After the above we will be looking at ideas
expressed by..............
Mark Albion in his book, "Making a
Life/Making a Living." This book indicates a
phenomenal level of courage by the author at the
height of his career.
Mark had been at Harvard and its Business
School for over 20 years living in suburban
Wellesley with an enviable lifestyle and gave it up
for an adventure which was questionable. Why would
someone do such a thing? His comment states it
succinctly, "I felt as though my life was being
sucked out of me."
Happiness, whether you want to accept it or
not, is the ultimate goal of humanity. The Dalai
Lama is certainly one who has preached that for
decades. Achieving such a goal is extraordinarily
difficult unless one has engaged in self
introspection of some sort. Failure to do so, leaves
our dark side and/or ego in tact allowing it to pull
our strings without our conscious mind ever having a
clue.
I'm sure all of us have had the experience
of doing something not cognizant of the underlying
factors that caused us to create that experience. We
might even hear an internal comment that says
something like, "I abhor those who do whatever and
yet I just did it. Where did that come from?"
Mark felt that going out on his own, away
from the bureaucracy of a top institution, was the
only way to get these answers for
himself, and that he did. In this book, Mark has
dialogues with people who want to make a difference
and be nourished by work. They all want to have
meaningful and successful careers.
A study of business school graduates tracked
from 1960 - 1980 produced some interesting findings.
Of the 1500 graduates 93% were in the "want money
now" category. The balance were in the "pursue true
interests first with the belief that money would
follow" group. After 20 years, there were 101
millionaires. One came from the first category, the
balance from the latter.
The author of the survey, Srully Blotnick,
concluded that "the overwhelming majority of people
who have become wealthy have become so thanks to
work they found profoundly absorbing." The more I
keep running this group, the more I find the
aforementioned to be true. Meaning ignites passion
and passion brings about internal motivation.
I am not saying that we should pack up and
leave our companies. What I am saying is that if our
energy is sapped, we can all develop new and
creative ways to look at our careers/positions
where we are to re-ignite our internal combustion
chamber and develop the energy once again to move
forward finding meaning and purpose in what we are
doing. Failure to do so, leaves us like mechanical
people doing what we have to until 5:00PM. The
choice again is yours.
Please join us for what will be another
adventurous meeting of The Business Development
Group!
Remember.........many guests at
our meetings constantly say that we cover
fascinating insights that help them
significantly in the world of "business
development" ........and that they have
not heard discussed elsewhere..........at any
meetings!
