Success in business? Focus on success in life

Hello my friends,

I invested my labor day holiday catching up on some needed reading and I came across a very interesting and intriguing article in the business section of the Dallas Morning Newspaper on September 5, 2010, written by Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School professor titled “Success in business? Focus on success in life”. To paraphrase his lesson to his students, on the last day of class he asked them to come up with cogent answers to three questions: “First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds lighthearted, it’s not.”  

This last question obviously got me to thinking about how can I be sure that I will stay out of jail. A few months ago, I was a victim of someone using my name on a traffic citation and it took me 2 days along with a couple of letters from my family members to prove my whereabouts in order to not have to endure a court date, a fine or possibly serve some jail time, all because of someone using my name and date of birth and the officer not performing due diligence on his part. Totally innocent and if not for a very timely fax letter from an attorney that wanted to represent me in court before I knew anything about this citation, this situation could have taken a completely different direction. With mistaken identity, identity theft and other fraud type of activity going on, it’s a 24/7 job to make sure that you are on top of your own business. 

Regarding the article, Clayton (the author) goes on to say that two of the 32 people in his Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail. According to Clayton, “these guys were good guys, but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.”  He also made note of what he notices of his HBS classmates, that many come to the reunions unhappy, divorced and alienated from their children.  There is a guarantee that not a single one of them graduated with the deliberate strategy of getting divorced and raising children who would become estranged to them. What happened? “They didn’t keep the purpose of their lives front and center as they decided how to spend their time, talents and energy.”

According to Clayton, here are the key points to take from this article that will allow you to start and maintain your success. “Number 1, is to create a strategy of having a clear purpose for your life that encompasses familyand career goals. The choice and successful pursuit of a profession is but one tool for achieving purpose. But without a purpose, life can become hollow. Number 2, is you’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place. When we have the option to choose between right and wrong, many times we often employ the marginal cost doctrine in our personal lives; A voice in our head says: Look, I know that as a general  rule, most people shouldn’t do this but in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK. Number 3, is to understand the value of humility. He asked students to describe the most humble person they knew. One characteristic of these humble people stood out: They had a high level of self-esteem. They knew who they were and they felt good about who they were. It was also decided that humility was defined not by self-deprecating behavior or attitudes, but by the esteem with which you regard others. Good behavior flows naturally from that kind of humility. Number 4 is having the right yardstick (Very important). This past year Clayton was diagnosed with cancer and thankfully his life has been spared. He learned a very insightful lesson regarding his life when it comes to career and your being. His ideas has generated enormous revenues for companies that uses his research but with being confronted with the disease, it was interesting to see how unimportant that was to him. He concluded that the metric by which GOD will assess our lives isn’t dollars, but the individuals whose lives you have touched.”

He ends this article with this thought; “think about the metric by which your life will be judged and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.” Please lend me your thoughts and comments regarding this article and your life and success experiences.

Be Richly Blessed!