Madeleine Morgan writes:
Before you yawn and click away, hear me out. This is important…
The author was commenting that people were celebrating the fact that the UK’s GDP had hit pre-crisis levels. She then went on to debunk the notion of GDP as an accurate measure of the nation’s prosperity.
One example she gave is that if you knock down a city and rebuild it to the same specifications, you’d see no rise in real wealth but you would see a rise in GDP.
Another was that in a GDP figure, there is no distinction between ‘good growth’ (such as companies creating better products and exporting more) and ‘bad growth’ (such as the extra bomb-making that comes with war). GDP doesn’t take into account how much growth is debt-fuelled and could lead to a crash.
The article got me thinking: could there be other ways we might be deluding ourselves with false accounting? For instance:
- As a business owner, are you dazzled by your high turnover figure and ignoring that fact that you’re really making a loss or that your poor cashflow could mean you go bankrupt before you get paid?
- Or is your successful career or business actually costing you in stress and lost quality time with friends and family?
- Has ‘winning’ an argument actually lost you a great relationship?
- Do you think the ‘comfort zone’ is less scary when actually by staying inside it you’re losing lots of opportunities and making things worse?
- Do you believe that trying and failing is worse than not trying?
- Or…?
Your Actions This Week
- Click here to access a Life Wheel exercise – it’s a great way to do some realistic accounting of your business, career and/or personal life and regain some focus on what’s really working and what is not.
- Rinse and repeat that exercise every three to six months
- Take advantage of the free Coaching Discovery Session that’s in the Life Wheel document.
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