An entire room of top level Executives in a prominent organization was crying. All I had said was, “Your job will never love you back”…and the fountain of tears started flowing.
No matter how much I’ve loved my job or how important I have thought I was, the truth was; I was never as important as I thought I was. I have never worked in an ER and neither have any of my coaching or consulting clients - and unless you are one of the few, neither do you. But I act like it, and more often than I care to admit.
The truth is, I have allowed my life to revolve around my job. I would say that God and my family were the center of my life, but I would live like my job was the center of my life. If you logged my hours on my phone, computer, with clients, etc…the numbers would not lie. I have sacrificed the things I have said were the most important in my life-my relationship with God, my family, my friends…all because I had important things to do.
That is why I sat in a room of crying Executives. They had sold out their lives and souls to their work. They had missed dinners with the family, responded to countless emails and texts throughout the evenings, and missed out on the laughter and stories of the most important people in their lives.
No matter what jobs I have had, or ever will have, none of them will love me back no matter how noble the job might seem. What or who are you sacrificing? What are you missing out on? What can you never get back again? What do you want to do about it?
