I had a wonderful time recently, playing in a charity golf tournament with coworkers Steve Murphy, Randy Conley, and Brent Bystedt. It was really a lot of fun; we played a scramble.

One of the things it reminded me of—and this is so important to Colleen Barrett and Herb Kelleher at Southwest—is you really have fun in life and do well when you take what you do seriously, but yourself lightly. That was really evident as we were playing golf. We were trying to do the best we can, but we were laughing and enjoying ourselves. I don’t think there’s anybody who is more fun to be around than Steve Murphy. He’s one of our great consulting partners and he is absolutely fun. He takes what he does seriously but himself lightly, and I think that’s what endears him to clients.

We had a great time—Randy and Brent and Steve and I. I just wanted to reiterate the importance of that. I think very often we forget sometimes and start to grind our teeth, whether it be in golf or what we’re doing at work, and one of the joys I have in the world is to hear people laughing out loud with some funny thing we’re doing. Because we take what we do seriously but ourselves lightly. Because we do serious work but we have a lot of laughs, and I think that’s so important. I was reminded of that yesterday while we were golfing.

So have a fun day! Take what you do seriously—because we’re all doing very important work—but take yourself lightly. Get your ego out of the way and enjoy your strengths and weaknesses and moments. Life is lived in moments.