Some Really, Really Bad Advice
By David B. Bohl | June 25, 2007 | 3 Responses
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomburg recently stated, to a graduating class of City University of New York – Staten Island, that in order to get ahead in business you need to be the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night, take fewer vacation days and never have a sick day. Sarah Schaefer Munoz, in her blog The Juggle, writes: Do you think this is sound advice for recent grads?” With all due respect to Mayor Bloomberg, I couldn’t disagree more. This isn’t good advice for anyone. I know what he’s talking about. I grew up in a culture that drilled that ethic into my very being.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, while addressing the graduating class of City University of New York - Statten Island, had this advice to offer to those looking to get ahead in business:
“You’ve got to be highly motivated. Don’t make any mistake about it. Life is not easy. If you’re the first one in in the morning and the last one to leave at night, and you take fewer vacation days and never take a sick day, you will do better than the people who don’t do that. It’s very simple.”
Here’s the video clip (the remarks I’ve quoted come 5:03 into the clip):
Sara Schaefer Muñoz, in her The Juggle blog, asks: “Do you think this is sound advice for recent grads?”With all due respect to Mayor Bloomberg, I couldn’t disagree more. This isn’t good advice for anyone.I know what he’s talking about. I grew up in a culture that drilled that ethic into my very being. It went something like this:If you just work hard enough and long enough your life will turn out fine – eventually – and it will all be worth it in the end.
Tim Ferriss refers to this as the deferred life plan and equates it with three words: Slave/Save/Retire.
Take it from someone who tried that plan - me - it doesn’t work out quite that way. What happens is that you keep postponing things until tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes. You wind up feeling regretful of all the time you lost that you know you’ll never recapture. You wind up never beginning to live your life.
Mayor Bloomberg is right about one thing: life is not easy.
I would argue, however, that life doesn’t have to be as hard as he’s suggesting either.
Life is too short. Don’t let antiquated conventions cause you to be unhappy or unfulfilled.
Re-examine your basic assumptions and turn those paradigms on their heads.
Start living today.
Copyright 2008 David Bohl and SlowDownFast.com. All rights reserved.
About the Author:
Husband, father, friend, Life Coach and Lifestyle Designer David B. Bohl is the creator of Slow Down FAST at www.slowdownfast.com.
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Categories: Work-Life Balance, Work-Family Balance, Your Passion, Corporate Culture, Management Attitudes, Values, Life Balance, Daily Living, Career Changes, Executives, Expectations, Keep it Simple, Business Owners/ Self-Employed
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3 Responses to “Some Really, Really Bad Advice”
Comments
« Happiness and Work The Science of Happiness - Freakonomics Style - Can Money Buy Happiness? »
June 26th, 2007 at 5:49 am
Amen to that.
June 26th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Hi David, I completely agree with your sentiments. The consequences for approaching work out of balance with rest of your life can be very serious indeed. In my case in my early 30s I was fortunate to be part of a multi million £ management buyout project team of 5 people. I had just got married and we had our first child. The promise of financial independence in 4-5 years caused me to focus entirely on making that happen. Long hours, constant talk of work, bringing the stress home etc etc. All’justified’ of course because it would be ‘worth it’. Well 4 years turned to 8, the company did well, but external events meant markets were closed to us and we had to re-finance. With power leaking back to the lenders they eventually sold the company from under us. Over the course of the next 6 months I lost my job, I learned that my wife had been having an affair and she got pregnant, we got we divorced, my kids were taken to live 450 miles in the south of England and to cap it off (nothing to do with work life balance tho’) my mother died suddenly.
The Lord Mayor is confusing working hard with working smart, and he is also perpetuating the myth that working hard means you get directly proportional rewards. This is simply a managerial control technique to dupe the unthinking. In Beck and Cowans terms (Sprial Dynamics) - extreme Orange meme thinking. Of course you need to work to get results generally, however there are lots of people who get things without having to graft themselves into the ground. I’m now in a place where rewards come to me for the quality of what I do not the amount of kilo-joules per 24 hours expended. Additionally a more holistic approach to ‘my one life’ means seeing ‘work’ as just one element of many. And the lesson for me? …never take long odds risks with your family
July 1st, 2007 at 7:55 pm
No one on their death bed ever wishes that they had more time to make more money. Typically it is their relationships that they wish that they invested more into.