Hey there, folk. As you can probably tell, I’ve been doing a lot of introspection in the past few weeks since the passing of my aunt and, along with that, I’ve been writing a lot more about what’s going on in my head nowadays. Well, that trend will continue with this entry, so, if you were hoping to see any entry with me answering a reader email message, then you might as well stop reading now

By now, you’ve all probably heard about the suicide of Freddie Mac’s CFO David Kellerman via some news outlet (CNN.com story). Some of you probably heard the news and thought “Wow, that dude must have been crazy” or “Well, that’s what he gets for his company’s role in the economic downturn”. But, it hit me differently and I was in a funk about it all day since hearing about it on CNN this morning and the timing was especially bad for that reaction because I was in an all-day meeting at a client site. At first, I was a little shocked at how deeply the suicide of a dude I’d never heard of had affected me, but I soon realized that it impacted me because I couldn’t believe that professional pressure had driven the guy to end his life. I know I’m making a BIG assumption by saying that it was due to professional pressure was the reason, but y’all know that every one of you thought the EXACT SAME THING when you heard about it. Life is such a precious thing and the thought that anything having to with a job would make someone give up his own life had me messed up…along with the fact that I could kinda understand where he was coming from. I never wanted to do anything so drastic, but I did let career-related pressure drive me into the ground mentally and emotionally and took a big “real life” L (loss) because of it.

Back in 2006, I started my first post-MBA job with all of the excitement and energy that one would expect and I immediately dove into it with full force.You know, after getting a top MBA, one often puts a lot of pressure on him-/herself to “knock it out of the park” and, as such, often throws 125% of him-/herself into the job. That’s exactly what I did too. It’s just part of what get ingrained in most MBA students during business school. One is surrounded by incredibly smart, oftentimes Type-A folks and, as a result, he/she becomes conditioned to push himself toward career success (often, at all costs). At the same time, I was also settling into a brand new city, trying to maintain a long distance relationship, and was separated from all my family and the majority of my friends. Up to that point, I’d put so much effort into getting where I was, so I KNEW that I had to optimize on my career right out of the gate and figured that everything would naturally fall into place.

During my first year after B-school, it became increasingly difficult to balance everything, but, having worked so hard to make it through the GSB and earn that job, I just defaulted to pushing even harder on the work side. In order to do that, I took time/focus/attention away from my personal life and relationships to get the extra energy and bandwidth that I needed to double-down on my job focus. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was putting a mountain of pressure on myself professionally and the stress and nerves that resulted from it changed me into a totally different person…and the change wasn’t for the better. I went from being laid-back, funny, and somewhat silly to being edgy, nervous, and overly serious. My care-free nature went away and I became a constant worrier and overall stress case. Even worse, I stopped smiling…and, when i say that, I’m referring to a REAL smile, not just the one that you show when you want people to think everything’s cool. Basically, at some point, I just kinda got by day-to-day feeling “blah”. It must have been terrible for the female I was dealing with at the time because she had to hear me on the other end of the phone in this state day-in and day-out, but those conversations would at least keep me going a little more each day. But, one big lesson I learned during this time is that it’s pretty much impossible to make someone else happy if you’re not even there yourself. Over time, the more I pushed myself job-wise, the more frazzled and down I became and I knew that this wasn’t going to be sustainable.

The pressure continued as I started looking around at new opportunities to follow that first job because I didn’t really know what I should do next. I spent months looking at different industries, talking to headhunters/recruiters, and interviewing at different companies and nothing seemed to “feel right” to me. Through it all, I kept on putting more pressure on myself because my brain kept replaying a line I’d heard many times before “You only leave that place once, so you’ve got to make the most of it when making your next move”. So, as time passed and the “right thing” seemed farther and farther away, I found myself getting more and more down on myself and everything else. Even worse, while I tried my best to keep all of it bottled up inside my head, I’m pretty sure my worry became abundantly clear to those who interacted with me regularly, which is something I regret having subjected other folks to. Overall, I was just plain lost and didn’t have a clue when or how I’d be able to find my direction.

Then, one day in September, I received a fateful phone call and, all of the sudden, I was all alone, which kinda was the deathblow at that point. So, not only did I feel “lost in the woods” professionally because I didn’t have a clue of which career direction I’d take, but now I felt “lost in the woods” personally too and it all came together as the “Perfect Storm” for me. It felt like someone had shaken the table and the whole house of cards can crashed in on me. The weeks following that day were among the lowest I can remember, but did I ever get anywhere close to wanting to do what Kellerman did?…HECK NAW! There’s no way I’d let myself go out like that because I know my mother wouldn’t be able to handle it. Plus, I think I have a legit shot of making it into some history books one day and I’d be doing a disservice to the children of the future if I didn’t continue doing ridiculous things for them to read about one day That said, there were several days during the worst of it when I didn’t even want to get out of bed and felt that I’d become a failure. I often wondered if I’d ever break out of that funk and, although I knew that every storm eventually breaks, it sure didn’t feel like it at the time.

The thing that ultimately broke me out of it was spending a sad 31st birthday by myself at home all day thinking about how I had to get my life together and then getting a call the following day from my current employer offering me my current job. After that, I spent a couple of months trying to get my mind right regarding all the change that I’d gone through and was about to face and then relocated to Chicago. And, for the past five months, I’ve been progressively getting my swagger back and returning to normal, fun-loving, ig’nant-acting Marquis. I was really worried for a little while though and I doubt most of the people around me even had a clue about the storm going on in my head.

OK, so why did I put all my business out in the street ONCE AGAIN? Well, I’ve been giving y’all too much information about myself for years now, so I’m pretty accustomed to doing it. More importantly, I wanted to share this to help you all put things into perspective in light of Kellerman’s tragic suicide. As y’all know, I’ve tended to mess up quite a bit over the years, but I eventually pull some lessons out of those screw-ups and then I’ll post something up here so y’all won’t make the same mistakes. That’s what I’m trying to do here. I know that some of you have probably been going through some drama as of late (especially considering the down economy) and I just want you to know that, no matter what it is, it’s going to be alright. Too many people stress over their “career selves” and, when you’re six feet underground, no one is going to care how great of a finance manager, engineer, or strategy professional you were. But, people will remember how good (or bad) of a family member, friend, or mate you were…that’ll the lasting part of your legacy for the people who care most about you and please don’t forget that.

I’ve got a pot-holder in my kitchen with the following quote that immediately popped into my mind when I heard today’s news about Kellerman: “Never get too busy making a living that you forget to make a life”. This is a really simple concept that all of us know we should follow, but very few hard-charging professionals like us pay attention to what should be the most important thing in life…actually taking the time to LIVE. Instead of focusing on our own happiness and cultivating relationships with our loved ones, we often dive into any number of academic and professional pursuits while thinking “Lemme get my career stuff right first and then I’ll take care of the other stuff”. The problem with that line of thought is that there’s no guarantee that the “other stuff” will still be there when you finally realize what is truly important. Once that happens, you could be left with all kinds of regrets and trust me…you DON’T want that.

Remember, if you get laid off or fired from a job, you can always get another one. If you receive a bad performance review, you can always do better during the next review period or at your next job. If you don’t get accepted into business school, you can always reapply later on. If you stumble along your career path, you can always dust yourself and either continue along that career path or choose a new one. Professional life is just that…professional life…and it doesn’t have to be the end-all and be-all for you. The “real life” part of life is what many of us often forget and I hope you’ll take this one piece of advice…DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE VALUE OF THE PERSONAL SIDE OF LIVING. If a loved one passes away, you can never get another chance to spend time with him/her or let him/her know that you care. If you have a relationship with someone special that dissolves, chances are that you won’t get a second opportunity to start over and do it right. If you let your connections to close friends fade, you might not get a chance to re-establish those links ever again. And, if you lose or take your own life, you can NEVER get it back. I bet David Kellerman’s family and friends wish that he’d thought about that last one before he chose to do what he did.

I know that I don’t know most of y’all personally, but I consider you all to be my peoples after all these years of writing to you. So, I hope you’ll let what I’ve said sink in a little and recognize what’s really important in life and let those things be your focus. Never let what happens to you professionally make you take the L on anything personally. *OK, I’m stepping off my soapbox now* Have a nice night…

****EDITED****
Hey, I just wanted to add a couple of things to the end of this post:

1. I want to give a shout out to my man KD who read this post and sent me a link to an article entitled “Personal Renewal” that he thought I would find interesting (Here is the link). The theme of the article is about people who feel like they’re stuck in place and need to go through a process of rebooting themselves. I’m still only halfway through it (it’s a LONG one), but I’m liking what the guy has to say so far.

2. As I was walking to work today, a song came on that I’ve heard thousands of times, but really spoke to me today because of what I’d written in this entry. It’s called “Run to the Sun” and it’s by Pharell Williams’ group, N.E.R.D. You can check out that song on YouTube at THIS LINK. I’ve always liked the song because it has a great flow, but, if you pay attention to the words (the lyrics are on the YouTube page), you’ll understand what made it catch my attention after writing this entry. It’s funny how God throws messages at us, right?