I was, for many decades, a marketing professor.
I was still in that role when I developed Creativity and Personal Mastery(CPM) and started teaching it at top business schools.
In my marketing course students were focused on increasing revenues and selling more and more and more.
In CPM they asked themselves if buying more contributed to their well-being. If the answer was ‘no’ then was selling more good for society?
People are often decried for not achieving success defined in material terms. “He has no ambition,” we say and this is considered a negative trait.
Is ambition ‘good’ for you?
I explore this in my book Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots.
Below is the relevant chapter of that book.
It was a sad occasion but also a festive one. Ted had passed away swiftly and with little suffering. A slight pain in the chest, some difficulty breathing. His wife called 911, and the ambulance rushed him to the hospital, but he was gone before it reached the emergency bay.
He looked peaceful in the coffin. Throngs of visitors who had come to pay their final respects and say goodbye were chatting animatedly about how he had helped them in so many ways over so many years.
His mother-in-law stood next to me, so I offered my condolences. I ventured the hope that he was doing well in a better life.
“I hope so,” she replied sharply. “He certainly wasted this one.”
It struck a jarring note, so I probed a bit. She was forthcoming. “He was a dreamer,” she said bitterly. “Always trying to make a big score. Failed at everything he tried and laughed it off. Why didn’t he stick to his well-paying job instead of chasing dreams? My daughter and her children paid the price.”
She held forth at length, harping on his many faults and his inability to match the corporate income he had walked away from.
A half hour later, I spied Ted’s wife alone and again offered my sympathies. I couldn’t help mentioning my earlier conversation. I wanted to know how she felt.
“Oh, that’s my mother!” she said easily. “She will never understand. I am so thankful that he quit that horrid job. It was sucking his soul dry. After he left, he made less money but was so much more cheerful and fun to be with. We had a wonderful decade.”
She smiled wistfully as she walked back through memory lane. He had been a managing director and a senior partner at a well-known consulting firm. His name was often in the local papers, and he was a substantial citizen in his community.
Ted was not much in demand when he quit to form his own consultancy. Clients did not come in droves. Reporters stopped seeking him out for his views on current happenings. He was no longer invited to big local events, and he did not receive complimentary tickets to performances.
His mother-in-law saw him as a “failure” for making a “foolish mistake.” His wife saw it differently. She saw more of him after he resigned from his high-pressure position, and his temperament was better. He was able to spend more time with his children in the few years they had before they went away to college. He did not have many clients because he was selective, but he genuinely enjoyed working with those he accepted, and they were profuse in their appreciation for his efforts. Ted and his wife could not afford expensive vacations anymore, but they were never close to starving.
“If I could go back and do it all over again, I’d have made him quit earlier,” she said.
Too many of us are stuck in some variation of this dilemma. We toil in occupations we find distasteful and judge our success based on the toys we accumulate rather than the well-being we experience.
Paul Graham, in his wonderful essay on how to do what you love, warns about the dangers of prestige. “Prestige is a distorting force that makes you want to like something that you really do not.”
I know many who are caught in this coil.
One way out is to do what my friend did and walk away.
Another is to genuinely like, not “pretend like,” where you are and what you do.
Look at your own life. How do you define success? Do you do it by markers that others celebrate, such as position, power, money, and the like?
Or do you do it by internal markers, such as a deep feeling of well-being, joy, and sense of purpose?
Think about it.
Peace!
