What is Enough?

In a capitalist society like ours, "more" and "better" are invisible systemic forces that incentivize action. (I’m not here to debate the merits of capitalism, and I acknowledge that it results in huge innovations. We’re just going to look at one aspect.)

However, if we’re programmed to think ‘more’ and ‘better’, an essential question for leaders to answer is: 

What is enough?

The idea of constant growth is not only overwhelming and unsustainable, it disregards the natural cycles of ebb and flow, of order and chaos, of action and rest.

At the business scale, wise leaders trust the fallow periods, whether it be an economic downturn or a market change, as a time for reflection and reinvention. 

At the personal scale, we must ask ourselves -- what is enough?

• What is enough for you to be able to let go and rest at the end of the day?

• What is enough for you to allow yourself to pause and appreciate all that you have survived and accomplished?

• What is enough for you to simply be in a social setting? You are enough.

This question becomes especially pertinent to those of us at or near our midlife transition, where our limited time on Earth comes into stark focus, and the question, "What is enough," descends from dreamy philosophy to grounded reality, begging for an answer.

So the message for the leaders reading this today is that you should not only ask this question regularly but answer it. Embrace the limits that the answer naturally imposes. 

It is in the limited realm of “enough” that you just might find some more freedom.