re all here to do, to be of service to each other.

So what’s the difference? It’s a just a preposition. To be in one’s service means you are in a role, providing services based on your knowledge, experience, and expertise. Most of our business interactions would qualify as being IN service. My title agencies provide numerous services to our real estate parties and clients, from the business services like escrow or recording, to the etiquette services like offering them something to drink at a closing. Being in service is the default situation we all fall into, it’s perfunctory, reflexive, automatic. Anne wasn’t telling her employers that she wanted to be in service, that’s baked into her job description. Instead, she emphasized wanting to be OF service to her agents. Why?

Being of service means you are being helpful or useful to someone, you are providing them with value.

I like the question, “What do you love about your job?” That’s an easy one for me to answer – I love helping others. You can’t tell what job I have by that description. And even if you know what job I have, you don’t know who I’m referring to – is it my title agency employees? My law clients? The potential 1031 clients I counsel? It’s all of the above. I had a client call yesterday because he wanted to do a 1031 exchange. After discussing his scenario I brought up a type of 1031 exchange that he was unfamiliar with, and let him see how it checked all the boxes he was looking for in terms of what he wanted to be doing with his money and taxes. At the end of the call he said, “Thank you Liz, this was the best news I’ve received all week.” We’re talking about real estate here. I’m not curing cancer or solving complicated environmental issues. My expertise has the ability to help a fairly small group of people in a very limited time period in their lives. And yet. I can help people. I can be of service to them. I didn’t have to bring up the other types of 1031 exchanges. I could have ended the call when he got the answer he was looking for. That’s me being in service to him. But I don’t operate that way, and neither does Anne.

And neither should you. Because being of service to someone definitely doesn’t mean that person is getting all the benefits. Being of service benefits you as well. It gives you purpose, fulfillment, and validation. It answers the existential question, “What am I doing all of this for?” Answer: to be of service. Why did you get that degree? Take that new job? Decide to start a family? Volunteer? Join a book club?

My high school had service hours requirement every year. We would have to volunteer a certain number of hours and it didn’t matter if it was at a church or assisted living or soup kitchen. Just spend time IN the service of others. Because as a teenager, you don’t do that much. But the consequence of learning at a young age that it’s a good idea to be involved and give back to your community created this very strong desire to be OF service.

During COVID when all the social obligations went away, I was left with a desire to volunteer. This has led me (and continues to) down a very windy road of “trying out” organizations to see if I can be of service there. I’ve had some success and learned where I enjoy being of service. But the point is that it’s a part of what makes me up as a person. So I could relate very well to Anne when she expressed the desire to be at a job where she could be of service.

Just as important is recognizing opportunities where you can no longer be of service. I’ve made the decision, numerous times in my career, to switch focus away from a particular part of the company because I was just going through the motions. There was nothing wrong with the performance, I just wasn’t passionate about it. And while I am fully capable at performing job functions that I’m not passionate about, I have realized that I can excel at job functions that feed my desire to be of service. It might be worth evaluating if your current job is giving you that opportunity and how you might approach your work if you were put in a direct position to be of service to the exact group of people that can benefit the most from your special recipe of expertise and knowledge.