Based on the terms of my employment, I’m required to be out of the office for 2 consecutive weeks at some point during the calendar year. We, in the business, refer to this as our “2-weeker.” It’s a nice chunk of time to detach yourself from the day-to-day grind of the office. If I wasn’t forced to take 2 consecutive weeks, I’m not sure I would. I would definitely take my days, but I’d probably spread them out over several smaller trips.
I like the use the 2-weeker as an opportunity to think about my life and career from a broad perspective. It’s a nice thing to be able to remove yourself at some distance, in this case the distance created by time away, in order to create some perspective. In prior years on 2-weeker, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my life goals. What follows will be an analysis of that process, a summary of my current goals with a brief explanation of each.
I am a big fan of Ray Dalio and Principles and his 5 step process, outlined below:
- Set Goals
- Encounter Problems
- Identify Root Causes
- Design a Plan
- Execute
The hardest part of the process is determining what you value and setting goals. You can have almost anything you want, but you can’t have it all… (that’s Ray’s quote, or something like that). Over time my goals have gone from very specific, tangible things, like “Be Promoted to VP” or “Save $xxx” or “own my home outright,” to much more general and idealistic. I realized that those tangible goals, while important at a point in time, are not lasting nor durable. Further, upon achieving some of those goals, the satisfaction I experienced was quite fleeting. Deep satisfaction is hard to achieve, and for me, it doesn’t come from title or status or material objects. So my goals have shifted toward the following:
- Stay healthy
- Provide security for my family
- Find unique ways to contribute
- Be mindful, open, and compassionate
- Develop and improve rewarding long-term relationships
- Seek deep engagement
These goals evolved over time, really over the course of several (2 or 3) 2-weekers. I asked people I’m close with for feedback (which is hard to come by!), I iterated on the goals, revised, re-drafted. I thought about this a lot, and I think I’m in a fairly solid place at this point.
I really believe in all these things, and I’ve discussed them a bit in Instagram Walk & Talks and otherwise, but I think this platform might be a useful tool to further explain and dive into the goals, how they came about, why I think they are important, and why I believe in them, and to provide some examples of applications. A defense of my goals, if you will. It’s really more for me than you, but perhaps you will find some value in seeing how I work through this process.
Goal #1: Stay Healthy
This sort of goes without saying, but I wanted my goals to be very explicit. Don’t leave things unsaid. If there are implicit goals in your life, make them explicit. Write them down and hold yourself accountable. Without health, very little is possible. I want to live a long life, to give myself as much time and as many at-bats as possible to make an impact. I want to be fully present for my young family. I want to continue to be able to run and swim and hike and explore with energy over a long period of time. I want to not only live long, but maintain athletic health. I want to play sports with my children as they grow older. I want to be physically fit. It feels good to look good. I want to maintain that feeling and self-confidence.
Beyond my physical health, I want to also maintain my mental and emotional health. This is super important and I suspect it’s often overlooked. I am at my best when I’m clear and present and focused. Incorporating mental and emotional health explicitly into my goals and making it a priority in my life has been hugely beneficial for me and I’d recommend it to anyone. Wouldn’t you love to live with less stress, with greater clarity, with more ease and balance? The tools are out there, but it takes work and practice. For me, this element of health (mental and emotional health) was slipping before I made it an explicit goal. Everything becomes more challenging when I’m stressed and anxious and I don’t have a clear head. Maintaining clarity of mind is paramount.
Goal #2: Provide Security
This is another goal that I think many of us carry implicitly, that I wanted to make more explicit. In my early goal writing, this took the form of career ambition, or owning a home, or having a certain amount in savings. I realized at some point, that it’s not really about money or a savings account, that the thing I actually wanted was to provide for my family and make sure they were safe and secure. I think security is one of our most basic needs. Sure, security can come from having $1 million in the bank, but that’s not the only path. And I realized that by creating monetary guideposts, I was potentially creating conflict with my other fundamental goals.
I was working A LOT when I started my career, in pursuit of that big bank account. I was working so much, in fact, that my physical and emotional health was suffering. If you need to work 90-100 hours a week as a jr. investment banker to make a big bonus, but you are pale, overweight, stressed, and have no time to maintain relationships, what’s the point? I thought there must be another way vs. working myself to death to hit a monetary goal that wasn’t even really the point. Money wasn’t what I really wanted. I just wanted to provide for myself and my family, to be safe, to have stability and security. There are many ways that you can get there.
It dawned on me that instead of working toward a figure in a bank account, I should be working towards stability. If I can stay employed, I can continue to provide. Then I had to make the leap, to have the confidence to believe that unless I’m hit by a bus, I will always be able to work and provide; that I have enough talent, education, and ambition, that I will always be able to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. I will always have work. I will always be able to contribute. I didn’t always think that way. Even 10 years into a wall street career, even after navigating unscathed through the financial crisis, I was still fearful that I would one day be found to be unworthy. Unable to find work. My career would end and it would all be over. Like there was no other option, no alternative, no other side.
Part of being able to live comfortably with this goal is choosing a lifestyle that is easily financially supportable. If you stretch to buy the big house, the big boat, spend a lot on fancy private schools and clubs, and you have a huge amount of expenses vs. your income, providing security of lifestyle on an ongoing basis becomes more challenging and stressful. You get locked into the high paying, but potentially toxic job / career. If, alternatively, you own a more modest home and keep expenses and debt down, you have much more flexibility in how, exactly, you choose to provide that needed security. I’m lucky that I’m able to live in a town with lots of family around, relatively modest homes and home prices (it’s still northern NJ!), good public schools, etc., such that I can live well and keep expenses relatively manageable. I’ve said often that I can choose to become a waiter or bartender (and I bet I’d be a damn good one!) and I’d still be able to support my family. That is comforting. We might not live the same way exactly… but there’s no way in hell we’ll go hungry. That’s an active choice that we’ve made. Decide how you want to live, what do you actually need, and it gets easier. Security is a must have for me, but I get to determine where there bar is set.
Goal #3: Find Unique Ways to Contribute
It feels good to contribute. It feels especially good when your contribution is something that you are uniquely able to provide. There all sorts of ways that we are all able to uniquely contribute. We can contribute to our family life. I can contribute as a father, as a husband, as a brother, as a son. I have scores of unique relationships that I can improve. I’m not sure what exactly triggered this insight for me, but I realized that it feels good to give. It almost feels selfish to give (paradoxically). It feels good to put effort into something. It feels good to work. And once you also come to that conclusion, it’s like “what is stopping me from working and contributing?” I try to spend time each day thinking about how I can uniquely contribute.
Here is an example: My mother was toiling away for years, on her own, as the sole proprietor of her business, Fresh Daly (plug: visit FreshDaly.com for personal chef delivery service!). She was, and still is, very reluctant to cede any amount of control or execution of her business. It’s both a strength and a weakness. She cares so much about her reputation and the service she is providing to customers, that the thought of allowing anyone else to mess it up is crazy. So she does it all herself. Lilia: “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” But, because of my unique relationship with my mother, a relationship that only we share, I was able to provide insight, capital, and strategic influence to help her and her business.
I don’t think the form of help in itself is unique, I don’t think my execution is unique. There are certainly better business operators and marketers and strategic partners, but none of those possible contributors have the relationship I have with my mother. It’s basic, but because of my unique proximity to my mom, I was uniquely able to provide help. It’s not groundbreaking, but that’s not the point. The goal isn’t to provide contribution at X level of importance. It’s about finding and doing what you are uniquely able to see and do, at any level of contribution. This applies broadly, to family, friends, work, and community. Find ways to put yourself to good use, large and small, seen and unseen.
Goal #4: Be Mindful, Open, and Compassionate
This is sort of a sub-set of Goal #1: staying healthy and maintaining emotional health, but I thought it was important enough to separate it out as its own goal. I don’t think anything I’ve done over the past several years has had more of a positive effect on my life than my mindfulness practice. It’s really quite amazing how positively impactful it has been: stress reduction, clarity of thought, non-reactivity, being able to accurately frame issues. Being open minded allows for so much possibility. So given all this benefit that I’ve experienced, I knew I needed to make this an explicit goal.
Achieving this allows for so much and failing to achieve it has such negative consequences. Think about the reverse of the goal: Being lost in thought or captured mentally, lacking self-awareness, being closed-minded, and being indifferent, selfish, or lacking empathy. How does that sound? Is that how your want to operate on a day-to-day? Being able to see yourself clearly, to assess where you are, to adjust as necessary, to back off of negative emotions, to have better emotional control… these are all qualities worth pursuing. Clearly positive. Worth prioritizing. This doesn’t necessarily come naturally to me (does it for anyone??), so it’s worth the explicit reminder.
Goal #5: Develop and Improve Rewarding Long-Term Relationships
Think about this: you are a massive “success,” tons of money, beautiful car, big vacation house at the beach, boat in the water. You host a party, champagne, lobster tails, the works… and no one shows up. Nobody calls. Maybe this is another goal that seems obvious to people, but for me, again, it’s important to make these implicit goals explicit.
I came across a Ted Talk that discussed a longitudinal study indicating that the number one contributor to a person’s long-term happiness was the number of meaningful relationships they maintained. Check it out via the link below:
That had a real impact on me. Seems likely to be true. Think about in your own life the amount of positive energy, joy, laughter, etc. you derive from your relationships. This is the stuff of a good life! This is something worth pursing actively. Unfortunately, many of us, myself included, allow relationships to happen to us. We don’t take control of developing relationships and really value them.
Relationships by Proximity
We are encircled by our family and neighborhood friends as we grow up. We have our high school cliques defined by sports and activities. We go off to college and our group is based on dorm room floor and frat or athletic team. Then we are off into the real world and all of those relationships by proximity go away. Our networks get much smaller (at least mine did). Now our relationships consist of our roommates and office colleagues and a handful of old high school / college buddies. Very little active selection goes into this process. But if this is such a critical element of our long-term happiness, shouldn’t we put more effort into it? Shouldn’t we think more analytically about the people with whom we surround ourselves?
I wanted to make this goal explicit and to hold myself accountable for taking more control of the people and relationships in my life. What types of people do I best relate to? Who is stimulating? What types of people do I genuinely enjoy spending time with? Who is engaging? The people and relationships in your life change over time. You change over time. We all evolve. Are the people around you evolving as well? Are they evolving with you (or away from you)? Are they encouraging your more rapid evolution? Old friends are great. Long relationships are the best sort. But it’s important to keep searching for meaningful relationships. Actively. We have a lot of time to live and a real relationship, that we start today, has the potential to run for decades.
This goal reminds me to be open and allow myself to foster possible new relationships, and not rely solely on a static network of past relationships by proximity. Look forward as well. Maintain the best of what I have: my wife, my children, our childhood friends and family, those that are still with us, those that continue to evolve, those we can serve and who serve us. But also look forward and put yourself in a position to start anew. There is no reason to limit yourself to your current network. Much growth and depth awaits you if you are willing to look for it and work at it.
Goal #6: Seek Deep Engagement
Two or three years ago, I was home, in a deep conversation discussing wine or food or something of the sort, and it struck me that in that moment, I was happy. The context didn’t really matter. What mattered was my level of focus on the discussion. I was all-in. I was fully present. I was not thinking about the past, or planning for the future. I was not anywhere else, but fully engaged in the conversation. It felt like my full capacity was being focused on communicating an idea, on helping a friend and someone that I cared about understand something that I had experienced. And in that act, I was happy and fulfilled. When you are keyed-in like that, you don’t have the energy to worry or to have anxiety or to be self conscious. I want to live my life like that. I want to be there, in that space, as much as possible. The challenge is to be honest with yourself and figure out what gets you there. For me, it can be food, or wine, or watches, or goals, or hiking, or biking, or etc. The list goes on. But once you realize this space IS everything, there is nowhere else you’d rather be.
Learning that you have some amount of control around entering this space is very powerful. Mindfulness practice has been helpful for me. Developing self-awareness is crucial. Being able to identify when you are out of this space is just as important as knowing when you are in it.
Here’s another example: Staying engaged in my office day to day has been very challenging. I knew I wasn’t there. I wasn’t engaged. And when I’m not engaged, motivation dwindles, work product suffers, my mood shifts negatively. Noticing this, I tried to focus on the activities within that sphere that did capture my attention and imagination. Development of strategy and thinking about ways to clearly communicate ideas felt critical to me and also quite challenging. It also felt like something that I might be able to impact uniquely (back to goal #3). Knowing that strategy development was more deeply engaging for me than, say, the production of powerpoint materials, was a meaningful insight. I needed to understand where I was most engaged, and work toward shifting my allocation of time towards those activities. I would be happier, perform better. Work product would be better.
That shift doesn’t happen automatically, but knowing were you want to be is important. It’s about improvement of the situation by understanding your goals and values, and actively working towards that better outcome. Over time, we were able to hire junior staff to take on the production tasks, which allowed me to focus on those more engaging strategic activities.
In closing…
That’s where my goals stand today. That’s it. I really try to live by this. Nothing about status or money or material stuff (unless it’s really engaging!!!). Nothing else to chase. I try to let these few simple goals guide me. But I’m always open to feedback!!! That’s part of the process. You do the best you can, then ask for advice and feedback from reliable sources. I’d love to hear from you! What am I missing? What are your most important goals? I want to make my goals as good as they can be. I don’t care where the inspiration comes from. The beauty of good ideas is that they exist everywhere around us, and we can take any of these ideas and make them our own. If you are open-minded, the possibilities are infinite.
I hope that I’ve been able to contribute in some way to your goal setting process. I know this process has been engaging for me! It’s the ultimate puzzle to solve. And the prize you get if you do solve it, is a life filled with exactly what you wanted! What feels better than setting a deeply meaningful and challenging goal, working your ass off, and achieving it? I’m hopeful that this post may lead to greater depth in an existing relationship, or perhaps the start of a new meaningful relationship in my life. What could create more depth in a relationship than sharing with someone your most fundamental values and goals for your life??? What would feel better than applying your unique perspective to contribute to helping someone you know and love set and achieve their goals? Expressing myself in this way feels like time well spent, and being this open (and vulnerable) gives me an opportunity to do so many of the things that are important to me.
If you read this far, thank you. My sincere thanks for allowing me to share with you.
