I have not posted to my blog in a while because I'm on an engagement where if I talk too much about it, I'll get fired. So that doesn't give me a lot of material to work with since it takes about 18 hours out of my day to work through meetings, emails, IM, WebEx's, and conference calls.
That said, I'm going to divert attention from experiences that I am getting on my current engagement and talk about the six key values that I'm trying to align my career with.
They are as follows:
That said, I'm going to divert attention from experiences that I am getting on my current engagement and talk about the six key values that I'm trying to align my career with.
They are as follows:
- Relationships - Connection between people related to or having dealings with each other.
- Authenticity - Being authentic, trustworthy or genuine
- Impact - Making a strong, positive, and immediate impression on another or others
- Simplicity - Lack of complexities in life and in tasks
- Legacy - Accomplishing goals today with heritage in mind
- Education / Wisdom - Gaining knowledge or understanding through experiential learning
A year or two back, I went through an exercise sponsored by my firm to really understand my core values. Little did I know that I would revisit them at this point in time.
Given those values, I now have to think whether what I am doing really aligns with those core values. Keep in mind that in a close 7th was Money / Wealth. To me, that's what becoming a partner really means. Ironically, it's not even on my list of six.
Every professional development piece of literature that I read tells me that one of the keys to being happy is to do something that aligns to your core values.
Now it's just time to figure out if all six do.
My advice to the 1 or 2 people that read my blog is to pick your core values and choose a career or path that aligns to them. At the end of the day, that is what will really make you happy. As much as I would be happy with the 10,000+ square foot house, Bentley, and enough time on my hands to master every level of DJ Hero (oh wait - I really do want that), the reality is that I want to be a good husband, father, and spend enough time with my family to actually leave that type of legacy.
How many clients do I work with actually remember the type of impact that I made or value that I provided? Compare that with my future son and how I can help develop a great man -- guess what wins?
PB
ReplyDeleteLast week I found myself tied up to an IV bag of antibiotics as I struggled to get through a round of walking pneumonia that threatened to keep me off a project for longer than a weekend and had a chance to stop and think for a few minutes. In fact, in the past 4 years, this was probably one of the few instances where I was forced to get off my PDA, shut down the laptop, and focus on something other than work for more than 5 minutes. All told - this experience lasted 3 hours. And it was revealing.
You're right on when you talk about how much of an impact my clients really think I have in the long run. It's a common cycle: 12 weeks worth of billable time; 16 weeks worth of work; by week 10 I'm comfortable that this should be my last consulting project and that I need to find something that is not so reliant on abuse and self-neglect; week 11 finds me exhausted and on the verge of a breakdown, not to mention team relationships at a breaking point; week 12, however, finds me delivering recommendations that wow my client and the payback of my 12 week investment is huge. However, week 13 reminds me of how short that high really is - no sooner have we walked out the door than the client is on to something else and our work becomes nearly irrelevant. As Shakespeare said and Faulkner reminded - it is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Earlier in the excerpt from Macbeth is a line familiar to all consultants: "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow/ creeps in this petty place day to day/ to the last syllable of recorded time/ and all our yesterdays of recorded time have lighted fools/ the way to dusty death"
Tomorrow I'll do better; tomorrow I'll decided to build a legacy; tomorrow I'll spend time knowing my wife and children and parents and brothers and sisters; tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
The question is - can you change who you have been for your entire professional life, and if not, can you make your professional life fit your values?