Week 2

 This week’s readings specifically “How Will You Measure Your Life?” along with the emphasis on honesty and business ethics, drew deep self-examination regarding what success means to me and what core values base my life’s personal and professional decisions from.

Key Takeaways: Measuring Success Beyond the Surface

The notion of measuring success has stuck with me, especially in a society where success often means making money, having status or high professional achievement. It resonated further with me when a Donna, a thirtysomething woman, discussed how she wanted to determine success by staying close to her core values and longer-term goals. Happiness is not whether one has reached a certain externally proposed goal, but staying close to one’s core values and close to the people with whom one learned those values, and sharing it with others.

This lesson, that success is in the minute-to-minute decisions of life as much as in its major turning-points or milestones – graduations, promotions, finding love, bearing children, marriages, deaths – is critical, because it frames how we can be fulfilled by living – how each moment informs our ability to measure and guide our lives by what is of value and helps us live. It redirects our attention to the way we treat people, how we use our time and the manner in which we can live for something greater than ourselves. 

The Role of Honesty and Integrity in Business

A second lesson was the importance of honesty and ethical decision-making in business relationships. As one saying emphasizes: ‘Integrity is the foundation of trust.’ Nearly all the reported studies underscored the value of making ethical decisions – even when it is not easy – and not cutting corners.

Fair-dealing is a concept broader than law-abiding – it asks businesses to conduct themselves in ways that engage with society in a principled and fair way. In the 1970s, I had long forgotten this lesson I learned in the classroom when I taught economics as a grad student. Teaching economics during that period brought to light the fact that, at times, we place too much focus on the technical aspects and not enough on the ethical implications of our actions. I promise that, as I proceed through my career, my commitment to honesty and integrity will not erode.

Personal Application: Aligning Passion with Purpose

What struck me out of the film Do What You Love was how much it calibrated my life to my passions. From the video, I grasped a lesson that I had to make my job meaningful by following my individual interests, my true calling. It is the reason I decided to go into marketing brand management, a job that puts my creative and strategic energies to use for the good. 

But now I am more convinced than ever that I ought to look for positions and engagements that are both stretching and fulfilling. By wearing my passion on my sleeve and doing something that I love, I am more likely to bring more energy, enthusiasm and commitment to my work. As a result, I will better succeed and experience greater fulfilment in what I do. 

Looking Forward: Continuing the Journey

In the future, I will also be happy to read more about the balance of work and personal life, since it is more and more difficult to find this golden mean in our nowadays overloaded reality. I am eager to help this reading make me a more competent master of time, and thus meet my professional aims without sacrificing my own personal relationships and health.

 I also want to develop my expertise in the interface between ethics and commerce — how to prosper in business without losing my soul. These are not merely business lessons; they will also shape me as a person. 

Conclusion: A Commitment to Values-Driven Success

Many of this week’s research studies focused on doing what I value, making values-based choices, and pursuing work that’s based on my passions. It would be all too easy to take these findings to be mere philosophy, but applying them to my day-to-day life is remarkably straightforward. I’m asking myself more and more: how can I live in accordance with my values? If the research I’ve studied this week is to be believed, paying attention to whether my actions are in line with what I value and to whether my actions benefit others, I’ll be able to make better choices and lead a richer life.

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