Confessions of a Working Warrior

"I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, underlying all that changing is a living power that is changeless, that holds all together…"

--Mahatma Gandhi

I hear cries from the hearts of business people everywhere I go. "I love what I do but I think I could be a lot happier if I did a little less of it. I'm overwhelmed by the constant crisis mentality at work but can't talk about it. I can work 60 hours a week, then 70 or 80 and it doesn't seem to matter. One day just fades into the next and there's no time to do what I want to do.

"Oh, don't get me wrong there are rewards and I celebrate when a project succeeds. But then I feel curiously empty when the adrenaline rush and the pressures to perform are gone. I can't seem to relax or rest without being restless. I know I want to throttle back a bit but it's as if I don't know who I am if I'm not running 90 miles per hour on some "quest."

"Is there any way to keep my edge at work but also slow down and break some of this intensity in my life? We're doing OK financially but personally, well that's another story. My marriage is in trouble and I know flight attendants better than I know my kids. This is not what I thought I was working toward. What happened?"

The Foundation For Lasting Success

The above comments are the collective cries of the heart from hundreds of people I've worked with over the years. Their perspectives have helped me determine that the key to staying fluid and effective in a dynamic and changing workplace is not to adapt to an approach of permanent intensity but rather to develop a wealthy heart. My "Jeffinition" of a wealthy heart is… "Someone who builds their life on a changeless foundation for lasting ethical success in all areas of life."

It's a philosophy that states "we can respond best to the demands of uncertainty by anchoring our thinking in a base of changeless values." A wealthy heart becomes our anchor of authenticity and helps us weather the storms of endless pressure and uncertainty.

The first step toward building a wealthy heart is to recognize that it is impossible for a human being to keep up with the relentless pace of technology. You and I both know that microprocessors will never reach a point where the marketplace will say, "OK, I guess 2000 megahertz is fast enough for everyone." It's reasonable to assume that the thirst for speed will never be quenched.

Yet, we remain naïve and strangely determined to keep up as best we can. We throw ourselves into our work. It's exciting! We're on the cutting edge of life in the business world and a few successes along the way seem to build a sense of assurance. Consequently, so much of our time and energy are spent at work that we tend to develop an image of ourselves that is work centered.

Our Professional Identity

I call this image our Professional identity. If we are to build and sustain a wealthy heart, the second step is to control our professional identity. Here's an example from my world. For ten years, I've traveled the country giving motivational speeches at business conferences and conventions.

Performing at 65 of these corporate events every year and getting many standing ovations in the process, I began to think of myself the greatest professional speaker who ever lived… "I'm Speakerman!"

In my mind, "Speakerman" had all the answers to the puzzles of life. He was this larger than life character who flew all over America speaking to audiences with but one objective in mind; to save every human being in his path. Speakerman was always a hit. dazzling audiences with his heartfelt messages of hope. But I soon learned that too much of a good thing isn't healthy.

I started thinking of myself as "Speakerman" in everything I did. "Speakerman" mingles with the commoners at his son's soccer game, That's my boy who just scored that goal… He's SPEAKERBOY!! It was Speakerman's daughter who played on her sixth grade championship basketball team… SPEAKERGIRL scores!! At the grocery store, at church and even at home I was Speakerman and only Speakerman. I was feeling great about myself, totally oblivious to how difficult I had become to live with.

Whenever I did particularly well with an audience, I would always run to the phone and call my kids. Mind you, I did this for one reason. I wanted them to know how great their father was at what he did for a living. Every time I'd call, I'd go on and on about how great things went. I did this and then I did that, me, me, me, me, me. I did this because I desperately wanted to hear my children say, "Ohhhh Fatherrr, we have been born unto such a super acheiving human being. How blessed we must be. Oh thank you fatherr!!"

Was I sick or what? I later began to understand that what I was actually doing was seeking validation as a father through what I was doing for a living. My entire image of myself was centered around Speakerman, my professional identity.

Bless my wife's heart, she did her best to snap me back into reality. After coming home from a trip where "Speakerman" had done very well, my wife Terri, gave me a much-needed dose of "the real world." She said, "You've got a real important job don't you." "Oh yes baby I do. You have no idea how vital my job is to the success of America."

Terri educated me supremely when she said, "We know things are demanding at work. That's the reason we keep things real simple for you around the house. At home, your only job is the trash and I hear the truck coming big boy, you better runnnn!" I remember thinking…"Hmmm, Speakerman's only job at home is picking up trash? Maybe Speakerman isn't important at home. Duh, ya think?"

I got the message. Speakerman is important at work, but until he can learn to control himself around the house, my family doesn't want him around. I had to learn to leave Speakerman on the plane, at the office or in the car but don't bring him home. When I'm at home, my family wants…

By only thinking of myself as Speakerman, I was guilty of being emotionally absent in all my other identities and it was building a wall between me and my family. A wealthy heart knows that our identity is shaped by who we are, not by what we do. I had allowed my professional identity, just one aspect of which I am, to become a counterfeit representation of who I was in total.

Has anything like this ever happened to you? If you are married, with children and are the Regional Vice President of a company, making microprocessors for PC's, have you ever come home as, "Chip Man?" If you are the CEO of a soft drink distribution company and have a husband who also has a career, you ever walked in the back door of your home as "Coke Queen?"

You don't have to make that mistake ever again. We are so much more than our professional identity. I didn't realize this until one day when I came home from a week-long business trip and my two kids rushed up to me as I came through the door. They looked up at me and yelled out a single word that changed my life. They said, "Daddy!" Prior to this event, I never saw myself as Daddy. I was too busy being…SPEAKERMAN!

I was so busy being Speakerman, I never thought of myself as Daddy. Whenever I thought of Daddy, I had a competing image of my Daddy, Noel Conley. The image was of him as a 35-year-old man and me as a 10-year-old. We're playing catch in the back yard. Dad was the coach of the little league team and he was teaching me the finer points of right field (because that's where you put fat kids who can't throw.)

When I heard my kids yell out "Daddy," knowing they meant me, it changed my life. For the first time, I began to understand that I will ALWAYS be a father, a son, a husband, a friend, a neighbor, a citizen and a child of God even if there are times when "Speakerman" fails. These changeless foundations of life began to give me strength to compete and keep up with a techno-centric world. I was learning how to build a wealthy heart.

Think of all the roles you have in life. Only one of those roles is work related. I over-inflated the importance of my professional identity to the point that it overshadowed the other vital roles in my life; that of being a successful husband, father, friend, neighbor, citizen, son, brother and child of God.

I realized that true joy and lasting happiness aren't found in your professional identity alone, but in the valuable mixture of vitality in all of these areas. Interestingly enough, I found that once I had a wealthy heart, no work related setback could defeat me. The beauty of achieving a wealthy heart is that it is permanent. I have found that if…

• my wife and I have a marriage of total trust
• my faith is unwavering
• my children know I love them no matter what
• I'm competent in my work related skills AND
• I have rich friendships based on mutual support…

I can weather the storms of downsizings, forced early outs or sudden self employment as well as any temporary downturn in my business. The industrial strength WOW is … a wealthy heart built on trustworthy relationships with my God, my spouse, my children and my friends sustains me no matter what happens to me professionally.

There is a time and place for Speakerman, but there is also a time and a place for our other life roles. There is a time and place for your professional identity, but what about your other life roles? A wealthy heart has the wisdom to match our needed roles with the appropriate time, place and situation.

One Liner Summaries

• Set boundaries during seasons of intensity in order to come home whole at the end of the battle.
• No one can stay on the cutting edge.
• Develop a wealthy heart; the changeless values that function as anchors during the storms of life.
• Don't let your professional identity over power the other roles of life.
• There is a place for Speakerman. But that place is not at home.