You have hit 60.
You don’t run your own business.
You are neither a top honcho of a
business, nor do you sit on boards of business where 60+ is encouraged for their
30+ years of navigating choppy waters and stormy weather or for their simple
ability to read a balance sheet.
You are not an investor or representing the principal investor to get a
seat on the board of a profitable company. You don’t get sitting fees. Strange
that’s what my boss accused me of when denying me the patently-deserved,
eagerly awaited promotion and increment. Unfair! Must become a board-member.
“If I have not got there yet, I am going to get there sometime.” (To quote
Marshall Silversmith)
Digressed. Back to one’s life
story.
Nor is an heir hunter knocking on
your door to announce that your grand-aunt has left you a million-dollar inheritance.
You have what you thought was a
great management education or experience which is of zero relevance now.
Your slow-paced world has been bowled
over by the want-it-now-world. Your knowledge-focused pursuits have become a skill-focused
nightmare. When someone said, ‘code’ you understood it as something to do with honour.
Not C++. Is that English, even? Its bit, byte, byte. A form of Morse code that
only computers understand. What language will computers speak to us when they
take over the world. Aye! Come here. Aye, go there. Why? I am AI. Algos so
yougos! Comprehendo? Marshall Bronzesmith.
Your experience does not count
for much in the digital world.
Your boss has his own way to
telling you that. He gifts you Marshall Goldsmith’s ‘What Got You Here, Won’t Get
You There – How Successful People Become Even More Successful’.
You receive it as a gift. Not as
a pink slip that it is meant to be. You read the blurb.
“America’s most
sought-after executive coach shows how to climb the last few rungs of the
ladder. The corporate world is filled with executives, men and women who have
worked hard for years to reach the upper levels of management. They’re
intelligent, skilled, and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will
ever reach the pinnacle — and as executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shows in
this book, subtle nuances make all the difference. These are small
“transactional flaws” performed by one person against another (as simple as not
saying thank
you enough), which lead to
negative perceptions that can hold any executive back. Using Goldsmith’s
straightforward, jargon-free advice, it’s amazingly easy behaviour to change. Executives
who hire Goldsmith for one-on-one coaching pay $250,000 for the privilege. With
this book, his help is available for 1/10,000th of the price.”
I always wondered whether
Goldsmith was a name he was born with or he marshalled all the resources at his
command to become one of the ‘most sought-after executive coach’?
Or he began calling himself ‘Goldsmith’
after a down-in-the-dumps CEO cut him $250,000 cheque from the anticipated
golden handshake – one last hurrah before saying goodbye - by putting Marshal’s
Plan into action in his firm that has posted four quarterly losses?
I did not ask my boss. I asked
myself. How does this book help? It is for successful people who want more
success. What about me? I have overrun my time in the company. My boss is desperately
hinting that I should make space for some young ‘un.
I take the book and leave.
Leave. You know what I mean? Yes, leave.
With no pressures of work. A
book in English not C++. No one screaming, ‘Aye’ this and ‘AI’ that. I read the
book. Brilliant stuff!
Over last 110 days I have
written 110,000 words. Faith-based articles. Business articles. Stories and
even a screenplay. All at www.matchatter.blogspot.com
Screenplay on request. My blog has 2,23,946+ views. I am anticipating a gold rush to the blog to bump numbers further.
My articles like this one
posted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewanthony/detail/recent-activity/posts/
have willy-nilly given me 2007 connections. I have 24 posts with an average
view of 17 and one personal story of my daughter cutting my hair has 77 views. It
did occur to me if I mention my daughter as having something to do with the
other articles perhaps the views may jump.
I stopped
looking at views. I realized I am under ‘view siege’. I want to be applauded
and appreciated. That is what social media is all about. When you are not then
you need to argue that it is an addiction that requires detox. It may even be illegal
this desire for likes, comments and claps (the hand coming together one). Morals
held high I cease such pursuit. Settled for forced anonymity. Fox and sour
grapes. Yes, one of those.
At 60
I am pivoting. Doing stuff, I can do with ambulation, not of my feet, but of my
fingers, on a keyboard (until voice-based typing is error-free). Then back to the
put-your-leg-on-the-desktop secretary-dictation days, where a good secretary
made you feel you graduated from Oxford. As long as one kept one’s mouth shut
no one who read your secretary-crafted memo knew better.
That’s
how I got here! Hmmm! Now to get there! Damn, Marshall Gold-Smitten. Thank God
I learnt speed typing during summer break in school. Now the only thing faster
than my typing is my mind. May it be so to my 90s.
P.S. Mr Goldsmith - all said in jest. Don't sue me and make
me famous. I like my anonymity.
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