by Jim Loehr
Look, work is necessary, and work can be vital, and work can be glorious. But one must beware, like the CEO just mentioned, when work is harming one’s most important life stories more than helping them. A December 2006 article in the Harvard Business Review titled “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Work Week,” listed characteristics of “extreme jobs” (referred to in the story as “the American Dream on steroids”):
unpredictable flow of work
fast-paced work under tight deadlines
inordinate scope of responsibility
work-related events outside regular hours
availability to clients 24/7
great amount of travel
physical presence at the workplace at least ten hours a day
Research showed that extreme jobholders, rather than feeling burned out and bitter about their work, reported that they loved their jobs (66%) and felt exalted, not exploited, by the extreme pressures. When asked why they loved their jobs, the most frequent response (90% of men, 82% of women) was that they found the work stimulating and challenging and that it gave them an adrenaline rush.
When queried about the fallout from their intense jobs, however, significant numbers agreed that their work clearly interfered with important dimensions of their lives. Sixty-six percent of men and 77% of women reported that their job interfered with their ability to maintain a home; 65% of men and 33% of women felt their job hindered their relationship with their children; 46% each of men and women said their job harmed their ability to have a strong relationship with a spouse or partner. When these men and women were asked whether, as a consequence of their extreme jobs, their children experienced problems with watching too much TV, with discipline, with bad eating habits or with underachieving at school, a significant number of respondents said yes. I find this study, and these extreme jobholders, fascinating; just as fascinating, I’m sure, would be an exploration of the stories these women and men tell themselves every day to justify the deep misalignment that exists between their work and their personal lives.
Without courageously confronting whether your purpose and your actions are aligned (are truthful and mutually supportive) in every aspect of your life, in every mini-story—your story around your marriage, around your friends, around your job, around your health, etc.—you risk flawed, senseless endings to every one of them.
Three
HOW FAITHFUL A NARRATOR ARE YOU?
When we experience the world directly, our conclusions have immediate credibility. That’s not to say that our interpretations are free of distortion and inaccuracy; we are, after all, spectacularly subjective creatures. But we trust that personally experiencing a situation yields a certain baseline of accuracy and insight.
Because of our unique capacity for language, however, human beings needn’t experience something directly to understand it, partially or sometimes even fully. Unlike other living creatures, which learn solely from their own experiences, man learns both from his own experience as well as—through storytelling—the experiences of others. Someone tells us a story and we are touched, we sympathize, we empathize, we are outraged, we understand. We come to conclusions.
And that’s also where we get into problems.
FAULTY ASSUMPTIONS
Your story is made up of elements of which you had no direct experience; it’s partly built, if you will, with bricks that aren’t your own: You didn’t buy them, you don’t know where they came from, you don’t know what’s inside them. That is, much of the material of your life story is based on assumptions—in short, on information whose factuality and/or truth you cannot, to an extent, verify.
We all make assumptions. We have to or be paralyzed by our lack of certainty. David Hume, the Scottish philosopher known for his skepticism and utilitarianism, once famously asked, “How do we know that the sun will rise in the East tomorrow?” In the end, he said, it is unprovable, yet the sun has risen every morning so far, so it’s reasonable to assume that it will rise again tomorrow. To live without that assumption, and ten thousand others, would be madness, not to mention unsettling and utterly exhausting.
Even when we know we make assumptions, we continue to do so, unconsciously. Our brain does it for us. For example, read the following paragraph (much traveled around the Internet and used occasionally in schools):
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. Bsceuae of the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rschereachr at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mind deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig, huh? And I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
Maybe it’s going overboard to say we’re assumption-making machines, as if that’s all we do, but we’re pretty darn good at it. Some of our assumptions are shaped by narrative templates we’ve grown up with. For example, we’ll take selected facts from our lives and assume we’re inevitably living one or another kind of classic story. “While each life story is unique, many people stick to culturally sanctioned scripts,” writes Psychology Today’s Carlin Flora, who notes that Dan McAdams, author of The Stories We Live By, has identified how “Americans, especially successful ones, often spin tales of redemption.” Alternatively, Americans often imagine themselves victims living the “contamination narrative”: Once everything was perfect, then something happened—divorce, accident, death—and things were never the same. A small but vocal subset of people spin assumptions wildly to create conspiracy theories—e.g., the U.S. government detonated the Twin Towers from within, there was no Holocaust, men never landed on the moon, etc.—and then seek out and manipulate facts to support their view. A larger subset among us will spin assumptions to create conspiracy theories on a more personal level—My boss is out to get me, everyone’s out to get me, all men are untrustworthy—and then seek out allegedly incontrovertible facts to support their view. While there are numerous reasons why such fantasies develop, one of the most basic is that they deflect the storyteller and his audience from a more troubling truth. The entertaining, if fanciful, story meets a need, plain and simple, and its falsity becomes almost an afterthought. Such is the potential danger of crafting stories before having all the facts, and without making an honest attempt to assess them somewhat dispassionately. “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest,” wrote Paul Simon in his song “The Boxer.”
Some of our assumptions, maybe most of them, turn out to be right. Christmas Day comes along and your sister doesn’t show up for the traditional family meal, leaving only a voicemail message that she’s staying away because she’s come down with a head cold. But you make the assumption that Sis doesn’t have a cold at all, but just needed a socially acceptable excuse; after all, she finds a way to miss virtually every family get-together because she’s unmarried and hates the looks and questions she gets from everyone, almost all of whom show up with a partner, often with kids. Probably your assumption is right.
Some of the false assumptions we make are of the innocuous, “no harm, no foul” variety. For example, you always think, We’re leaving too late for the movie so we’ll get terrible seats, and only some of the time is that true. Some false assumptions (as mentioned above) are less innocuous. For example, after leaving several phone messages for an important client, you still haven’t gotten a return call, so you assume they’ve taken their business elsewhere, and so your weekend plans with your family are ruined…only you find out the following Tuesday that the client had been on vacation for two weeks and was unable to return any calls. Or this: Because of your personal friendship with a client, you assume he’ll never take his lucrative business to someone else…yet he does precisely that because your assumption made you complacent.
When we make faulty assumptions about major issues, it ca
n have devastating effects on our lives. When our clients start unearthing their old stories, a Pandora’s box of faulty assumptions spills forth—about work, family, health, happiness. A sampling from executives who have attended the program:
Faulty assumptions about work:
Most of my problems in life stem directly from my demanding job. Without all the stress of my job, I’d be a more responsible and engaged father and husband.
The only way I can meet the demands of my job is to work longer and harder.
I’ll lose my job if I don’t keep my cell phone on and constantly check my e-mails at home.
My job controls me—not the opposite. I’m not the boss!
Investing the lion’s share of my energy at work and not at home will be worth it in the long run. I’m doing it all for my family.
My job is who I am. Without my job and my money I’m a nobody.
My drive for fame, power, and wealth is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Nothing else will.
If I get the promotion and salary increase, I’ll be happier and feel better about myself.
Faulty assumptions about family, marriage, and relationships:
My family understands that the reason I work so hard is because of them. Everything I do is for them.
It’s okay with my family when I come home from work exhausted and disengaged. They appreciate all that I do for them at work.
Once I make partner I’ll have a better chance of finding a mate.
I bring home the money and my spouse raises the kids. That’s how it has to be right now.
We simply couldn’t survive on any less money. That’s why I feel like a slave to my current job.
My father was pretty rough on me and I came out okay. I rarely saw him. What was good enough for me should be good enough for my kids. I actually spend more time with my family than my father ever did.
Thank God I don’t have the responsibility of a family or a serious relationship. I’m pretty one-dimensional, which gives me a competitive advantage, allowing me to achieve my goals and reach happiness a lot quicker, because I can devote everything to being the best at work.
It’s predictable that my family is always on my case because I spend so little time at home. That’s just the way it has to be for now.
Faulty assumptions about health:
Heart attacks happen to lots of people who eat the way I do, never exercise, and are overweight. But it won’t happen to me.
I feel good so my health must be okay.
I’m still young so I can get away with doing things that are bad for my health. Someday I’m going to have to significantly change or face the consequences. I’ve still got time.
I have no time or energy to exercise.
Taking care of myself is a luxury I can’t afford right now.
I devote what little time and energy I have to the areas of my life that matter most—my family and my job.
Working out is selfish.
Choosing not to exercise demonstrates my love and devotion to my family.
Taking care of my body is personal and has nothing to do with my responsibilities as an employee.
Healthwise, if I do everything else right, I can still smoke and get away with it.
We’re all going to die of something someday. If I die a little earlier because I have a steak four nights a week with a half bottle of wine, it will be worth it.
Faulty assumptions about happiness:
I will never find real happiness in my lifetime. I just know it.
I can’t be happy and be under so much constant stress. Happiness is freedom from stress.
No one in my situation could find happiness.
My happiness will come when I achieve financial freedom. I know it sounds ridiculous but, for me, it’s absolutely true.
I sacrifice my happiness for my family.
Success and happiness go hand in hand.
Exercise: Identify three possible faulty assumptions you’re probably making right now in each of these four main areas of your life.
Work (for example, I’ll lose my job if I take time to exercise during the workday or leave early to see my child in a school play.)
Family (for example, Though I’m completely disengaged when I return home from work, my family knows I love them.)
Health (for example, Taking care of myself is a luxury I can’t afford right now.)
Happiness (for example, My happiness will improve when all this financial pressure is off my back.)
All assumptions have consequences in our storytelling. Faulty assumptions always lead to faulty, dysfunctional stories. If we’re to get our stories right, then we must acknowledge that much of the material we base our lives on is assumptions. Then we must verify the truth or falsehood of those assumptions.
Some faulty assumptions are easy to identify and easy to change. Incorrect assumptions like I do not have spinach between my teeth or My face is not bleeding from shaving this morning or I have enough money in my checking account to cover this month’s car payment will soon enough be identified, at least, and probably remedied quickly, too. But some assumptions like No one in my situation could find happiness can be devilishly difficult to verify. It may have an almost timeless ring of truth to it.
So where did these faulty assumptions come from and how do we know for sure that they’re faulty? It can be extraordinarily difficult to trace the origin of our beliefs about the world, and coming to terms with the truth of our assumptions is a lifelong, never-ending pursuit. After all, haven’t we been telling ourselves a story for a very long time?
“BECAUSE I CAN” SYNDROME
Why do you check e-mails at home, smoke, not exercise, and talk on the cell phone during dinner? Because you can! No one tells you you can’t. Or, if they do, then they don’t really back it up with the hammer of immediate, obvious, dire consequences. No one has laid out for you a really, really convincing argument for why you must stop smoking right now, or why you should get up at five in the morning to exercise. In fact, according to your story, talking on a cell phone during dinner is more than okay—it’s actually normal, it’s necessary for you to do your job, it’s productive, and it’s not even that invasive. After all, you’re physically sitting there with your family, aren’t you?
For those who suffer from “Because I Can” syndrome, here’s how some of you think about smoking: Smoking is my choice, my right, and no one is going to take that away from me. (You must be right. After all, nobody really does challenge you.)
Your thinking about sleep vs. exercise: I need sleep more than I need to exercise. Exercise is a luxury, sleep a necessity. (How can this be wrong? Wouldn’t someone point it out if there was an ounce of faulty logic to this thinking?)
Your thinking about working late: Everyone in my department works late, typically misses family dinners, and brings work home. This is just the way it has to be to keep our jobs and drive success.
Nobody questions your conclusions. On this last point, your boss clearly won’t be disabusing you of any faulty assumptions. Instead, he or she will just continue to churn out the directives: Schedule a department meeting on Thursday…Complete the customer service report by the 10th…Fly to New Jersey and meet the client face to face…Poll all the department heads and summarize their feelings about the loss of the client; I want to know who is spreading all the doom and gloom around here.
What if, instead, your boss churned out directives like these? Exercise at least thirty minutes before leaving work today…I want you eating healthy lunches and never going longer than four hours without food while at the office…I want you home with your family for dinner at least three times every week…I want cell phones off during dinner with your family and no job-related work until your children have gone to bed…I want you in bed, lights out, by 11:30 at the latest, Monday through Thursday…Oh, yeah, and kill the smoking before it kills you!
Suppose your boss did say such things? You’d probably conclude that he’d lost
his mind or that she’s somehow screwing with your head and playing power games, or that he or she has no right delving into your personal life.
The truth is, no outside force really holds others accountable for the way they live their private lives (with the exception of parents of young children). So it’s easy to have all kinds of rotten assumptions and lousy habits that support misguided stories, because we can.
So many clients we encounter refuse (at least at first) to open their eyes, largely because they suspect what they would see if they did. They’re brilliant at business—truth seekers, impossible to hoodwink, cutting through what’s unimportant, spotting trends as they’re happening, identifying problems, figuring out solutions—yet they’re fantastically unaccountable for the stories they tell in their personal lives. And why not? No one calls them out for their lousy stories. So rather than get tough on themselves—the one real solution—they keep their eyes closed. Hey, it’s personal. I don’t need anyone infantilizing me by telling me something as obvious as “Eat a solid breakfast before you get to the office.” That’s just insulting.
The brutal, undeniable power of actual documentation is one effective way of pointing out just how far “Because I Can” syndrome has taken you. For example, you stay late at the office because you can, but do you realize just how late you typically stay? And how consistently? One client, head of brand management for a national supermarket chain, said she had no idea she was abusing her “freedom” to stay late until (as we’d suggested) she began each night to log the time she walked out the door. “It was shocking,” she said. “Until I had three weeks’ worth of actual data, I didn’t realize just how bad it was. Eight-thirty, nine, nine-thirty at least four nights a week. There was no good reason for me to stay that late every night.” She routinely got home long after her young child was asleep (and she herself was exhausted, and her husband angry), but she rationalized it because she got to spend time with her son early in the morning. “If I hadn’t logged what I was doing, to this day I still wouldn’t have realized that almost every week I could get home several times to see my son before he’s down for the night, and play with him, and that I can spend a whole, relaxing evening or three with my husband. I’d still be staying late.”