Money, Motivation, Success and Who?
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
Amalgates, 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, Barry Maher, Barry Maher & Associates,
Las Vegas, Nevada VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT www.barrymaher.com Barry Maher writes, speaks and consults on management, communication, motivation, leadership and sales. His books range from "Filling the Glass," ("[One of] The Seven Essential Popular Business Books" according to Today's Librarian magazine) to the cult classic fantasy novel, "Legend." His client list ranges from ABC to the National Lottery of Ireland to Verizon. For conventions, conferences and meetings, Maher is an "expert keynote speaker, an inspirational motivational speaker and a worldclass trainer." Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.barrymaher.com or simply send a blank email to barrymaher-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. And when it comes to sales motivation and sales training, as Selling Power magazine says, "To his powerful and famous clients, Barry Maher is simply the best sales trainer in the business."
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