Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Mint-lounge / Mint-on-sunday/  I failed, miserably
BackBack

I failed, miserably

Why did I give in to my career, ignore family and compromise my integrity?

Runners at the Delhi half marathon. Photo: Raj K Raj/Hindustan TimesPremium
Runners at the Delhi half marathon. Photo: Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times

It was with much jubilation that I grandly announced in an earlier instalment in this series how I quit smoking; and that to celebrate, I will get back to long-distance running, complete the Delhi half marathon at the end of this year and the Mumbai full marathon early next year.

I have a confession to make. I failed. I am back to my wayward ways. The Delhi half came and went. I didn’t make it to the event. The deadline for the Mumbai run is looming. I am hopelessly unprepared.

My wife now calls me a wimp. Among friends, I am the butt of jokes. Above all else, when I look myself in the mirror, a voice in my head screams: “Loser."

By way of a feeble excuse, all I have to offer is this: I was passing through a particularly stressful time and caved in. But that doesn’t cut ice, not even with me. Which is why, I am morally obliged to tell those of you who follow this series how and why I failed. Else, it would be unconscionable.

Now, much has been said and written about how failure by itself is not such a bad thing. And that failure holds lessons. When I introspect though, in my case, it was a lack of personal leadership. Allow me to put that into context.

In times of distress or when conflict looms in my head, my first port of call is the legendary management thinker and teacher Clayton Christensen’s short, life-altering talk he delivered to the graduating class at Harvard Business School in 2012: How will you measure your life? He delved into the theme in greater detail in a book, with the same name, that followed the lecture.

The talk and the book attempt to address three questions: How can I be sure that I will find satisfaction in my career? How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse, my family and my close friends become enduring sources of happiness? How can I avoid compromising my integrity?

Personally, I am biased towards the book because it allows me to deliberate, debate, make notes and argue with myself at all points. Each time I have picked it up, it reinforces the wisdom it contains, compels me to think harder about the questions he raises and offers inspiration to start all over again. Because the prism through which Christensen looks at life is an incredibly compelling one.

“Many of us are wired with a high need for achievement, and your career is going to be the most immediate way to pursue that. In our own internal resource allocation process, it will be incredibly tempting to invest every extra hour of time or ounce of energy in whatever activity yields the clearest and most immediate evidence that we have achieved something. Our careers provide such evidence in spades.

“But there is more to life than your career. The person you are at work and the amount of time you spend there will impact the person you are outside of work with your family and close friends. In my experience, high achievers focus a great deal on becoming the person they want to be at work—and far too little on the person they want to be at home.

“Your career priorities—the motivators that will make you happy at work—are simply one part of a broader set of priorities in your life, priorities that include your family, your friends, your faith, your health and so on."

When I read, and reread, these passages from the book, a point Christensen tries to drive through all of the pages in the book hits home. The problem with people like me is that I am not trained to be a good manager.

Pause now for a moment and give this question a thought: Who is a good manager? Every management thinker agrees that a good manager is somebody who knows how to allocate resources efficiently and derive optimal results in the face of constraints.

When this answer is extrapolated against the questions Christensen poses, one thing is painfully obvious to me. I don’t have the mental muscle to stick through the longer term at what is good for me.

The extra hour at work, for instance, to meet a deadline and the subsequent high that comes from seeing my name as a published writer is tremendous. Even addictive. That is precisely why even as I wrote this piece out, I took a call to skip my older daughter’s annual concert, for which she had spent weeks on practice.

I cannot think of anything tangible that came in the way of my having written this out earlier. I also know she would have appreciated my presence at the concert—perhaps not today—but 20 years down the line when she looks back at photographs of the event. Or when she wins a Grammy. But that is way too far into the future to imagine.

When looked at closely, my selfish obsession with work was for one reason. I didn’t manage my time and myself well. In doing that, I scored a nought on all of the three questions Christensen posed.

If I had managed well, I wouldn’t be scrambling to meet a deadline I had committed to. That means I am a risky bet to the editor of this title who trusts me to deliver flawless copy. I let my career down.

If I had managed well, I would have been with my wife and daughter at the concert. When the now young girl is all grown up, she would perhaps look back at these times and tell herself her dad was there for her to applaud her achievement. I let my family down.

If I had managed well, I could perhaps have staved off the anxiety that accompanies stressful situations. And as is my wont, when stress stares me in the face, I take the easy way out and light up a cigarette in the ridiculous belief that it will relieve me. I let myself down and compromised on my integrity. And then I tumble down a spiral staircase of self-betrayals.

I refuse to end on a despondent note though. Having admitted to my frailties and acts of omission, all I can say is that I am a work in progress. That’s what Life Hacking is all about.

Charles Assisi is co-founder and director at Founding Fuel Publishing. His Twitter handle is @c_assisi.

Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 19 Dec 2015, 11:28 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App