Lord of the Rings (and The Simpsons for that matter) isn’t so popular because it’s shallow and cheap and rubbish but just because you may not like the genre doesn’t mean it doesn’t have depth and meaning.
Bear with me on this; this is a hard blog post to get through.
At the end of Lord of Rings the hero, Frodo leaves and leaves his best friend Sam in the Shire that he saves but “not for him”. Sorry this is a real spoiler but I’m assuming most people know the story.
Frodo is broken from everything he did heroically to try to save everybody else and in the process couldn’t save it for himself.
Today I missed another training session; another chance to be on my bike making myself a little bit better heading towards things I’d like to do next year because I was totally exhausted. Several opportunities arose where I could have snapped them and had an hour or two on a bike and I avoided them because I’m exhausted.
I dedicated considerable time to my kids and didn’t manage to carve out a little bit of time for myself. I’m exhausted though because of the work.
I am desperately trying to create something that is good. I’m trying to send a message about the thing that we’re creating that’s good but for the past 3 weeks my ‘extra-curricular activities’ have ground me down to the point where today I miss another session.
I have watched many people now that I have become friends with in my career, at different ages but really spanning between 30 – 50, who have created great things, great practices, great organisations only to bail out on the ‘exit strategy’ route. This is and was a discussion that was held commonly in the bars at conferences. I have watched exceptional people press the ‘exit strategy’ button in their 30s when they had so much to contribute to dentistry both clinically and as leaders and we have broken them as a society.
It’s time we started to discuss retention strategies instead of exit strategies. It’s time we tried to put in place buffers and stops, both physically and metaphorically to allow the people who are prepared to put their neck on the block to set an example of how the world could be, both inside and outside of our chosen profession.
Sure some of the blame has to be taken by the individual who tries to build an empire or an organisation for the better. Some of the blame has to be taken by their egos or their addictive personalities but when did we reach a point in our society where we jettison almost all of the talent aged 50 – 55 to go off and play golf.
Try to picture a world that was turned on its head – where retirement didn’t mean giving up work but it meant being given an opportunity by the profession and by society to contribute at your own pace and your own level to young people, not only in the profession but in society as whole, to set an example to them and to share the knowledge you’ve gathered over the whole of your career.
It should not just be the province of the truly exceptional to be able to carve out an existence that allows them to survive into their later years and by their example, mentor the younger generations. It’s not a success story for our society as a whole when we lose the exceptional guys to golf; we need them to lead us.
For me to survive and pass on anything I’ve learned (extreme arrogance there suggesting that people will even want to know) it will be essential for me to get the exercise sessions in. I don’t intend to be Frodo, saving the Shire for every one but me, I intend to live happily in the Shire for the rest of my life.
(Except i’m more likely to look like Homer Simpson than Frodo)
Blog Post Number: 1139
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