NO WONDER IT HURTS SO MUCH
[Originally posted June 22, 2009 on the Huffington Post]
I stumbled into my 25th Stanford Business School reunion over the weekend somewhat chagrined by the fact that my pockets are relatively empty a quarter of a century after I graduated from this august institution. I expected to feel small relative to the corporate titans who were my former classmates as while many of these alums have experienced the “once in a lifetime” historic downturn that we’re all living through, few could match my misfortune of experiencing it twice in the same decade (as my Bay Area hotel company was pummeled in the dot-com bust, 9/11 era also). But, I was surprised to discover that misery truly does love company as this collection of venture capitalists, investment bankers, high-tech execs, management consultants, non-profit leaders, and entrepreneurs had one thing in common. Every one of them had a net worth at this reunion that was lower than it was at the 20th reunion five years earlier and many of these folks had come back out of early retirement due to financial necessity.
One of my favorite panel discussions was a “View from the Bottom” (in each of the past reunions, this panel had been called “View from the Top”) where we learned that this past decade has been more severe than even the 1930’s. Professor Jack McDonald told us that in the 1930’s (after the big drop in stock prices in late 1929), the stock market showed basically flat growth (although lots of up and down swings) along with an average of 2% annual deflation, so there was 2% real growth in the stock market during that time. Given the wreckage we associate with the Depression, this was a bit of a shock to me. Yet, in the past ten years from January 1999 to January 2009, we’ve experienced a 3% average annual drop in the stock market and have had 3% annual inflation along the way which registers a 6% negative net growth for the decade. So, when we say “at least it’s not as bad as the Depression,” there’s certainly truth to that when it comes to unemployment and soup kitchen lines, but for those whose nest egg has shrunk 6% annually in real terms as compared to 2% growth in the 30’s, it’s understandable why you’re feeling a little blue.
And, this is for the monied class. Think about what the average middle class family has faced in the past 30 years in order to try and assure that their income was keeping up with their expenditures. Many families became two income households in order to pay the bills. Then, they started working longer hours, or, at least commuting longer distances because they could only afford a home further out in the sticks. Then, they mortgaged their home up to the hilt (or maxed out their credit cards) in order to keep the bill collectors at bay. Financial engineering isn’t just a Wall Street phenomenon as the CFO of any middle class family will tell you that their balance sheet has been sorely out of balance for years, especially when you factor in the scarcity of time in our lives. Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “The cost of something is measured by how much life you have to give for it.” Based on this premise, our modern lives are very, very expensive!
So, I left my Stanford reunion feeling a surprising dose of gratitude. I didn’t feel “lesser than” like I thought I would and I felt “at one with” so many of my humbled classmates. One of my classmates who has worked with the same investment banking firm for decades pulled me aside at one of the luncheons. He said he needed to have a private moment with me, so we ducked behind a potted palm and he whispered in the kind of tones one uses when talking about infidelity or a curiosity with Viagra. He said, “I made a bundle and lost half of it. For a few months, I felt like half a man. Then, I read your book PEAK and realized that you have a different ‘scorecard’ for success. I love that the name of your company is also your mission statement and your strategic goal for what you produce: joy. Now, I realize how far off my path I am. I realize I’ve been climbing the wrong ‘peak.’”
The world is chaotic and unfair. And, certainly, it isn’t controllable. One thing you can control is your definition of your scorecard. Just as my grandpa Potka told me years ago when, as a young teenager, I threw a tantrum on the golf course because I was hitting divots further than golf balls, “When you’re having a bad golfing day, stop counting your strokes and start counting squirrels, or how many different cloud formations you see in the sky, or how many times you’ve made your grandpa smile with one of your silly jokes.” What scorecard are you using to define success in your life?
Add comment June 23rd, 2009