Richard Glover recently wrote a fantastic article in the Sydney Morning Herald titled ‘I’d rather be a second-class citizen’. The premise of the article was that while coming first is fantastic, it essentially requires you to be obsessed and to sacrifice many things for your goal. He wrote it in response to the focus on winning a gold medal at the Olympics and how “suddenly everyone has a problem with people who come second. It has to be gold or nothing”. His personal preference is for coming second in everything because it signifies a much more balanced and therefore happier life.
Does this also apply to running a successful business? At the risk of sounding like I’m suggesting that you aim low, I think it does apply. In a previous article, I wrote about someone who said that she is “a slave to her business”. Although she appeared to be talking about her business in a positive light, I was horrified at the thought of being trapped by my business. My aim is for my business to work for me, not the other way around.
So in business, if achieving ‘gold’ means sacrificing time with my family then it is silver I choose. If it means I have no interests outside of running my business, then silver seem like a much better option.
I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t aim high and achieve the best you can. But ‘the best’ should mean that you are not forsaking everything else in order to reach your goals. Are you really successful if in the process you’ve lost everything else?
Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender