How to avoid selling your soul
Blogging - and indeed all other activity except breathing - had to stop for a while because a book deadline was pressing and chapters had to be handed in.
It is a fascinating book not in the slightest because I am involved but because it outlines the thoughts of Stephen Green, the chairman of HSBC, one of the few bankers to emerge with a reputation unspoilt by recent events.
Penguin are publishing it in June so I will not give away too much at this stage. But as I emerge from the cell where I work, blinking, back into the light, here is what I have been thinking about.
Six ways to avoid selling your soul:
- Integrity: based on honesty and trust and a real desire to exchange value for value
- Relationships: treat others as ends as well as means
- Ambition: aim to contribute the most, not get the most
- Balance: four areas; family, work, friends and the inner life
- Leadership: treat everyone as a leader
- Direction: What value is what I do? Why am I doing it and not someone else?
And not just one at a time. All six at once.
Meanwhile, looking around me once more, I see that everything has become worse.
Many more have lost their jobs. Print has been declared deader than ever. More titles are teetering on the edge of closure.
And yet…there are some great ideas bubbling through. More soon.
Add comment February 12th, 2009