The Many Faces of Sacrifice-May 2012

My family recently took a trip to Nashville to cheer my daughter on in running her second marathon. My wife and elected to drive rather than fly to visit some of the towns along the way. Sadly, the economic downturn of the last few years clearly took its toll on many of the places we visited. Towns that had spent several years in a revitalization effort were now littered with vacant stores and boarded up buildings. It was evident that many folks had sacrificed their hopes and dreams and were now faced with the task of rebuilding their lives. During the 13 hour drive to the race, while my wife was playing "Words with Friends" on her Droid, I had plenty of time to reflect on the issue of sacrifice as it relates to both career and life activities. On the personal side, my daughter had sacrificed a tremendous amount of time in training, pushed her body to the breaking point, and ultimately accomplished a great feat by running 26.2 miles. My older daughter sacrificed time away from work and lesson planning to accompany us and cheer on her sister. Even my wife and I even made considerable sacrifice by forfeiting the king sized bed in our room to our daughters and sleeping on a sleeper sofa that I wanted to set afire by the end of our stay. From a business perspective, I know that many of my clients make personal sacrifices to keep their employees working and their companies afloat. I have often heard them speak of times when they delayed a home mortgage payment to make payroll or took a loan on their personal credit card because they didn't want to adversely impact their employees. These types of self-less acts go unpublicized and unnoticed, but they occur frequently. The owners feel a moral obligation to protect their employees and I believe this is a primary reason why so many folks I know would rather work for a small company than a large one. So the next time your find yourself angry or upset about a company decision or change in policy, look at it as your individual sacrifice in the face of all of the past sacrifices your employer has made to keep you there. You may not be aware of their past sacrifices but you can be assured that many have taken place for your benefit. So despite your frustration keep in mind that as is the case with so many things in life, your career isn't a sprint but a marathon.