Measures of success can play on your mind when, like me, you get beyond ‘up and coming’ and your ‘start up’ is marking its tenth birthday.
Trading on potential and flexibility doesn’t always cut it.
My peers in the corporate world are driving the company-paid-for five series or wondering if the Cayenne will put some spice into their weekends (hilarious pun intended...and my kids tell me I’m not funny!) They fly Business Class because someone else is paying then use the company earned frequent flyer points to take the family to a ‘nice spot’ in Palm Cove or to Europe skiing every year.
And they leave on holidays knowing the company will be there when they get back.
Every month they collect a predictable pay cheque and can reasonably safely assume they will continue to, enabling things that defy me – financial planning, budgeting, regular saving.
They attend major events in the company’s seats or be entertained by customers who are only too happy to affirm their importance in the world.
They have all of the middle class, middle-aged aspirational trappings of corporate success.
Generally speaking, soloists are not of the mindset that fits well in corporate life and have made their decision to fly solo for a range of really sound and often very enviable reasons. And mostly, we love it. And very often we are equalling or exceeding the incomes of our corporate peers. So it is not about money.
But without the corporate trappings, I wonder where the affirmation of our success is to come from. From within? My energy is already fuelling my self esteem, my focus, my creativity, my drive. I overcome the view of others that I run a ‘little’ business at home, that isn’t like real work, that suggests perhaps I can’t get a ‘real’ job (or even have a ‘real’ business with an office I leave home to attend). Do I need to dig deep and find something to affirm my success as well? Flying solo can be exhausting enough.
Of course successful soloists can buy or lease their own Beemer, European 4WD or soft-top convertible. I have been advised to make sure they have seat-warmers so you are always warm enough to drive topless whatever the weather (hey, I’m here to help). We can always fly Business Class and generate as many points as we like. But do we? Somehow it’s a different decision when you are spending your own money irrespective of how much of it you have. Is it a greater affirmation when someone else is paying, anyway?
Another theory is that as soloists we are not the corporate trappings types. I not coincidentally live across the road from my daughter’s school and wander over at 3.30 every day to collect her and this is one of the choices I have made over corporate life. Being able to do that affirms my success. But only in my mind. There would be no-one observing that trip across the road thinking ‘she is a successful person’.
I wouldn’t be writing this if I wasn’t having my own little status anxiety moment, if I wasn’t at the beginning of the decade in my life when my peers are demonstrably celebrating that they’ve made it. Why isn’t being able to do fulfilling work on my own family friendly terms that generates enough cash for us all to have what we need and want enough for me? It used to be. Why do I still feel the need for this achievement to be affirmed, for my ego to be stroked?
Is it about fading youth? Do I want to be perceived now as successful as society defines successful, if not young and beautiful? What is the female equivalent behaviour of buying a red sports car and taking up with a younger woman? Maybe it’s just that age-old problem and maybe that’s what the corporate trappings for those enjoying them address too. I have left the days of my feminine power behind me and have entered the era when I bask in the glory of my perceived societal prestige but I am doing it without the corporate trappings that are the badges that announce I have arrived.
Will the benefits of flying solo and all of the reasons I do it sustain me throughout my need to self-actualise or should I be shopping for a sports car?
Somehow I expect that like flying solo, the troop carrier I drive fits the life I lead, so maybe I’ll just book a pedicure during corporate business hours and buy a model sports car for my desk.
“ Generally speaking, soloists are not of the mindset that fits well in corporate life and have made their decision to fly solo for a range of really sound and often very enviable reasons. ”
Karen Morath of M Power consults, trains, speaks and coaches in public relations, personal effectiveness, life balance and all things empowering.
