LifeWorking: Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway

Despite the existence of the lifeworking choices that I described in my previous LinkedIn article, there are powerful barriers that prevent individuals from embarking on a new journey, even when the possible path ahead can be visualised. Perhaps the two most powerful blockers of all are the need to define a new purpose and the need to address the fear of financial insecurity.

A few years ago my wife Anne-Mie and I took some time to talk about what we really wanted from our lives.  I had become a workaholic, and was not being a good husband or a good parent. I was obsessed with career "success" but hated so many aspects of my job - the constant travel, the hours away from home, the organisational politics and so much more. The discussions with Anne-Mie culminated in a drawing exercise when we sat together with a large sheet of paper and co-created a hand drawn picture of what success really meant to us.

The pencil and ink sketches we created revealed a much wider definition of success – we aspired to have a loving relationship and to live in a semi-urban environment in which our three children could play and be free. We desired more family leisure time, and the opportunity to actively participate in our children’s social, artistic and sporting activities. We both wanted to work, but to engage in professional activities that we enjoyed and which would still provide the opportunity for occasional international travel. And of course I also dreamed of returning to elite-level competitive cycling. We both soon realised that this picture was fundamentally incompatible with the high-pressure job that I had at the time.

But before resigning from my job and embarking on the journey towards lifework, I recognised the need to confront a number of deep-rooted fears. The first set of fears for me were intensely personal. I had grown up the second youngest of seven children in a small country town in Australia, and as a small child money was scarce. My Dad was a musician and held scores of daytime jobs just to pay the bills, but it was not always easy to make ends meet in a family with seven kids. 

To make matters worse my father was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in 1987, the same year that I competed in the Australian National Road Cycling Championships as a junior. His illness intensified my family’s financial problems in my final years of High School, and meant that part-time work was a necessity for me, even as I pursued my cycling goals and prepared for my final exams.

Our financial problems also brought a sad realism to my decision of whether to pursue professional cycling or studies. In the end, I chose the study path and was lucky enough to get a grant to go to University. But I would never have been able to complete my first degree without the financial support of my older brothers and sisters. Sadly, my Dad did not get to see me graduate as he took his own life shortly before my 21st birthday.

So financial stability meant a lot to me, and the fear of economic uncertainty for my family weighed heavily on my mind when I was thinking of following a new path. I was earning a very good salary, and now I was thinking about walking away from that. Therefore, a critical element of our lifework project involved us calculating how much money our family really needed to live a fulfilling life.

I actually created an Excel spread sheet and calculated how much money the picture that I had drawn with Anne-Mie would cost – the amount was much less than I expected, and only a fraction of what I had been earning. 

But I also needed to step back and realise that I still had at least twenty years of productive working years ahead of me – plenty of time to take a year or two out to try to build something new. As Anne-Mie said to me: “If it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to doing what you did before.”

The fear of financial insecurity is one of the most important hurdles that I have witnessed for people who are thinking about lifeworking, and I think that far too people ever go through the exercise of thinking about how much income is really enough. 

But unlike my fear of financial insecurity which came from childhood want, I think that for many other people this fear is a consequence of society’s obsession with status which results in the financial over-commitments that many people make during their 30s and 40s.

When I stepped away from full time academia and consultancy to pursue other lifework goals my wife Anne-Mie had not yet returned to work and our family income level dropped by more than 70 per cent in the first two years. 

After several months of reflection and exploration I decided to focus my professional activities on becoming a keynote speaker, but to do so I recognised the need to write a book, take acting lessons, connect with speakers agencies and create a website. At the same time I needed to engage much more actively in family life and ride my bicycle at least ten to fifteen hours per week.

The decline in income meant that our family needed to think about our living expenses – but this became much easier when I realised I had been earning money to buy things I didn’t really need, to impress people I didn’t even like. 

Our first decision was to rent an inexpensive 1970s era house near to Brussels, which was certainly far from luxurious but was all that we needed. It had a small garden, and was close to some beautiful parkland. We bought a second-hand car, and we stopped flying places for our vacations. 

There was no designer furniture, no Nespresso machine and no private schools for the kids. I remember feeling a little bit embarrassed when I first invited colleagues to that house, but I told myself to get over it. We lived in it for almost five years until we were in a position to buy the place where we now live on the outskirts of Antwerp. 

Our long summer holidays are now spent in a tent, usually camped beside the ocean or a river somewhere in France and in the midst of some beautiful cycling country. We might spend a couple of hundred euros a week while we are away, and the kids run barefoot and wild. There is nothing luxurious about those weeks away, but I think we are giving our kids the richest memories and experiences they could ever wish for.

I do have to admit, however, that I still wear my Cartier watch from time to time. I bought it when I felt the need to show off to my colleagues at London Business School many years ago. But I don’t wear the Cartier as a status symbol anymore – I wear it as a reminder to myself of how stupid status anxiety can be.

Oh, I also own a few very nice bicycles. 

Have you seen My TED Talk "What is Success, Really?"