Fujiko Suda: Worklife

Goals of worklife

Oct 31, 2004 13:50 pm / Add a comment

Maybe sour grapes. But an e-mail my friend sent to me allowed me to express exactly what I have been think­ing about lately.

My friend sent me an e-mail with an arti­cle of a woman suc­ceed­ing in grow­ing a com­pany with type of work that I spe­cial­ize in. It was about the pres­i­dent of Peo­ple Focus Con­sult­ing in Japan. My friend’s mes­sage to me was: Inspiring?

It’s inspir­ing because this is sort of icing on the cake of know­ing what I want to do. I respect peo­ple who go after what they belived in. I admire Kuroda-san for going for what she wanted and mak­ing some­thing won­der­ful: her com­pany, sat­is­fied clients. But the story was also inspir­ing in the way that Kuroda-san leads exactly the antithe­sis of the life I want to lead.

I def­i­nitely don’t want to build the kind of busi­ness that would require me to spend 6 days a week just work­ing. I’ve done enough of that for years and years, and know in my heart that I am deter­mined not to waste away the next few pre­cious years I have with my old­est son at home. He’s already 17! For the past 9 years, I just wasn’t there for him. I know in my heart, I want to spend more time with my younger boys. You know the say­ing. Nobody ever regrets not hav­ing spent more time work­ing on their deathbed.

I am, how­ever, set­ting my goal as cre­at­ing a com­pany that offers mean­ing­ful ser­vice to the soci­ety in gen­eral, where each per­son belong­ing to the com­pany has full life, lov­ing their jobs, tak­ing pride in belong­ing to the com­pany. The com­pany will make a lot of money, and it will pay lots of tax to make social con­tri­bu­tion, and on top of that,we will have reg­u­lar vol­un­teer events and make siz­able dona­tions to our cho­sen cause. Sab­bat­i­cal will be encour­aged, and more so if it was for global vol­un­teer work.

Well, I just have to fig­ure out what kind of busi­ness will allow me to do that! =)

Mean­while, I keep doing what I do, enjoy­ing the time with clients and part­ners, keep spend­ing lots of time with my kids and fam­ily. But hav­ing a goal, I know I will get there. It might take me another 10 years since my youngest one is still 7. I believe in James Allen’s words: Thoughts maketh a man.

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