Greetings from the LHH! My wife and I thought this was finally the summer we would start traveling again, but we’ve had so much going on, along with all the macroeconomic shocks happening, that we have mostly stayed put. So we were really happy to take advantage of a scheduled site visit to head to the South Shore this past Friday and spend a night with my brother-in-law and his family. They took us out on their boat for an evening cruise that included docking in Hull for dinner. It was fun and frivolous, if only for a night. (pic above is a cell phone shot coming back from dinner looking toward Boston. I wish I had brought a real camera - the sunset was gorgeous - and that is always hard to catch with a phone cam.)
One of the things we talked about was the meaning of success. I have wrestled with this idea my whole life, even now. Because of my upbringing, and the fact that my family was relatively poor when I was young (poor enough to qualify for food stamps and free school lunches), I am extremely financially conservative. Money can have an unsightly effect on me, and even though I know it isn’t the most important thing for success, and I have to beat that instinct down periodically. The challenge with gauging financial success is determining what is enough, and then not letting that goal post keep moving farther away.
The counterpoint to financial success that I equally value is having a creative and meaningful life. The two - financial success and a creative and meaningful life - do not have to be in tension. As one senior healthcare executive once told me, the beautiful thing about healthcare is “you can do well by doing good.” Healthcare isn’t the only field where you can have both financial success and live a creative and meaningful life - there are lots of ways to do that.
Having transitioned from healthcare delivery to healthcare education, I have found a nice balance of financial success and a creative and meaningful life. My modest professor salary is enhanced by my military retirement so that I feel financially secure. Being a professor and getting to read, write, and talk about ideas is about as good as it gets in terms of a creative professional life. Teaching is also a fun, creative outlet because you are constantly trying to find a better way to engage the students and help them learn. On top of this, I get to help young people get launched in their careers, and I get to talk to them about topics like, “What is success?” so they can think about and start to plan their futures.
People of a certain inclination would argue that my success was mostly due to my socio-economic status - the fact that I am a white, cis-gendered man who has been blessed with good health, etc. etc. I’d add that I was also lucky not to be born in Donetsk or some other place being torn apart by war. I am fully aware that I have had a great deal of luck on my side. Machiavelli, writing in 1513, has a wonderful quote in The Prince that addresses this theme:
I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.
What do we do with the idea of success if more than half of our life outcomes are controlled by fate? Even if most of life’s outcomes are determined by fate (or in today’s parlance, socio-economic status, race, gender, class, etc.), life still leaves choice. Machiavelli continues:
I compare her [Fate] to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it; and yet, though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defences and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so unrestrained nor so dangerous. So it happens with fortune, who shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defences have not been raised to constrain her.
Much of Machiavelli’s arguments in The Prince are about being conservative and preparing defenses against the vagaries of fate. If one prepares, it is less likely that fate will throw you a bad outcome. This includes investments of a financial nature, but also investments in family, friends, and your social circle. It would also include investments in your health - eating well, getting exercise. And finally it would include investments in yourself in terms of education and human capital that allow you to meet the world with flexibility. Conservatism and prudence are essential to success.
What if you are one of the downtrodden of society? All the stuff I am talking about is well and good for someone like me. What if I had many disadvantages? What if I could not have served a career in the military, followed by a career as a professor? Now what is success? Clay Christensen (author of, among other books, The Innovators Dilemma) has a great answer in this video (which I have shared before).
Summarizing, he says God will judge you based on your individual choices and how you impacted other people in your life. Success is how many choices you made to be kind and generous, and how many times you were not cruel or selfish (do watch the video if you have not seen it). In a similar vein, Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, who was first a moral philosopher and talked about “the man in the breast” - a notional figure we each carry with us who judges our actions as being worthy of praise or blame. So if you don’t like Christensen talking about God, you can imagine instead a secular judge that knows everything about you and your reasoning.
At a most basic level, success is doing the best you can with the hand fate has dealt you. This is the message of the Parable of the Talents. If you have many advantages, you are successful if you take those advantages and do great good (think Uncle Ben - “with great power comes great responsibility”). For the Man in the Breast to judge you successful, if you have a lot, you must do a lot of good. But if you come from modest origins, then success is perhaps less demanding. The measure of success is going to be what you did with what you had. None of us are getting out of here alive, so sooner or later everyone’s luck runs out. God knows the hand you were dealt, even if no one else does, and if nothing else He knows kindness is free. The question He will ask you is what did you do with what you were given?
So with that, willing good for all of you, I present you with the links!
Read
What: HBR, Navigating the Emotional Side of a Career Transition
https://hbr.org/2016/04/navigating-the-emotional-side-of-a-career-transition
Why: A short piece thinking about finding meaning at the end of a career. But it works well with my discussion above about success. From the article:
Consider financials, quality of work life, opportunities to find meaning, latitude for personal growth, flexibility for family time and non-work pursuits, and whatever else matters to you. You basically want to put together your own balanced scorecard for career satisfaction and use it to help you make decisions and shape your next phase.
**
Watch
What: Jonathan Haidt, 3 great untruths to stop telling kids—and ourselves (6 min)
Why: If you haven’t read Haidt and Lukianoff’s The Coddling of the American Mind, I suggest you get a copy ASAP. In this very short video, Haidt summarizes three key points of the book - we are antifragile, we employ motivated reasoning, and we are inherently tribal. We have to create an educational system that recognizes these essential human characteristics and how to deal with them.
**
Listen
What: Coaching Real Leaders, How Do I Transition Out of My Current Career? (61 min)
https://hbr.org/podcast/2022/07/how-do-i-transition-out-of-my-current-career
Why: I’ve recently discovered the Coaching Real Leaders podcast and I’m enjoying listening to it. Each episode is a one-time coaching session with a real leader looking to work through a challenging career issue. It’s interesting to listen to the coach, Muriel Wilkins, help the leader get to the core of their problem.
In this episode, she talks to a Navy service member ostensibly about what he will do when he leaves service, but it takes an interesting turn as she uncovers that his real challenge is dealing with how to transition from being an individual performer to being a leader. It is never said, but based on his comments, I am guessing the leader is a Navy SEAL, so that makes it more interesting to me since I know the special operations members are truly a unique breed. I have no problem admitting that I would not have made it through their training or been successful in that community.
Check this one out - I recommend the podcast in general for learning how to ask better questions.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next week!
Mark