What is important to you?

While I was managing a sales team a while back, young colleagues would sometimes ask me for advice about life in general, hoping to get some words of wisdom from an old fart like me…

Of course, the first thing I would tell them is to burn into their brain our team motto : “We work hard and play hard”. Indeed, those were great times as we weather through the many financial crises while partying hard (drinks and off sites) to unburden ourselves from the unbelievable stress we were all going through.

The next thing I would ask the younglings would be to name me the top 3 things that were important to him/her. If they cannot reply to me within 10 seconds, then the individual has a serious problem. In life, it is very important for one to prioritize one’s life starting from the very top (top 3 important things could be items like happiness, kids/family, your stamp collection etc) and then work your way down the pyramid. This will provide a robust structure to your life, creating a goal-oriented focus for you to set up plans on how you can achieve them. Something like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If you are not focused, you will be all over the place and then after many years of working, ask oneself “what have I achieved?”

At this stage in my life, my aim has been simply to “Stay happy and healthy”. My goals would be to exercise more (do a half marathon every 3 months) and be influenced by other happy people while avoiding pessimistic complainers, as happiness/sadness is contagious.