On egg baskets & business interludes
The superpower of taking a step back.
Read that again and let it sink in.
In a hierarchy of the most disturbing and saddest non-war headlines, this comes close to the top for me. My mouth feels instantly bitter, my skin all goosebumps, as if a dead-cold breeze just blew in.
Only 17 hours of unpaid work per day?
How generous. That would allow one enough time to catch the CEO’s DJ set (he happens to be one in his free time) and squeeze in a power nap before the next work day begins.
And it only took one death to achieve all this?
Incredible.
But how in the world did we get here?
How did you know you performed well in the year 253 BC?
We ’behave’ to get ice cream, bonuses, kisses, compliments. We say things we don’t mean, wear profoundly uncomfortable outfits and sit through our friend’s latest-and-yawn-inducing theatre play.
Why?
We are hard-wired to respond to incentives and rewards.
Let’s think of it as a personal KPI dashboard.
The top lines of the human Key Performance Indicators sheet have always been about what we can do for the larger group. We survived and thrived as humans not because we were the strongest or smartest, but because we banded together in more complex and efficient ways than any other species. It’s bred into our bones to prove our value to whatever group, family or community we are part of.
And we used to have a lot of tools to do so. We used to have religion, the village, family, ceremonies, the joy of doing nothing in good company (that is, when we were done tending to the fields and milking the cows, so we could feed the larger family).
But, over time:
We 'cancelled' going to mass every Sunday.
We cancelled meeting strangers at the park for a spontaneous picnic or game of soccer.
We cancelled gathering the extended family to help each other with cooking preserves or harvesting the crop.
We lost most “we” activities that used to bring us meaning and belonging.
But nature abhors a vacuum - aka any empty space will quickly be filled with something else. So we ‘transferred’ all our metaphorical eggs in one basket: work.
The one basket
Our whole concept of self-worth is now deeply intertwined with work.
We believe that work can bestow upon us not just financial security, but also the elusive gifts of belonging, purpose, community, close companionship, perhaps even the chance of meeting a life partner.
Yet work is making many of us miserable - and it’s literally killing us.
So we are gazing, baffled, at the massive disconnect between our extremely high expectations and our ever-diminishing returns. Like when you’re standing on a tall mountain looking back after hiking for hours and hours, feeling like you've barely made any progress. And we’re wondering why it’s not “working” for us.
Let’s deconstruct this.
We often think “If I leave this job/company/team everything will crumble”. Then you leave and find out everything keeps at it just fine.
Many industries have this 👇 ethos (e.g. Big Fours, Silicon Valley, investment, media, the creative industries).
Surely, resilience is important. I’m not advocating for folding like a daisy whenever energy levels drop ever so slightly. Far from it. I’m talking about the belief that if it doesn’t feel like a massive struggle, then it’s not worth doing. And about pushing way beyond digestible levels of exhaustion and burnout.
Oftentimes, we keep going when we really just lack rest and, with it, the ability to see the big picture again.
When the hustle gets hard, keep hustlin’?
Most crises and anxieties I’ve experienced over the last decade were solved by getting 2-3 nights of good sleep, a couple of walks in nature and a few uninterrupted hours off screens, ideally looking at green, leafy things instead.
Earlier this year, I found myself feeling depleted, the metaphorical “fire in my belly” reduced to a flickering candlelight after a few jam-packed, challenging years, and an even more challenging two first quarters of 2023. I was inching towards a burnout.
So I took a 7-week mini-sabbatical, completely disconnected for 95% of the time from the 2 organizations I lead, the 3 others I’m a founding member or board member of, and the 7 teams I usually work closely with. Not only that the whole thing didn’t crumble (thanks, amazing teams & thanks, Lavinia-of-5-years-ago for putting in place all the systems!), but I was able to step back and see the whole “chessboard” clearly. I realized we were wasting our time working on a couple of lost causes (clients, projects, unproductive teams). That it would be a WAY better idea to double down on what’s working. I also realized that I had been so focused on “crafting” the ideal role for everyone in our leadership team, that I forgot to do the same for myself. D'ooh-type of insights to a bystander, but not to me while in the hamster wheel.
What happens when we stop?
Over time, I’ve heard variations of these from at least 3 friends and acquaintances: “In the midst of the hustle, I forget what makes me human.”, “It is easy in my leadership role (or any variation of modern work) to lose myself in the day-to-day.”
When we stop, we teleport ourselves to a zoomed-out view.
From there, we might find that the best creative solution to a problem is staring us right in the face. Or that the sensible conclusion might not be to work harder on the current project or venture. It might be to drop it altogether or approach it from a completely different angle. Good ol’ Peter Drucker’ said: "There's no such thing as doing effectively that which shouldn't be done at all".
Or we might re-imagine our work in a world where we can ‘suspend’ the reality of the daily grind and delegate our menial tasks to AI, so we get to do more of what makes us human and alive.
Near brushes with mortality, too, have a way of prompting us to reassess our values and question the fundamentals of our existence. That happened on a global scale during the pandemic: Maslow’s pyramid flipped.
Stuck at home wearing pyjamas 24/7, cut from the hustle-and-bustle of coffee shops, lively bars, large group gatherings, and tired of baking yet another banana bread, people found themselves pondering eternal truths. Many ended up quitting their jobs & shifting en masse as a result.
Some of those questions can be:
"Am I truly happy?"
"Am I dedicating my time to the right pursuits?"
"Am I investing in meaningful relationships?"
"What is the point of it all?"
Interludes
Artists use interludes, pauses between acts of play; breaks or passages; or short simple plays between the parts of a longer composition, to draw the listener's attention in another direction and create an overarching masterpiece.
The business equivalent (should we call them biz-terludes?) have a similar superpower, which is to:
focus our attention on what matters
transition us to new, improved phases of our professional projects, careers, and lives
help us realign our day-to-day with our “why’s".
The future of work (and living!) is not dying at work from an exhaustion-induced seizure after pulling six all-nighter shifts in a row. We have a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild and reimagine a better, more balanced and purposeful reality.
Work doesn’t have to destroy us. When the hustle gets real hard, don’t keep hustling until you burn out.
Stop.
More reads on this topic 👇
I previously wrote about:
the Steady Hustle, building with passion without burning out
and on ambition and self-acceptable - can you have both?
I am indebted to
, , , , and for their generous feedback, which made this essay so much better than it could’ve ever been on its own.
...why does business make so many bastards that much more bastardly...love that interlude concept...might even be good practice to do daily, hourly, right now....
Loved this Lavinia! So good :)