What Does It Mean to Succeed in Such Interesting Times as These?

(Or, "Does Singing Make You Regular?" …)

What an absolutely stunning, riveting, brilliant, dangerous, hectic, unfolding time to be alive on this amazing shining blue and white planet.

And what an incredible time to be engaged in the great game of business …

In today’s business world, capital and customers lurch and flow and follow trends and tweets and suddenly long-standing business models fall apart overnight (or are exposed as frauds) while people with new ideas (some of whom are nascent or newbie billionaires) emerge from basements and dorm-rooms having brought value to millions or billions of lives with their latest ideas and unique ways of looking at things.

The Lehman Bros. collapse was apparently caused by bad bets made by just eight people in the executive suite, and this led to the fall of a $750 billion trading empire (a virtual hedge fund disguised as an investment bank) and the loss of up to 2 million direct and indirect jobs. Meanwhile, a company like Facebook pops up and connects nearly a billion people on the basis of friendship, school connections, and shared interests and is soon valued at nearly $100 billion.

Times of great turmoil. Times of great opportunity.

In other news, political forces sweep the world with whole new approaches to the organizing of millions of lives within and between nation-states, as long-standing oppressive regimes seem to fall in days or weeks (or hours?) setting yet more millions of earth’s citizens free to each follow their individual dreams and desires.

These freed people seek for themselves and their loved ones safe places and economic stability in a world where economic systems teeter on the edge of night (Will the Euro survive? Will the Tea Party default the US government?) while whole new economic orders begin to emerge like mushrooms from the decomposing detritus of fallen and/or falling economies.

Paradoxically, individual liberty increases even while economic opportunities become at once both greater and more uncertain with every passing day.

As the world changes before our eyes, people everywhere (it seems) are busily positioning themselves to demonstrate the value of their personal brands (as so nimbly projected via Facebook, Linked-In, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Twitter, et al.) so they can be both ready and available to run with the latest opportunity.

Thousands of people apply, for example, to become a lighthouse keeper on a desolate island in the Great Barrier Reef, while others wait patiently for their chance to be a cog in the wheel of the latest start-up (and be paid in shares!) launching yet another disruption technology designed to bring down yet again everything that came before it.

And, simultaneously, while setting ourselves up to make sure that our cash-flow needs are met and our payments are made on perhaps a few too many over-mortgaged lifestyle enhancements, our respective quests to ensure that our lives are meaningful and enjoyable gather strength as we “follow our passions” and vigorously explore every nuanced aspect of our inner and outer worlds.

Yesterday we were hiking up Kilimanjaro; today we sample an authentic Laotian feast, complete with fried insects; tomorrow we will delve into new wines or craft beers (manufactured by yet another corporate refugee who either escaped or was cast off – depending on whose telling the story – from some now-defunct but once seemingly almighty corporation, severance package partially intact – whew!).

The day after that, we plan on attending an emotional healing retreat or downloading a podcast on how the sexual art of ancient Pompeii can spice up our bedrooms or practicing the latest form of mindfulness and meditation as recommended by the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Just how unique can we each be?

In a world with over 7 billion unique individuals (and I.P. addresses?), it seems there is no possible end to the variations and flavours and forms of human expression and interest.

My own son, at age 11, after being exposed to my somewhat eclectic taste in world music, suddenly becomes the world’s biggest fan of the Swedish heavy metal band Hammerfall! (I went to see them in Vancouver last year – we definitely live in interesting times. Here were four balding guys with scraggly locks in their 50’s or 60’s having flown in from Sweden to play live for all of 30-40 males, most of whom were barely of drinking age. There truly is no accounting for taste.)

Where will it end?

Somehow, the whole enterprise of our civilization lurches forward as super-braniac politicians who never seem quite smart enough to cope with the changes and challenges that overwhelm their respective domains struggle like Hercules to balance the whole world on their shoulders, crying out: “Give me yet more power! Give me your vote and I will deliver to you the world of stability and happiness financial well-being and fully-funded pension plans that you long for and that you assume must be your birthright because that’s what my predecessors promised you!”

And we each live our little lives, trying to stay in shape, looking to stay calm and centered and balanced in the midst of the rapid flux, striving to do right by our families and loved-ones, wanting to be true to ourselves, trying to remain relevant to the needs of the economy so that the economy, as uncertain as it is, will bless us with the rewards we need to fund the fulfillment of our dreams or at least cover the mortgage payment this month.

No matter where in the world you may find yourself, what a long strange trip modern life is proving to be! What fool, I would like to know, called the end of the Cold War ‘the end of history’???!!!

I too am witness of these things.

My own story is one of both observing and participating in this flow and flux.

In my early twenties, I worked at a series of blue collar jobs to pay for a wonderful liberal arts education at two Canadian universities (Trent and Waterloo), interweaving those years of study with two intense years spent in the blossoming cities of southern India where I worked with a local medical and social/educational outreach organization.

In my late twenties and thirties, I followed the corporate path and learned a lot of the rules and lessons that make businesses function well and succeed in the marketplace. But it was also during those years that I woke up to things going on within myself that required or rather demanded attention.

In business, we learn about a thing called “emotional intelligence” and why it is important to have it if we want to successfully engage with others, but I found that it is not enough to read about it in a book – one has to get there for oneself by taking the steps needed for emotional healing and wholeness! Corporations reward you when you perform well, but they are not really equipped to help you deal with personal issues such as never being able to say ‘no’ to the demands of the business (workaholism).

So it was in my late thirties that I made a commitment to myself to take care of first things first and find a way to succeed as a business person while simultaneously discovering and following the path that makes sense to me. After all, I will only pass this way once, I reasoned, so it seems like a pretty good idea to try to fully understand what makes me tick and let that understanding inform my choices going forward ( Wayne Dyer calls this “shifting from ambition to meaning”).

Life gets more interesting yet …

Now in my forties, I have embraced the thing that I have known about myself since I was around nine years old when I began to fall in love with the world of books and ideas and the written word: i.e., “I am a natural-born writer, I have always known that I would write, and so (naturally) I write.”

And I do.

Currently, I am working on several interrelated projects which touch on a variety of topics loosely organized around the theme of what it means to live in a way that is both effective and meaningful.

As an independent consultant and business writer with a network of associates that keeps me plugged into interesting projects and assignments, I continue the work that I have been doing for the past twenty-plus years, helping organizations understand and tell their stories and find ways to execute strategic approaches to build and bolster their businesses.

But now, instead of focusing on this work above all other interests, I have learned to ensure that the rest of my diverse life is also taken care of. This is about living a balanced life in the midst of a world that seems at times to be increasingly unbalanced and perhaps even a little unhinged.

To take care of myself, for example, I go running or participate in some kind of immersive physical experience on an almost daily basis (asking myself, would I go a day without food or sleep? Then why forego exercise?).

I pray and meditate.

I eat well (or, well-er than I used to).

I connect with people and the world around me in whole new ways.

I try to be in touch with my values and deepest ambitions and express these in every aspect of my work and daily life.

I also took up singing and am really enjoying it. (And yes, it does have an affect on the body and digestive system, I do believe.)

And I write! I find that I am SO interested in the stories that people have to tell, of the experiences they have gone through and of their dreams and plans and ambitions, that it is as natural as breathing to document these accounts and begin to share them with the world.

So … what does it mean to be successful in such interesting times as these?

I guess we each have our own answer, but if you are interested in my take on things, I welcome you to explore my website and understand a little of what goes on in my corner of the world.

And I also welcome you to sign up for my e-mail list or subscribe to my blog and I will not only send you valuable business resources, I will also send you interviews with amazing people, chapters of my upcoming books, opinions on what is going on in the world, and accounts of discoveries that I have made and that might be of interest to you.

I wish you peace and every success!

Mark Vanderkam

+1 (519) 822-1227

To contact me by e-mail, please use the form on the Contact page.