Fire Your Boss (7 page)

Once you start looking at work as first and foremost a moneymaking endeavor, you’ll find you actually start making more money. I’ll talk more about this approach in a later chapter, but for now let me just say that killing your career almost guarantees a larger income, since from now on, whenever you face a choice or decision, you’ll always opt for the path that provides more money.

But let’s put the money issue aside for a few chapters. Right now let’s focus on satisfaction. After all, if you’re like most of my clients, you didn’t pursue a career to earn more money; you wanted fulfillment. The problem is that in your pursuit of fulfillment through work you’ve stolen time from the areas of life that are far more likely to provide fulfillment: personal relationships, community, hobbies, and religion.

Instead of looking to better society through your work, why not do it after work? Sure, it’s possible to find a job that directly or indirectly helps the poor. That would indeed be a noble pursuit. But if that’s your goal, why not volunteer at a soup kitchen instead? That’s far easier to achieve and guaranteed to offer the kind of rewards you’re seeking.

Looking for creative fulfillment? There are people who are able to find work that provides artistic satisfaction, but they are few and far between. Instead, why not paint watercolors on the weekend? You’ll be creating what you want, not what someone else demands.

Rather than working hour after hour at a job you hope will give you a sense of emotional satisfaction, spend more time at home with your life partner and children and family and friends. You’re far more likely to get emotional satisfaction from teaching your daughter to ride a two-wheeler than from making a killer presentation to the board.

Crave a sense of community? Get active in your house of worship or a local service organization. Being a member of a congregation, for instance, is more likely to give you a sense of belonging than being named to the project team for the Acme account.

Sometimes, when I suggest to clients that they kill their career, I’m met with indignation. Clients ask if I’m saying they can’t have it all, that it’s a mistake to look for work in a field they love, or that it’s impossible to find satisfaction at work today. I’ve thought a great deal about that question because it’s a fair one and deserves an honest, thoughtful answer.

Is it possible to have it all? To have a job you love that is both rewarding and lucrative, as well as a satisfying personal life? I will admit it is possible. But, truth be told, it’s not probable. It’s a one-in-a-million chance. A real long shot. How many social workers or poets earn six figures? How many executives pulling down seven-figure salaries are home every night for dinner with their family? Sure, there are some, but I see them as the exceptions that prove the rule.

And look at what you’d be risking in the gamble to be one of these few. You’d be giving up surefire opportunities to achieve some of your cherished goals on a roll of the dice to try to achieve all of them. I’m not willing to take that risk with your life. Instead, I’d rather help you kill your career.

Let me tell you a little story that perhaps will illustrate my point. It’s a well-known fable that comes in various incarnations. Here’s my favorite.

A very wealthy businessman is finally convinced by his wife to go on a relaxing vacation. In order to ensure that he doesn’t keep calling his office, his wife books them a small house on a tiny, extremely isolated, very beautiful island. The island is little more than a small village surrounding a harbor. The house the couple rents has a balcony overlooking both the harbor and the town’s central square, where there’s a café, a church, and a small grocery. The first full day he’s on the island the businessman wakes, pours himself a cup of coffee, and goes to sit on the balcony. Down in the village square he sees a young man leave his home and walk toward the docks. The fisherman loads his nets in a small skiff and rows out to sea. The businessman imagines how peaceful it must be to fish these waters.

Later that same day the businessman and his wife are sitting on the balcony having lunch. He looks down and sees the same young fisherman rowing back to the dock. His skiff is filled with dozens of baskets overflowing with fish. The businessman watches as the fisherman carries his baskets to the grocery, where he sells his catch and buys some groceries. The fisherman goes back to his house. Later that evening, after having dinner on the balcony, the businessman sees the fisherman along with what must be his family — a wife and two young children — strolling to the café. The family melts into what must be the town’s entire population. There’s laughing, drinking, and singing.

The next day the businessman sees the fisherman go through the exact same pattern. He leaves around breakfast, returns with an incredible catch by lunch, sells it at the grocery, goes home, and then appears at the café with his family after dinner. The day after that the pattern is the same again. After watching this for four days the businessman feels compelled to speak to the fisherman.

On the fifth day the businessman approaches the fisherman after he has sold his catch but before he’s gone home. “Excuse me,” the businessman says. “Since my wife and I have been renting that house over there, I couldn’t help but see you fish every day. You’re an incredible fisherman. I’m a very successful businessman, and I think with just a little bit of effort you could become very wealthy.”

“What do you mean?” asks the fisherman.

“Well,” says the businessman, “if you went back out in the afternoon and fished for a full day rather than half the day you could double your money.”

“What would I do with the extra money?” asks the fisherman.

“First you could use it to buy a bigger boat,” says the businessman. “Then you could use the even greater profits to buy a second boat and hire an assistant. Eventually you could make enough money so you didn’t have to fish yourself.”

“What would I do then?” the fisherman asks.

“Anything you wanted,” the businessman says. “You could relax, spend time with your family and with your friends.”

The fisherman looks confused, and then says, “But that’s exactly what I do now.”

There are lots of morals you can gain from the story. For me, the message has always been that you can’t have it all if you don’t have time to do it all. Sometimes doing less actually yields you more.

Assuming I’ve got you convinced, do not — I repeat, do not — go into your boss’s office and say you’re not staying late tonight because you’ve got to take junior to his little league game. Killing your career is an attitude adjustment, not a suicide attempt. It begins by trying to become more like that proverbial fisherman and keeping focused on the ends, rather than the means.

In order to focus on the ends, you first need to figure out what they are. You need to ask yourself, “Why do I work?”

It’s rare that we actually ask ourselves that question. As we discussed in the previous chapter, we’ve given control over our work lives to others. By not being in charge of our own work life, by not thinking about why we’re working, we’re acting reflexively rather than reflectively. It’s time to change that.

Over the years of asking my clients to tell me why they work, I’ve been given many different answers. But after looking over my notes and thinking about all my consultations, I’ve determined that there are really only eight answers. My clients and, I assume, you work for one of these eight reasons:

Of course, it’s not enough to come up with a simple answer to this question. In order to kill your career and get a job you’ll need to dig a little bit deeper. Give yourself a few minutes of reflection. Sit in a quiet spot and let your mind run through all eight of these general reasons. Have a cup of tea or a glass of wine. When you think you’ve decided which of the reasons fits, say it over and over to yourself to see if it feels right. Then take out your notebook or pad and on top of a blank page write the phrase “I work [fill in the blank].” Now let’s see what that really means.

I get this answer a lot from my male clients. Maybe that’s because a high percentage of my clients are corporate executives who want to be top dog. Certainly there’s a macho element to this answer. (In all my years of practice I’ve had only one woman tell me she worked for power.) In fact, this is usually what I call a presenting answer: it’s an initial pose or posture often covering the actual response. Lots of men think they’re supposed to say they work for power. That’s why I usually push them further…and why I’ll push you further if this were your answer.

Okay. You say you work for power. Well, what do you want to do with that power? Don’t think about it too much. Just pull out your pad and write down the first thing that comes to your mind.

Most people, when prodded, will say they want to use their power to get or do something else. And that underlying answer is always one of the other seven reasons. For instance, when I pushed Julius Jackson, a fifty - two - year - old client of mine who worked as an official with a labor union, to tell me for what he’d use the power he was pursuing, he admitted it was to gain respect.

After you’ve come up with an answer to what you want to do with your power, go over the list of the other seven original answers and see which best fits your response. Now edit the phrase on top of the page in your pad or notebook to reflect your underlying answer.

Having the respect of others is somewhat important to almost everyone. There are very few people whose egos are so secure (or large) that they truly don’t care what others think of them. But if you wrote that you work for respect, clearly it’s essential to you. My next question is: Whose respect do you want? Think about it for a few moments and then write the answer down on your pad.

Security is a very general term. If you wrote that you work for security, you need to expand your answer by getting more specific. Define what you mean by security. Are you referring to financial security — say, having a large nest egg? Or do you mean physical security — maybe living in a low-crime area? Similarly, whose security are you concerned with? Is it just your own, and maybe your life partner’s security, or are you concerned with children, parents, and siblings too? Write your more specific answer under the phrase “I work for security.”

It’s only in recent years that I learned how important travel is to many people. I think that’s because increasing numbers of young people are coming to see me. By young, I mean people between the ages of twenty and thirty-five, many of whom just recently received their bachelor’s or master’s degrees, and most of whom are still single. I’m not suggesting that the desire to travel is in any way immature, only that it may be more pressing for individuals who haven’t taken on a great many other personal responsibilities.

To successfully kill your career you’ll need to be more specific about your desire to travel. Where are you interested in going and why? Perhaps you want to travel to Europe’s capitals to tour art museums, or maybe you’d like to tour the Caribbean going from beach to beach. Is it the act of traveling that matters most, or what you do when you’re in a different place? In other words, is it quantity or quality you’re after? Write down your answers.