I used to own a business that earned in the high 6 figures. In some circles, that made me a loser.
I hadn’t broken into 7 figures. Yet.
Their definition of success, not mine. But in that echo chamber, a 6 figures business had not arrived.
Insanity.
I have been coaching CEOs and C-Suite executives for 2 decades. All my clients are well compensated. They are smart, gifted. They have worked hard to get to where they are.
If there is a trend I see, it is this: By the time my elite professionals get to around age 50, there usually is another title to chase, another rung on the ladder of corporate success to climb.
And they often start to wonder. Do I really want THAT?
I thought it was what I wanted, but.
I suddenly hear talk of “work/life balance.”
That phrase always baffles me. Work/life balance is a term invented for professionals who work too darn hard. I get it – but it’s a fake corporate phrase.
When I hang out with writer or artist friends, no one talks about work/life balance. Ever. When I speak with entrepreneurs who’re launching a business they’re passionate about, they don’t talk about it.
They are too busy creating.
They are animated by an entrepreneurial spark.
They have no need to stop at 5 pm.
They have work/life rhythms that are unpredictable, but they have them. Their rhythms don’t pretend to be balanced.
Nobody really longs for more time to NOT pursue their dreams, do they?
This is on my mind as I spend more time in another country, Portugal. Here, highly trained professionals – doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers – don’t make the sort of money their colleagues across the pond make. Folks will freely mention the fact that salaries in Portugal are low.
I have no sense, however, that my Portuguese friends are less happy than the non-Portuguese I know. I feel quite confident in postulating that, in fact, the inverse may be true.
March 20 is United Nations World Happiness Day. It was established in 2011 via a resolution that recognized happiness as a “fundamental human goal.”
There are annual lists of the countries deemed happiest, based on a variety of indices. The United States never comes close to being in the running.
This day brings me back to a fundamental question: How much money do I need to be happy?
There are indices for that question, as well.
When we start with that question, how we define success changes. Our criteria come into consciousness. Some criteria may no longer make sense.
When I was 28, I worked for a few months as a waiter in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Onini was a chi-chi hole-in-the-wall restaurant. It was the first time I was ever fired from a job.
Onini was a survival job, not a career move. Success at Onini meant walking out with more than a $100 a night.
It was an easy job. I didn’t mind showing up for my dinner shifts.
Onini was a husband-and-wife joint where Gina ran the kitchen, Dave ran accounting and everything else. I noticed within a few weeks that waiters did not last long at Onini. The other wait staff whispered about Gina’s penchant for finding something wrong with the staff. Gone. Next.
My insanity was believing that it wouldn’t happen to me. That I would be so brilliant Gina could not possibly fire me. That I would stay at a job I didn’t really want in the first place, on my terms.
When Gina called me into the kitchen, one evening after my shift, I knew the moment had come. You just don’t have the Onini touch, Gina stated.
Gina did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I probably didn’t have the Onini touch. Onini wasn’t where I was supposed to be. And yet, I fervently longed to prove myself and be a success at Onini.
Insane.
How often have you stayed in a place where you didn’t have “the touch?” How much effort did you pour into proving them wrong?
There is a different kind of success and a different kind of happiness on the other side of these questions.
The touch is a beautiful thing.
Go explore.
PS – Watch for my announcement of “The Lisbon Sessions” in the upcoming weeks. They are the sort of thing that happens when a country inspires you.
