Making the Choice Between Money and Meaning

Do We Make Choices Really, Or Did Circumstances Get Us Here?

I have heard a lot of talk recently about the choices people make between meaning and money. At one end of the career spectrum the conversations have been from people waking up to the fact that they have not led the life they envisioned for themselves.

And at the beginning of a career, with survival a paramount concern, the choice for many seems to be a luxury they cannot afford – it has to be money first.

This Is Not The Life I Envisioned

A recent example of this is not the life I envisioned was from a lunch meeting with an investment banker referred to me as someone who could use some coaching. He confessed that after 35 years in banking all he had to show for his life's work was money, and the experience he had wasted his life. "I could have stopped accumulating money 20 years ago and I'd have been just fine".

He complained that somewhere along the way he was not making choices about what he wanted his life to be about, he was just reacting to day-to-day circumstances and was experiencing being adrift looking for some way to put meaning into his life.

What About Starting Out?

Starting out most young people are idealists, if resignation and disappointment hasn't gotten to them first, they want to change the world. A few are actually doing it. Hugh Evans and Simon Moss the founders of the Global Poverty Project, or Adam Braun of Pencils of Promise are just two of many inspiring examples. These activist/idealists attract lots of like minded supporters who make a conscious choice of a life of meaning over money. The myth that those working for social causes, and those who support them, live with is that you can't have both meaningful work and money. But that's a topic for another day.

In a recent article a friend of mine wrote, "I recently attended the Social Enterprise Alliance Regional Conference in Los Angeles, and I heard a lot of talk about young people and their growing desire to find meaningful and purposeful work. It was a theme that came up in many of the sessions I intended. Or at least it was something for which I was listening. When I asked Adlai Wertman, USC Marshall School of Business—Society and Business Lab, what percentage of students he thought were leaning in this direction, the answer was suddenly qualified. What happens, he explained, is that when corporate recruiters come on campus and begin offering large signing bonuses amidst the specter of $10,000s and perhaps $100,000s of student loans, a palpable reality emerges, and in that instance, finding work that is meaningful and purposeful becomes less of a defining quality." [Ron Schultz: Adjacent Opportunities: The Emergent Choice  E:CO Issue Vol. 14 No. 3 2012]

So do young people, choose a career so as to pay for college and, in the US at least pursues the illusion of the American Dream, which is making a ton of money? I say, "illusion" simply based on the small percentage of people who actually make it.

And What About Mid-Career?

If I were to generalize from my experience of the thousands of executives I have worked with over the years, as colleagues when I was an executive myself, and as my clients as an executive coach, I would have to say the majority are working for money and status. Or more recently, money and the fear of losing the money source – their jobs.

Too few organizations are purpose-driven beyond making their numbers, and doing more of what they have always been doing, that is. Too few people, in my experience, see their work as forwarding some purpose, some mission, some set of principles or values. That is often the argument made for paying people high salaries – if it weren't for the money they would not want to do the work – "Would I sit in front of these screens all day in this pressure cooker environment if it weren't for the money? Are you kidding me!" was one traders response to my question about how he saw the purpose of his work.  

Has The Financial Crisis Caused a Rethink About Money And Meaning?

A rethink about money and meaning? For some inevitably, especially those who have lost jobs, and in many cases their net worth too. But what about any signs of a more systemic shift in our relationship between money and meaning. Do we get any sign in the media that a shift is under way, or that our basic assumptions about money and worth/contribution/meaning is under way?

I don't see the possibility of a life with too much meaning – that sounds like bliss. But how much money is enough, beyond which it is too much? We seem to be fascinated with millionaires and billionaires, but why? Is accumulating money what our society values really, the only thing we value and acknowledge people for, really? Is the implicit message if you have not amassed a fortune then you have not had a meaningful life? Or is there an alternative narrative emerging?

I detect that inquiry is underway.

What Do You Wish Your Bosses Had Told You...

I asked: What do you wish your bosses had told you as you moved through your career?

And, what difference would it have made to your career, to your life, and how you feel about yourself?

He paused for a good chunk of time and then responded: "What I wanted to hear is different from what I needed to hear."

I asked him to explain. And he did...

What I wanted to hear was, "It will be okay," when I messed up or was upset about something. And, "That's terrific, you're great!" when I did something well. That would have helped me feel supported and certainly would have been better than feeling put down, which happened a lot.

But what I needed to hear was, "I see that you are upset about something, tell me what happened [with real curiosity and compassion]," or, "Wow, I see you are really excited about something, tell me what happened [again with curiosity, and this time with enthusiasm too]. By Having my feelings seen and validated, and by being able to tell the entire story of what led to my feeling that way, and then have my boss talk with me about it, I would have learned to be much more competent and confident.

Caring comes not from what you say to your reports, but what you enable them to say to you that is weighing on their minds, hearts and souls – then, how you hear them out so that instead of them feeling dismissed and not worth your time, they feel understood, feel cared for, less alone and, they feel worthy. All important feelings for employees to have in an organization that is working to produce breakthroughs – especially in stressful times.

One of the advantages of being an executive coach is that learning, and constant stream of great stories you get to share with people, is part of day-to-day interactions with clients. One of the disadvantages, is that some times who said what to whom, and when, is fuzzy. 

What I have just shared is from one of these fuzzy memories. I was not party to this conversation, and I cannot recall who shared it with me. That said, with that disclaimer, so to speak, I want to share it anyway - it is just good stuff, and a valuable lesson for us all.