An excerpt from the new book The Daily Six: Six Simple Steps to find the Perfect
Balance between Prosperity and Purpose
Ever notice that everyone’s on a low fat diet after the heart attack?
Everyone has time for their kids after the divorce.
Everyone’s a financial genius after a bankruptcy?
As managers, supervisors and executives, we’re trained to judge our success on
the size of our departments, budgets, sales, profits, bank accounts, and the deals
we make. When I had my own $50 million-a-year business, that’s what I thought, too.
Being a successful CEO, I figured if I just worked hard enough, I’d wind up on top.
Failure is something that happens to the other guys.
That’s when it happened to me. I lost everything. Everything
I thought was important.
Money, power, prestige. Gone. My position as CEO? Gone, too.
Although I didn’t know it then, I had been given a gift – a "Gift of Desperation"
that changed me and my outlook for the better. In the end, it made me a more successful
person, too.
We can all recognize a "Gift of Desperation." It’s the "a-ha"
that comes at the darkest of times. Speak with anyone who has had a life-changing
experience, and they’ll tell you how much it has led them to appreciate each and
every day. They have a higher sense of awareness and focus on living each day with
joy.
Still need convincing? Look how our country pulled together after 9-11. People
actually started talking, connecting – and not just our friends and family, but
strangers on the news or at the corner store. I had clients all over the country
remarking something like this: "I never really appreciated just how important
(blank) was, until now," they’d say. The way that (blank) got filled in varied
from person to person, and organization to organization, but suddenly I could tell
they had begun to notice that there was more to life than profits and possessions.
The horror of that experience became a gift to many who chose to see the lessons.
When I received my "Gift of Desperation" I began to notice, finally,
something was missing in my life. It wasn’t success that was missing. It was significance.
Most CEOs have the same symptoms I did: We have a gorgeous house, but are hardly
around to enjoy it. We eat at private lunch clubs, but we’re still hungry inside.
Our expensive watches can’t keep our time from slipping away.
We have kids, but we may never really appreciate them. I didn’t, either – until
involuntary unemployment kept me home instead of frantic and at the office.
"Pick me up, Daddy!" my 3-year-old son kept saying. "It’s good
for you."
Now, how did he know that? But you know what, he was right.
Here I had been rushing, rushing, rushing – because I needed everything to be
perfect. And then I would finally get back to my family and friends. I just needed
to get all my ducks in a row. People, have you ever tried to get duck in a row? I
finally realized that I had to stop waiting for my life to get perfect to be happy.
Over time, the life I could never quite find seemed to fall right into my lap.
In business, so often we’re taught to CYA. Well, I started my own version: Change
Your Attitude.
Today I work with people and organizations who are trying to change their attitude
and behavior. Many of them, facing their own periods of desperation, are wondering
if they will ever recover. They will with a change of focus.
I’ve discovered that we can all change our lives dramatically for the better –
and we can do it before the gift of desperation. It takes a new sense of focus, and
it also takes acting on a few new thoughts:
