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The Gift of Choosing Again · Execution Insights™: The Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Execution Insights Podcast, where stories from the leadership journey become lessons for the road ahead.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jim Hewley.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, over a lifetime of leading and coaching, I've learned that sometimes the greatest danger isn't failing to achieve what we want.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's succeeding at something that takes us somewhere we never intended to go.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to tell you about a question.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: A question that found me at two very different moments in my life, almost 20 years apart.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And why I believe now, this may be one of the most important questions any of us can ask.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: The question: What is the life you really want?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: If I told you that one of the defining moments of my life happened in a Marriott courtyard in a small town in Alabama, well, you'd probably think I was setting up a funny story.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was a young consultant at the time, and like all young people, I guess, I was ambitious and hardworking, and I was completely caught up in the pursuit of success.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: In those days, I wanted to make partner.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean I thought I would be nice to make partner.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had decided that that's where I was going.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted everything that came with it.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the recognition and the financial rewards and the opportunities.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the ability to provide more for my family was something I was really willing to work for.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So 100-hour weeks weren't unusual, and travel was constant.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the life, there was always another flight, there was another client, there was another presentation, and gosh, another deadline to be faced.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in those days, the pressure to perform was unbelievable.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing that's important.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was succeeding.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in a minute, you'll see how vital that piece of information is to the entire story.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because in these days, I was doing exactly what I had set out to do.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: But one night, very unexpectedly, I found myself alone in a Marriott courtyard, far from home and far away from all the people that I loved.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's a long time ago, and I don't remember everything that happened that day, including the client meetings or what projects I was working on.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: All of that is kind of a blur.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the one thing I really remember is I remember that hotel room.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember the moment when something inside me just broke.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Standing in that hotel room, I clenched my fist.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I stood up in the room and I and I just yelled out to the walls, this is not the life I want.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you start yelling in an empty hotel room that things have gotten kind of serious, right?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But in that moment, something happened that I've never forgotten and that changed the trajectory of my life.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I heard a reply.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're skeptical, just stay with me for a moment.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because whether it was an audible voice or an internal voice or the voice of my creator, I I really can't tell you.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And now, all these years later, I really don't care.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because the question I heard in response was undeniable.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: The voice I heard said, Well, what is the life you want?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this time it wasn't yelling, but it rocked me like thunder.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because in that moment I saw it.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that I didn't know the answer.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, here I was working a hundred hours a week, traveling incessantly, pushing myself to the maximum, all in pursuit of something that I had convinced myself really mattered.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I couldn't answer the simplest question imaginable.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: What do you really want?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be fair, in that moment, I could have told you what I wanted next.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to make partner, I wanted more responsibility, I wanted financial security and reward, I wanted recognition.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I had goals.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: What I didn't have was vision.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And today I understand the difference between those two things is profound.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: You see, a goal tells you what you want to accomplish.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: But a vision tells you what you want your life to become.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that night, right there in that hotel room, I grabbed a pen off of the desk and I just started writing.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not making goals, not making a career plan, not making a five-year strategy, not at all.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I started writing about the life I wish I had, the life I really wanted.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote about who I wanted to be as a husband and who I wanted to be as a dad and a friend, and one day as a leader.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I even thought about what do I want my days to feel like?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And what do I want to know is my contribution?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things that matter so much that I would never again be willing to sacrifice them for any goal?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was a long night.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I was up almost all night.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time I was finished, I'd filled 11 pages front and back.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And those pages, which by the way, I still have to this day, literally changed my trajectory.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to make it a real story, it wasn't overnight, and it certainly wasn't magically.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was difficult.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: But those pages gave me something I had never had before.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: A vivid picture of a life that was worth building.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, the clarity I left that night with, well, that gave me the courage to make a big change.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: To the surprise of everybody around me, I left the firm, moved into a career in technology.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I found that that work was every bit as challenging and as meaningful and honestly as rewarding as my other job in consulting, but it didn't require the enormous cost I had been paying for years.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for quite a while, I remember feeling like I'd figured it out.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I saw the problem and I met the challenge.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And now I was doing work I loved and I was progressing professionally, and I was even more present for the people that I loved.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I had more of the life I had described on those 11 pages.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And because of all that, well, I guess I got comfortable that I had really learned this lesson.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Except I hadn't.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: At least not completely.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in this story, fast forward almost 20 years.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you fast forward 20 years, you would now find me leading a company that I was really proud of.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, my career had taken me somewhere that I never imagined it would that night in Alabama.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd become the CEO of a fast-growing technology company, and we were winning all kinds of awards and were being recognized as one of the best places to work in America.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: There were magazine covers and accolades and financial success.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, by almost every conventional measure, things were going extraordinarily well.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say from my heart, I loved leading that company.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I loved our people.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I loved building something with meaning.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But somewhere along the way, and to me, almost invisibly, something familiar had crept back into my life.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: The drive for more and more success had started to take over again.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there was always then another problem to solve.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was another client to meet, another growth target to exceed, another opportunity, another level that I wanted the whole company to be able to reach.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So as a result of that, the hours became longer again, and the pressure became greater.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And little by little, all those things that mattered most began to move further and further into the backseat to the things that seemed more urgent.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: My health was paying a price, my relationships were paying a price, my joy was almost gone.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because we were succeeding, it was amazingly easy to ignore.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: At least at first.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: When we're succeeding, we almost never stop to ask what it's costing us.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Until one night, and this time, not in a Marriott Courtyard hotel.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: On this night, I was sitting alone in my executive office.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was around midnight, and the whole building was empty.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone else had gone home.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there I was, CEO of a successful award-winning company, alone at midnight, still grinding.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly I recognized the room.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, not literally.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a hotel room.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I recognized the place I had been before, almost 20 years earlier.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, I had a different title.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: I had a different office.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I had a different level of success.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it turns out I was the same guy running the same pattern.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And one more time I heard myself say out loud, this time to my office, this is not the life I want.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: But this time I wasn't shouting.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: This time I was hurting.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then once again came the same question, I believe from the same voice.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: What is it you really want?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: But this time that question was painful.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because I knew better.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'd already learned this lesson, or oh gosh, at least I thought I had.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that realization forced me into some hard questions, hard answers, and ultimately a fierce determination that this time and this second chance, I had to get this right.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, that's what I really got that I'd somehow missed 20 years earlier.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Vision isn't a decision you make once, it's a discipline you keep applying over and over again.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: You don't write 11 pages in a hotel room and then put them in a drawer and assume the rest of your life will somehow stay aligned with them.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Life moves.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: People change, opportunities appear.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And unless we remain fiercely committed to the kind of life we want to build, something else is going to answer that question for us.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: In my case, my ambition would answer the question, or my desire for recognition would answer the question, or just the urgent demands of every daily crisis would answer it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when we let that happen, well, we wake up one day to discover that we've been extraordinarily successful at building a life we don't actually want.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I mean by visionless.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you're lost, and it certainly doesn't mean you're lazy.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: You may be working incredibly hard.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And well, it certainly doesn't mean you don't have goals.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can still have plenty of goals and be visionless.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because the question isn't just, am I making progress?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: The real question in life is where is all of this taking me?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: You see, that's what I had missed.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to learn it twice.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can be moving incredibly fast and still be headed somewhere you don't actually want to go.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a calendar that's filled with important things to do and still be neglecting the things that truly matter.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can even be admired by everyone around you, but quietly know something isn't right.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hear me when I say this.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be lost to be visionless.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: That might be the single most important thing I can tell you today.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know for sure that the greatest danger isn't wandering around aimlessly.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: People will tell you that it is, but it's not.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's wandering efficiently.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's going faster and faster toward a life that's not really what we want.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, we're getting things done.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, we're meeting expectations.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: We might even be earning a promotion or a big raise where we're sort of checking every box on the career ladder.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: But we never stop long enough to say, do all those boxes belong to me?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is that actually the life I want?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, these are questions that can only be answered from the heart.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to leave you with the thought that maybe today isn't the day for setting another goal.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't need another productivity system.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the most important thing you can do on this day is find a quiet room somewhere and ask yourself the question that had to find me twice.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: What do I really want?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Who do I want to be?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Who do I want beside me?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want to have given my life to?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: What brings me real joy?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when this chapter of my life is all finished, we need to know what will make us look back and say, yes, yes, that's the life I wanted to live.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: With every year that passes, the answers may change.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, honestly, they should.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: The guy sitting in that Marriott courtyard couldn't have imagined the life I'm living today.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's not even really the point.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Vision isn't about predicting your future.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Vision is about intentionally choosing your destination again and again and again.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe because I had to learn that lesson twice, it's why I believe it so deeply.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm urging you to spend some time today with the question that could change your life.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: What is it you really want?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter what else you do from this message, I hope you won't let that question go unanswered.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending this time with me.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I hope something from today's message stays with you.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And even more helps you lead and live with greater insight, with greater passion.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to continue this conversation, well, I'd love to have you join me for the Execution Insights newsletter.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find a link to the newsletter in the description below, as well as information if you want to book a coaching session.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, thanks again for being here.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, lead with vision.