A quandary that regularly faces winners was recently described by a friend and colleague, a fellow strategic advisor and executive coach, as he discussed his conversation with an unnamed client.
Having achieved his dreams of success, this client revealed to my friend a sense of restlessness. Rather than being able to whole-heartedly enjoy the results of many years of striving, he was troubled by the question: what was he supposed to do next? Among executive coaching clients, he was not unique in wanting to discuss this question.
Similarly, Tom Brady, perhaps the greatest NFL quarterback of all time, experienced a similar sense of emptiness or of something missing upon winning his fifth Super Bowl. https://snugfam.com/tom-brady-quote-is-this-all-there-is-meaning-inspiration/ Utter despair at all that he owned and had accomplished is expressed by one of the richest and wisest men of his time King Solomon in Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of Vanities: All is Vanity!”
My friend provided his client with the following advice, which I paraphrase: Fulfillment is to be found by looking inward, and the real issue is precisely the feeling of restlessness itself. He went onto explain that this thought has helped him when he falls into the trap mentioned in the first pillar of Buddhism, that the cause of all suffering is clinging/craving/desire. In other words, the lesson imparted is that the problem is not the need to find what is next but that you want something next, and the implication is that this restlessness is itself the problem and needs to be eliminated.
My reply to my colleague was that instead of the above advice I would have provided the client with a quote from St. Augustine’s Confessions: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
In these two dissimilar responses are summed up two entirely different world views, and the purpose of this article is not to argue for one or the other. The purpose is to help contrast them and to offer cautions to both clients and their advisors. To be clear, prior to quoting Augustine to a client, I would have gone through some of the steps outlined at the end of this article.
Before proceeding, it is only fair to disclose my point of view and background. I am a professing and practicing Christian, with a significant education in philosophical theology, which provides critical, conceptual frameworks for evaluating theologies and doctrines from various scriptural traditions, as well as the strongest arguments for atheism. I have also studied the teachings of both Hinduism and Buddhism, have participated extensively in meditative practices of both traditions and lived for one year at an urban Zen monastery.
This background prepares me to contrast the two points of view above, as a prelude to the cautions which are discussed later.
My friend’s advice was offered with the best of intentions, I am certain. The assumption of many who would give and endorse such advice is that the Buddhist approach is philosophically and religiously neutral. It is thought to be a little like recommending yoga, derived mostly from Hinduism, to a Christian or Jew or Muslim. Yoga as usually practiced and taught in the U.S. can be an effective discipline for calming the mind and toning the body and need in no way impinge on non-Hindu beliefs. The Buddhist approach to “restlessness,” however, is not theologically neutral, for reasons given below.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the living, creative God is seeking a personal relationship with each of us. If we try to evade or ignore Him, as most of us do at some time, He will in divine love pursue us relentlessly, as described in the famous poem The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson, https://www.onthewing.org/user/Hound%20of%20Heaven.pdf From this point of view, one can say that the Buddhist aim is to extinguish the restlessness which is the very call from God for relationship. God keeps phoning, as it were, and the advice is to consider this a case of bothersome, contentless, spam calls, and to put the phone on “Do Not Disturb,” and perhaps cancel the service altogether. To borrow Gertrude Stein’s famous put-down about her native Oakland, the advice can be summarized as, “There is no there there.”
For those who are agnostic or atheistic, which describes most strains of Buddhism, this path can be very appealing. To such people, there is no God-shaped vacuum in the human heart which can be filled only by accepting and welcoming Him. If the restlessness can be satisfied only by knowing God, and there is no God or none that can be known, does it not make sense to extinguish the restlessness? To the Buddhist, the Christian who claims a personal relationship with Christ is living a life of illusion, as is the Jew who worships the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To the Christian or Jew, the Buddhist goal of Enlightenment will seem to be one of a deliberately chosen radical disconnection from God.
None of this addresses what the next career move should be for the successful entrepreneur, which is a separate but related kind of question. For some, it is to grow the enterprise larger, for some to sell and do it all over again, and for others to pursue vastly different interests. Whatever the choice, the question remains: what gives meaning to it all, and in wherein lies human fulfillment?
Now the promised cautions, first for the entrepreneur. When seeking answers to the fundamental questions of meaning, be careful who you ask. A strategic advisor and executive coach of even the highest caliber is not likely qualified as a spiritual or philosophical advisor. If they give advice and direction outside their “lane,” ask what about the source of their advice. My friend had the integrity to mention that his advice was Buddhist. The typical “New Age” devotee, in my experience, will likely not know. Be careful of those who say, “I am not religious, but I am spiritual.” More inane and uninformative words are hard to find. A curt but true answer would be, “so is the devil.” In both the Judeo-Christian tradition and in Islam, the principle of evil, Satan, is a spiritual force and entity. So, to be spiritual, in itself, is nothing to brag about. The questions are from what stance or on whose side?
Cautions for strategic advisors and executive coaches: Do not try to be a spiritual or philosophical advisor if you are not equipped to be one. In a conversation in which a client raises the topic of “restlessness,” though, it could seem insulting and dismissive simply to decline to discuss the client’s questions, especially if you have built a relationship of mutual openness and trust over a significant period. What follows is some advice, tentative and far from exhaustive, for dealing with the questions of fundamental meaning: (including steps that clients can use as guides on their own):
- Acknowledge the courage it takes to deal with these questions, while adding that, notwithstanding how disconcerting they can be now, they may be later seen as a great gift.
- Ask about the client’s faith or religious backgrounds, or absence thereof, and what answers these provide.
- Discuss what the client has found satisfying and unsatisfying about those answers and the traditions from which they come. Can they make a reconnection with these sources at a more sophisticated level than what they had experienced as a child?
- Reveal your point of view before giving advice.
- Discuss the possibility of the client seeking out religious or spiritual teachers whom they admire or know or have heard about.
- Help them develop an action plan with steps for dealing with these fundamental questions of human meaning.
- If you experience as much of a quandary as your client on these issues, admit it. Perhaps you can engage in a joint plan of action.
- If you participate in a church or temple, this might be an occasion to invite the client to attend a service or other event as your guest, with no pressure or obligation. I have never done this with a client, but if their questions opened the door, I would not consider it unprofessional. But do this only if you are willing to openly describe, with their permission, what your faith means to you and how you arrived there—and to honestly face their skeptical questions. (In a kind of reversal of roles, I did once accept a client’s invitation to attend a service at his synagogue to hear an eloquent sermon by a brilliant rabbi.)
- Finally, be prepared for the fact that the outcomes of the clients’ action plans may not fit with your world view.
In conclusion, for both client and advisor, tread with care around such questions. Why should you? Because—if the reader will indulge me in one last biblical quotation—as God said to Moses when He finally captured his attention in his old age in the god-forsaken, back country of Egypt, “you are standing on holy ground.” What is at stake is a life of either deep fulfillment or quiet desperation, and maybe eternity.
Thoughts, feedback, accounts of relevant experience would be welcome at ajmulkern@sbcglobal.net.
If you feel frustrated about how to get your business to the “next level” or to emerge from a downward slide, strategic planning or executive coaching might the needed catalyst. Give me a call or send a message to discuss if it is appropriate, which is not a foregone conclusion. I do turn down potential clients if there is not a good fit. When there is, results are generally great. Don’t take my word for it. See https://mulkernassociates.net/client-testimonials/ as well as recommendations at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonymulkern/