Following in the footsteps of those that have gone before us can be a wise thing, but it’s important to see where those footsteps lead. Even if they lead to great success, what else comes along for the ride?
As I shared last year, most of the “successful” people we hear about had miserable personal lives. In some cases that was perhaps intentional, but most of them wanted the great personal life as well and simply destroyed it too much on their rise to business stardom.
Fortunately, there are many that don’t. Even some ruthless business tycoons made sure to leave time for their family. In the book “Becoming Steve Jobs“, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared this about Jobs:
“If you look closely at how he spent his time, you’ll see that he hardly ever traveled and he did none of the conferences and get-togethers that so many CEOs attend. He wanted to be home for dinner.”
I see this a lot in the people that I surround myself with. Just off the top of my head I’m thinking of people like Adam and Ali and Robert and Greg and so many others that “miss” events in the evening in order to spend time with their families. It’s intentional, and for people like that it’s an easy and automatic decision. There’s no hang-wringing or tough decision about what to do — I believe all four of them have told me the exact same thing at one time or another: “I’d love to go to that event, but my kid has a game tonight and I’m going there instead“.
They want to be home for dinner, and it’s easy to do if you make it your top priority.
