Money, Motivation, Success and Who?
By Barry
Maher
It
was 7:30 on a Saturday morning, and I was setting up to do the opening keynote
for the conference. For some reason—I
have no idea why—the
sound man thought his ten year old daughter would enjoy my presentation. He'd
brought her with him to work.
Watching her father wiring this and
plugging in that, the girl was soon as bored as only a ten year old can
be.Eventually, she sauntered over to me.
"So who are you?" she demanded.
"I’m Barry Maher."
Overwhelmingly unimpressed, she
asked, "And who the heck is Barry Maher?"
"I’m the speaker."
"Is that a big deal?"
I laughed. "Not apparently to you."
"Not if all you do is speak. Everyone
speaks. Even my little brother speaks, and he’s an idiot." Sighing dismissively,
she spun and walked away, in search of something—anything—more
interesting.
"And who are you?" I don't want to
get particularly philosophical here, but obviously that's the most basic
question we all face.
So who are you? Aside from
being CEO of Amalgamated Amalgamates, that is. If your self worth is dependent
upon your work, I would suspect you might be heading for a fall, sooner or—at
the very least—-later,
when retirement comes. There's more to you than what you do for a living. Or at
least there should be.
I’m not my job and neither are you.
No matter how successful or how unsuccessful we might be at those jobs. We all
know some big career successes who are very unsuccessful people. And some who
are very unhappy. None of us should be surprised that there are some very
successful and very happy people—great
friends, loving spouses, wonderful role models for their children—who
have never cashed a big paycheck.
"His picture hangs on every wall,"
one self-described peon said of the company's chairman of the board. "His name
is invoked in reverential tones. But aside from making himself very rich, what
does he really do for the world? Besides making it safe for one more set of
unnecessary, environmentally devastating, energy wasting products."
"He's helping to perpetuate a lot of
jobs," I answered. "Yours included."
"He is. But judging by the happiness
the people around here seem to be getting from those jobs, they may not be
eulogizing him at his funeral for that."
Tip: If you’re not impressed by your own career thus far, you might still
be better off than you would be if you were successful by the standard
definition of success. Especially if that's not really your definition.
A friend of mine once said of his
business partner, "He's given up his life in the single-minded pursuit of
wealth. And now, wealth is all he has. So he obsesses about losing it. Since he
never had a life, he has no idea of what to do with his money, even if he had
time to enjoy it, which he doesn't because he's so accustomed to the treadmill
he can't even imagine getting off. Of course, the beautiful thing about the
pursuit of money is that you've never got enough. So he keeps on chasing it,
simply because he as no idea of what else to do with his life."
I like money is much as anyone, more
than many. And a big title impresses. (It especially impresses small minds,
those we're least interested in impressing). But we should never forget, this is
business: quid pro quo. We always have to measure the value of what we're
getting against the value of what we're giving up.
Who are you? And who do you really
want to be?
© Copyright 2005, 2003, B.E. Maher, Las Vegas, Nevada
