By
Mark Brake
Occasionally in peoples lives they have the chance to reflect. I don’t mean, “Hmmm, I shouldn’t have had that last drink last night”, or “What was I thinking wearing those trousers to that meeting last week”? As important as these quandaries appear at the time, I am talking about the bigger stuff, you know, the “What’s it all about” type of question. Often this sort of reflection comes as a result of some defining moment in your life and it really goes beyond simply thinking “What’s it all about”, you actually evaluate your life and how you impact the lives of those around you. This is something I have had the opportunity to do recently and one word kept cropping up in my thought process over and over again. Achievement. What have I achieved in my life and which of those achievements are actually important to me. In fact how do we measure achievement? Think about it, if you look at someone how do you evaluate their achievements? • Big house. • Nice car. • Healthy bank balance. • Good job, or successful business. • Amazing holidays. All of the above are certainly achievements and they are things to be proud of, but they are often the only things we measure a person’s level of achievement by. So what else can be classed as an achievement and more importantly, why? I recently read a book written by a marketing guru called Mark Earls. The book was called Herd and the author made the analogy that people, whilst believing they are all very individual, act very much like herds. Now I have to say that the book was very good and the analogy worked very well when considering the subject matter, but when considering people in a wider context, aspects of the herd analogy fall down. In actual fact, we are very much a tribal species and we all belong to many different sizes of tribes at the same time. Now if you’re reading this and thinking, “No we’re not, not anymore anyway”, then next time you watch a football match, try watching the crowd for a few minutes. We display tribal behaviour all of the time. We all have a basic need to belong. How do you think groups like The Masons or even BNI become so popular? When we
recognise something in someone else that we can identify with, we feel as though we are somehow connected with them, like we belong to the same “Tribe”. This is not some random feeling, it is something that is very much hard wired into the structure of our brains. As such it is crucial to our feelings of security, wellbeing and even happiness. What on earth has that got to do with achievement you might say. Well if you look at achievement as how you fit into your particular tribe and how satisfied you are with that position, then it’s actually very relevant. Allow me to explain a little further. I’ve been and still am called many things in my 43 years on this earth and I’m going to tell you some of the printable one’s now. In my family I am known as Grandson, Son, Brother, Father, Grandfather, Uncle, Nephew and Cousin. Certain parts of the family cluster and act as a tribe. In work I have been known as an employee, colleague, boss and friend. And companies, or should I say people within companies, very much operate as tribes, often warring tribes but tribes none the less. As I said earlier, supporting your favourite football team, or even joining a chess club all comes from our need to belong and its this feeling of belonging that gives us our self worth. We need to be around people who share the same beliefs, values, aspirations and even interests to ourselves in order to feel totally comfortable. The more individual we become, the more isolated we feel and the more unhappy we are. Surely then the true definition of achievement should be happiness and contentment! So to achieve this all we need do is to truly belong to our tribe or tribes. To truly belong we can not look to see what we can get out of our tribe, but what we can put in. This causes other members of our tribe to view us in a more favourable light, which in turn leads to acceptance and respect from your peers, which in turn leads to feelings of happiness and contentment in ourselves. Simple! Going back a little then, to all of those titles I am known by, what they actually are, are all relationships with other tribal members and if I’ve made the effort and maintained these relationships, then this is what I have achieved. Have I been a good father, son, boss, or friend? If so, then the chances are I feel like I belong and will be satisfied with what I have achieved. If not I may wonder for some time to come, “What’s it all about”!