What's the Cost of Losing Yourself in Work?

Founders are particularly susceptible to loss of self.

In their single minded focus on execution they can forget who they are.

They strive to achieve because they believe it’s a measure of their worth.

I’ve fallen victim to this.

My work was my passion, but I also let it became all consuming.

In the end that doesn’t help anyone.

I needed to put on the breaks and take some time looking inside to understand why I pushed so much outside.

In the words of Jerry Colonna…

“The lure of losing oneself in work is immensely seductive.

Great and impossible things are achieved by the merging of self with a larger purpose.

There is a power in reaching for a larger than the self purpose.

One’s reach should exceed one’s grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

There’s audacity in reaching of dreaming of a new way to change a light bulb; to search for something on the Internet; to connect people across time and space.

That audacious reach should never be withheld.

But to lose one’s footing in the reaching serves no-one, especially not the one doing the reaching.

It’s a lousy way to live.”