Part 3: 'You're the only one happy in this house'
This is the third part of the story of my sales career.
Yesterday, I talked about how 'reducing my working hours increased my sales.' And at the end, I touched on it just a little bit. I said that reducing my hours wasn't a smart choice, but rather because I had no other choice.
Today, I'm going to talk about the reason for that.
Honestly, it's not a cool story at all.
But that day was the biggest turning point in my life. So, please let me tell it properly.
1. Using 'for the sake of my family' as a shield, I was acting recklessly
Around my fourth or fifth year after changing jobs, I was a complete workaholic.
I had too many reasons why I had to work.
I had just made a big decision to change jobs to a foreign-owned company. At that same time, my child was born. They weren't even a year old yet. And, I had bought a house.
—I couldn't afford to get fired in a place like this.
I would wake up at 5:00 AM, get to the office by 6:00 AM, and work until 11:00 or 12:00 at night. (I had read a book at the time that said waking up at 5:00 AM was the best thing ever, and I was influenced by it, haha.) Even on my days off, my mind was on work, work, work. Even when I didn't want to think about it, it wouldn't leave my head.
Even when I was at home, I would look at my child's face and my wife's face, but I wasn't really seeing them. When I got home, I would just take a bath and go to sleep. Even if my child cried in the middle of the night, I would be sleeping like the dead and wouldn't even notice.
I left everything regarding the house entirely to my wife.
Even so, I was proud of myself.
'I'm earning this for the sake of my family'
—Using the phrase 'for the sake of my family' as a shield, I was acting recklessly.
That kind of life continued for a year.
2. It happened on the happiest day of my life
The end of the year. The day of the bonus arrived.
It was the final tally for the year.
When I saw the amount, my eyes popped out. I thought, 'If I do this much, I get this much?'
Moreover, this was special money for me. As I mentioned last time, I have always been a person who 'sold things by doing exactly as I was told.' But this past year, for the first time, I thought with my own head and did everything myself.It was the first time I had compensation that I could proudly explain by saying, 'It's because I worked my hardest.'It was right there.
I was incredibly happy.
Finally, my hard work had paid off—.
That night, I went home and showed my wife my pay stub.
'Wow, isn't that amazing?'—probably something like that. Honestly, I don't remember much about that day.
But there is one scene I still remember vividly.
My wife—
tossed it aside.
With a gesture like, 'Yeah, yeah.' The pay stub fluttered down from the desk.
......My blood boiled.
'Did you even look at it?' 'What are you doing?'—in my mind, that was proof of my hard work, proof that I had seen it through. And she had just tossed it aside so callously.
I picked up the pay stub from the floor and—tried to show it to her again, ostentatiously.
'Hey, what do you think?' I said.
When I looked up.
In front of me, my wife was—crying like a waterfall.
3, 'Have you ever really looked at your children's faces?'
I thought, so this is what it means to cry with a face all messed up.
It wasn't tears from being tired or anything like that.
It was tears that said, 'I've reached my limit.' Tears she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. It was the kind of crying that made me realize, 'So this is what it means to be sad.'
And then, my wife said:
'Have you ever really looked at our child's face?'
'In this house, right now, you're the only one who's happy.'
—At the same time that anger welled up inside me, my mind went completely blank.
I thought, 'Don't mess with me.' I really meant it.
'I'm earning all this money for the sake of our family.' 'I've been working without even taking time to sleep.'
...But now, I understand.
I was having a hard time in my own way. But she was having a hard time in her own way—truly, a very hard time.
Every day, just the two of them, with a newborn baby. Her husband disappears at 6 a.m., comes home late at night, and just sleeps. He doesn't even notice the baby crying at night.
That day, we couldn't even talk to each other, and we went to sleep in an awkward silence.
4. I couldn't stop crying on the highway
The next morning.
Even on a day like this, I couldn't change my routine. I woke up at 5 a.m. and was ready by 5:30.
I said 'I'm off' to the two of them while they were sleeping.
—No one answered me. Because they were asleep.
It was when I got in the car and was driving on the highway.
Suddenly, tears started to fall.
Yesterday's events flashed back, and the tears just came pouring out. I didn't even really understand why myself. But they wouldn't stop.
I remember hurriedly pulling the car over to the shoulder.
'Why am I crying?'
I also wondered if I was feeling frustrated. Certainly, I was frustrated. It was also tears of not being acknowledged. But at the same time, this was the question that welled up from the bottom of my heart.
'What on earth am I working for?'
I worked desperately because I wanted to make my family happy. I thought that if I brought money home, they would be happy.
I worked recklessly, and even though I had all this—
I was told, 'You're not happy.'
I was told, 'You're the only one who's happy in this house.'
...Huh? Everyone else wasn't happy?
Thinking about it now, I was enjoying a 'money game.' The more I did, the more my incentives increased, I was acknowledged by those around me, and I felt like my self-esteem was rising.felt like.
But those numbers were—inversely proportional to the 'family happiness' I should have wanted most of all.inversely proportional.
5. The bouquets in the hospital room withered away
There is another scene that flashed back to me at that time.
Since I was an MR who handled anticancer drugs, I saw many people who were hospitalized after being given a terminal prognosis.
Among them was a director of a certain company. He was someone who worked hard and climbed to the top.
When he was first hospitalized, his hospital room wasfull of bouquets. 'Please get well soon,' 'We're waiting for your return'—many people came to visit him.
But, due to his illness, he was relieved of his duties as a director. His title was gone.
—What do you think happened from that moment on?
The bouquets in the hospital room withered away all at once.
No one came to visit him anymore. The speed at which people left the moment he was relieved of his duties. It is a scene I still cannot forget.
And—it seems his familynever once came to visit him.
Seeing that, I thought.
'...I knew this would happen to me.'
I have plenty of money. But the moment I got sick, my friends and colleagues—not a single one of them was there. In the very end, this is the fate that awaited me.
Claiming it's for the sake of the family, while sacrificing the family itself.
This was the definition of putting the cart before the horse.
That is why I changed the way I work. I can no longer compete on volume. If I continued to fight like that—my family would be over.
The 'shorter hours' I spoke to you about yesterday started right here.
And this is the most important thing—it's aboutpriority.
I didn't shorten my hours to increase sales.
I shortened my hours because I didn't want to lose my family.
As a result, sales just happened to follow. That's all there is to it.
6. Are you putting someone on the back burner?
Please take a moment to ask yourself today's question.
Are you currently working hard for the sake of 'someone'—while putting that very person on the back burner?
Are you making the person who should be most important to you suffer the most?
It's too late once they're crying, like they were with me.
No—to be precise, most people won't even cry for you. In many cases, they just quietly drift away. There is a term called 'quiet quitting' recently, but there is also 'quiet divorce.' You realize it when things start disappearing from the house—that's how it happens.
I am still grateful to my wife for crying for me back then. If she hadn't said it to me then, I would never have realized it. I think if I had kept working like that, that scene in the hospital room would have been my own end.
People easily get the direction of their hard work wrong.
That is exactly why I want you to stop and check once in a while. Who is that hard work for? And is that person smiling right now?
...Though, I will confess honestly.
At that time, I truly intended to 'turn over a new leaf'.
But, in reality—even after this, I couldn't stop 'trying the wrong way'.
Returning to the topic of work, after this, Ikept failingmy promotion exams. And then, my boss said something that really struck me.
An event that made me realize I had become arrogant and was getting carried away—.
I will talk about that next time. Please follow me and stay tuned.
Thank you for sticking with me through this heavy topic until the end today.
If you are currently feeling like, 'I'm working so hard, but I'm not getting results' or 'I'm working so hard, but I don't feel fulfilled'—if you have that feeling, why don't we check the direction of your efforts together for once?
I offer a 60-minute free session. 30 minutes is also fine. Please feel free to reach out.
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See you tomorrow in Part 4.