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Abject Executive Poverty

Guest post by: Bruce Razban

Article Overview: If you, as an executive are not happy, then you might want to read my story of round trip rags to riches. I, as an executive, was not happy either with all that "stuff" that money could buy. There was an emptiness that expensive suits, business class travel, and four or five star hotels could not fill. Yet, as an aftermath of Global Financial Crisis that cost my tiny company $180,000, I realized what real happiness was all about.

Abject Executive Poverty



There was a time when I had become a director of a major corporation at a relatively young age. I was proud and excited about my promotion. I was in charge of a multi-million dollar budget for the first time and almost seventy people in my group.

I felt that justice had finally been done and I was rewarded what I had worked for so hard for many years. I was a popular manager and I got along with just about anyone. However, the most important thing was that I produced fantastic products and services for my company. I was considered the best of the best! I made the seemingly impossible engineering task to happen. Furthermore, thanks to my ceaseless desire to learn and study, I had mastered the art and the science of team building. Almost in all projects we produced heroics, while team member were learning new things and had fun doing what was their task.

As opposed to my first trips to Europe while I was a student and on a student budget requiring that I sleep in trains on overnight travel to save money, I now would fly business class and stay in four star hotels.

I had been the quintessential American story of going from rags to riches. I had arrived in California on a Greyhound bus with the $300 that I had borrowed from my best friend. Now, I was a director!

Nevertheless, I had never forgotten my humble origins. I still loved and enjoyed the good and rich life, but, I felt that I owed to others to help them as a way of saying thanks.

I was one of the first to buy $1,000 Nordstrom suits, and $200 Hickey-Freeman shirts. In addition I would buy suits and shirts from a catalogue house in Hong Kong. Each suit would be tailor made based on 30 or more measurements.

All that "stuff" meant success to me! I had escaped the abject poverty of college years and earlier career. I never had to balance my checkbook as there always was enough money. There even was money to play. I never had to worry about the next meal of the next car payment or anything.

I paid cash for my Lexus and drove it on picturesque California Highway 1 along the Pacific coast.

As my salary kept going up and I was trying to become a Vice President and then the CEO of a major corporation, I started to feel emptiness combined with guilt that not everyone had succeeded as much as I had. As my frequent flyer mileage card with United Airlines became a Platinum card, I realized that I had more miles that I could use. So, I gave away some to friends and family. I sent them free tickets. Some were able to have vacations that they had never had and would never have had if it was not for my gift.

However, inside that shell there still was the man that I had been in college with faded blue jeans and severely limited budgets for anything including essentials of life. A movie or concert was a major event and I would be elated by some non-important things as a day trip to Chicago on a Greyhound bus.

Then the Global Financial Crisis hit!

This time being CEO of a tiny consulting company, I was hit and was hit really bad. Fear of foreclosure, inability to pay bills not just for the company, but myself started to create unbelievable stress. I was not alone. Many of my friends had been hit just as bad too.

After about 18 months, one day, I noticed that I had accepted a contract for less than $300 and I was really grinding to make sure I made the deadline. Working day and night, I finally made it. As I was treating myself to a McDonald steaming cup of coffee, I noticed that my faded blue jean just looked like those I would wear in college.

It seemed that I had a round trip rag to riches and back to rags again. "What this cannot be! I worked 32 years and wrote a management book, to be back to where I had started as a typical and poor college student. Wow! How could this be?" I repeatedly asked myself.

Enjoying that steaming cup of coffee and being one among those who were not executives somehow made me feel at home. This was real! Those fancy hotels and business class travel were not.

"But 18 months without a contract has brought you to abject poverty! Look at yourself! Look at your Lexus which is in dire need of new tires! You, former executive, are living below the International Poverty Line now!" This echoed in my mind. This was pounding on a mind that was poisoned with self shame and blame for having lost close to $180,000.

Suddenly, an interesting revelation seemed to clear the air. There was clean and clear air that can be inhaled after a big thunderstorm.

So long as you took these 18 months to help others who were trying to find jobs, so long as you wrote an uplifting book to those who had lost their jobs, what you have now with this worn out blue jeans is not abject poverty.

"The abject poverty in your case was when you were rich and when you attempted to forget or cover up your humble beginnings. You tried, but luckily that emptiness and guilt prevented you to forget about all those who were less fortunate than you were!" This was playing in mind over and over again.

That was the abject executive poverty!

"You are now filthy rich! Remember the family friend who came to the train station to buy you train ticket to go for your interview? Remember the best friend who lent you $12,000 so you will not lose your house? Remember the other friend who interrupted his lunch to come and give a lift when you did not have cash to even take a bus?" This was my happy and satisfying self talk!

I was indeed filthy rich, even though not in dollars!

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Article Tags: business class travel, emptiness, executive, expensive suits, five star hotels, global fiancial crisis, global financial crisis, happ, poverty



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