Episode 15 - My Laptop, Toothbrush and Me !

Speaker A: Hi, I'm Masoud Hasan, and this is the Consulting Edge podcast. Hi, how are you all? Hope you're well and you've had a successful week. Last week I spoke about how to sell like a partner in a big consulting firm. Today I'm saying to you that it's okay. It doesn't have to be that way. It's your call on how you shape your consulting life. Last week I told you about the three hidden secrets that consulting partners don't tell you about and on how to sell. So this week's episode's going to be really short, and I got a couple of responses back on email, which I thought was quite interesting. One person asked me, I'm really stuck in a right here, and I'm trying to work my way around. We're referring not just about the challenges of being able to sell, but was really just around the lifestyle. I sort of started to think a little bit about that and said, well, the questions I asked myself a while back, it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to operate in the way that most big consulting firms do. And it's one of the reasons why I set up on my own. Everybody's experience is different. And to be honest, I can only talk about what I experienced. And I'm sure if you spoke to a number of different people from other consulting companies, they'd have their view as well that most of us will feel at one point or another that our consulting life has sort of turned into a period of sort of constant churning on a hamster wheel. Right. You're running around like crazy, and it feels that you just can't step off. And I know that a lot of consulting partners feel that way, and I know a lot of consultants feel that way, particularly when you're working for a large consulting company. Now, at these moments, I suppose important to recognize that most of us are hardwired into having resilience and persistence as a sort of default setting. You know, we'll carry on and keep on doing what we're doing. So as consultants, we look to solve the problem by rolling up our sleeves and getting stuck into it. So if we keep working hard and longer, that things will get better, right? Wrong. Now, to get off that, uh, wheel, you've got to change how you're thinking about, change itself and how you would change yourself. Now, the problem is that what's keeping us on the wheel isn't about the lack of ideas. It's incredible how many ideas we have. In fact, as I say, to most of my consultants, the graveyard is full of great ideas that never get implemented. But what I would really ask you is, what are you really thinking about? Are you thinking about the level of investment in where you are right now? Your time, your money, your level of effort, the energy, and what you've already put in? Is it a constant desire to learn? Because it might help to get to that implementation stage, the safety net for your kids, your family. If you take a moment, you can probably think of all sorts of situations where you make irrational decisions because of the sunk cost fallacy. So, for example, here's some things that you might be saying to yourself, I may as well keep eating because I've already bought this food. But you know what? I'm the one that's losing by stuffing myself further. You might say, well, I may as well keep watching this terrible movie because I've watched an hour of it already. It doesn't matter what you've already invested time into. Whatever you're watching, if you don't like it, stop. You might also be in a situation where you're thinking, I might as well keep going on with this presentation, since we've started now, stop. Then think about what the client is actually receiving from you. So all of these things around, well, I've started, so I need to finish, comes down to really falling victim to what we call the sunk cost fallacy. Because where we are right now, we're emotionally invested in whatever money, time, effort, resources we've already committed to in the past. And the most important step to freeing yourself from making poor decisions based on your sunk costs is to recognize the logical fallacy. Now, just simply being aware of that will help you tremendously in making more rational decisions in the future. So breaking out that hamster wheel, you may find your only alternatives are either pipeline dreams. You'll say, uh, I'll run away to Tahiti and start all over again, or only if I win the lottery, I can get out of this. Or there's wishful thinking. If I just try harder, I'm bound to get a promotion. Or if we just take a vacation, the two of us will stop fighting. So are you just hanging on? Because you're surfacing the horizon for positive cues, and that's all part of intermittent reinforcement. You're trying to convince yourself that the time you invested, the energy that you've put in, is actually the right thing to do. So my advice to you is that don't let it make you act stupidly. And if you're in that place, just Sit down and write the pros and cons list, if only to understand about how you feel about that emotional investment you've already made. Now, despite how common that fallacy is, you can see through it fairly easily if you spend the time to actually recognize and step back from everything. Look, When I first started out in consulting, my week normally started at the morning of 4:15am Um, I used to be up at that time on Monday morning when I was in the uk and on Sunday mornings when I was in the Middle east, because that's when the week started. My alarm used to be on for 4 o' clock in the morning, but I usually used to wake up shortly before it rang. I was worried that I might oversleep and miss my flight. Now, for most of us, when I was in the Middle east, the destination was Saudi Arabia. And at that time I also used to have a BlackBerry and you could see the little red light blinking in the background. I knew that there were messages waiting for me as I opened my eyes to get up and that they had been sent through the night. Now it seemed that nobody slept. I never switched my phone off just in case I was getting a call during the night. And I also used to do my packing the night before. But like most consultants, I leaned out the process and became super efficient. I could shower, dress and do morning prayers, pack my bags and have my fruit juice within 30 minutes. And at 4:45 I was off to the airport. I was already checked in on Emirates Airlines and I would go straight to the lounge. I used to cling to every possible minute of sleep and arrive only a minute or two before the deadline on boarding the airplane. And I would check in the night before and I would arrive at the airport at least an hour early to spend some time in the lounge. That way I could have a small breakfast, grab a cup of coffee, couple of pieces of fruit. For lunch, I'd be in the lounge and I'd bump into other colleagues that are there at four or five o' clock in the morning, all heading out in different regions and on different projects. The conversations were always the same. How are you? What are you currently working on at the moment? What are the opportunities that you're focused on? And apart from that, we didn't actually talk about anything else. Now, the rest of the week would be spent on the client side. It'd be normally four days at the client side spent on, uh, one project or multiple projects. If you're lucky, you'd stay in one place. Now, multiple projects is a killer. Especially if they're in different geographies. Then there's the travel, the late nights, the early mornings. It really sucks it out of you. The time spent in taxis or airport lounges is probably the only time you get to call friends and family. And as time went on I found that it was almost only family that I called along the way. To and from the airports and and to the hotels at the end of the week was something to look forward to. But if there's one thing to count on is that you don't have any private life during that week. And in departure lounge on the way back home it was always full. We'd get a quick bite to eat in the lounge and it was the same old stuff over and over again and actually would then get into a line of the special rewards cards that you get for Emirates. And it was a nightmare because everyone had a special rewards card and we would leave the airport at 1am and reach home at 2am in the morning. Now people on the way back home would be more cheerful and talkative. We'd have discussions about what we reflected over the week and why we actually put ourselves all the way through this. Some consultants were really unhappy due to the sort of tough projects they were on or really unfavorable performance feedback and avoided contact with others or speaking about promotions and compensation and training and always looking forward to the weekend sleep. Mainly the moderately happy were just counting the days till they could leave. They were focused on finding a new job, dreaming about their mba, setting up their own businesses, getting into a startup, or just spending time with their family. Their thoughts were elsewhere and the conversation had less spark and involvement in it. I used to go specifically to the duty free to bring presents and gifts for my wife and kids. But as time passed by that became less interesting over the years and then I didn't end up buying any presents anymore. Now at the end of the week, it's often normal to go into the office and not have any client meetings. It used to be a time to prepare documents for the next week, conduct analysis, meet up with people, have a chat about what had been going on the week, and also complete some of the admin stuff that we didn't do during the week. I'd also try and make the effort to leave early, but it was often late before I got home that evening. I'd have some dinner with my wife and my kids and I was usually tired and wanting really just to slouch out on the couch. The weekend was often a mix of work and time at home, but mostly work. It was a catch up and usually doing things that would have been great to do during the week. Appraisals, reviews, objectives, goal setting, finding the right time to write proposals, do research for articles, or just generally putting points of view together. And the weekend passed so quickly and it left me wondering where it went to. And then the alarm would ring at 4 o' clock in the morning again and at the corner of my eye I could see the blinking of that red light on that BlackBerry. I knew people had been sending messages over the weekend. I knew that people had been sending messages overnight. Now that's the life of most management consultants. Working hard goes with the territory. Being challenged is awesome, but uh, working long hours isn't a badge of honor, it's a problem. If you're not working smart, you shouldn't be working long hours. And if you're enjoying what you're doing, it's not really work anyway. Anything outside the scope that qualifies as long hours is probably an indication that you've either got way too much in your way to actually accomplish anything and or that you're not motivated to work smart because you're not working on the right things or with the right people. There comes a time in your life where you've got to describe what's best for you. A time to make a turn, a pivotal decision to the move to the next level. Now consulting is about others. The client, your partners and your teammates. Your advancement is closely tied to your ability to understand and deliver for others. You can diagnose the client's core issues and help them solve it. Can you bring the best out of the best people? Can you help those around you to fulfill your potential? And if you can do these things, you're probably a pretty good consultant. But look at, uh, what cost? What's the price you're paying for all of that? Life for most consultants has evolved to the point where we find ourselves stuck with few choices. Our life is stressful because we find ourselves unsatisfied with the way we feel. We're doing things most of the time that we don't really want to do and not achieving the things we actually want to achieve. While most of us have moments of joy, they're usually overshadowed by hours, days and even years of affliction. Stress, depression, heartache, and overall anxiety are human nature. Most consultants working for large organizations, working for big firms are not happy with their consulting life, yet they continually venture down that same road of unhappiness. The sunken cost fallacy. I have started, so I may as well finish. Never willing to Change as you take a bird's eye view of the current lifestyle, are ah, your relationships, your career choices, your financial situation and other aspects of your life truly satisfying? Or do you feel there should be more? But it doesn't have to be the case for you. It doesn't have to be this way. You deserve to have the best life possible. As individuals, we tend to get swallowed up in the day to day activity and never give ourselves enough time to think about what we really want to do. I'm often left thinking that there has to be a better way to operate and live. What I can tell you is that there is good news. Change is also part of human nature. We know that as consultants we're always inflicting this on our clients, but find it so hard to adopt to ourselves. If we put it in other words, nothing will ever stay the same. I mean, this is a huge concept. The reason this is significant for you. Your life is going to change, but it's completely up to you which direction you want to take with your life. Will you choose to stay with your current melancholy life direction or will you rise up and pursue a life of fulfillment and happiness? I'm pushing all of this because what I'm saying to you is what my vision was when I started this podcast. It was about creating a million independent consultopreneurs with a million stories to tell and create a million futures. Becoming an independent consultant could, uh, be the answer, but it's not the only one. Being yourself and loving what you do can, can be true. But you need to get your head out of the sand and make that decision. Don't end up by just having your laptop, toothbrush and yourself. It's a lonely journey. The ball is in your corner. Hey, thanks for listening. I'm truly blessed. I hope that you managed to get some real value and insight from this week's show. Don't forget, you can sign up and download each action guide for free or email me directly on massoudeconsultingedge.co if you want to connect. Hey, I'd love to hear about your story. And also to let me know what you'd like to listen to on any of the future series of the podcast. Until then, here's to your continued success. To find your consulting edge, become a consultantpreneur and be part of the 1 million futures.