[Editor’s note: This excerpt features remarks by MN Gordon, President and Founder of Direct Expressions, delivered at the annual company holiday party held at Steak ‘n Stein.
Has There Ever Been a More Enjoyable Career?
“If you want to be happy,” Andrew Carnegie once said, “set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” This is sound advice.
Against all odds, turning Economic Prism from a mere hobby into a full-time profession has become that very goal for us. It fills us with hope, especially as we rise before dawn each morning to make our clients shine—whether they recognize it or not.
Our ambition to leave behind our profession for a newsletter publishing venture remains alive. But first, we need to build our business to a point where it can replace our current income. Until then, the joy and inspiration we find in striving towards this goal far outweigh the effort required.
Every morning, we awaken to a world brimming with remarkable, extraordinary experiences. We are captivated by the complex, ever-changing nature of the economy and markets. Government entities’ attempts to manipulate outcomes leave us in awe, and the imprudent strategies employed by bureaucrats astonish us.
We absorb all this and express our insights in our letters, hoping to help others navigate these tumultuous waters—and perhaps even profit along the way. While there may be other professions that are more lucrative or prestigious, we can’t help but ask: has there ever been a career more enjoyable?
However, one business came surprisingly close…
A Lost Era of Joy
When we entered the engineering consulting field about 15 years ago, the joy of the profession seemed to fade quickly, like daylight disappearing on a winter evening. There remained only a handful of veterans from the industry’s heyday in the 1970s and 80s—before creativity yielded to rigid technical standards. They were a unique blend of eccentric, savvy, adventurous, and professional individuals, the last remnants of a bygone era.
In those days, innovative designs could be sketched on cocktail napkins over lunch. Expertise was gained through experience—after completing a single task, you were recognized as the go-to person. The spirit of innovation thrived in problem-solving for clients, long before every design was simply derived from pre-existing templates.
During that time, a handshake constituted a contract; legal jargon hadn’t yet infiltrated the conversation with lengthy insurance clauses and indemnifications. While such protections are important, it’s hard to believe that people thrived without them back in the days when consulting was still exhilarating.
However, by the mid-1990s, MBAs had come to dominate corporate leadership. The focus shifted dramatically from grand ideas to “standards and processes.” Suddenly, bureaucratic signatures, forms, and workflows were required for even the simplest tasks.
Further complicating matters, all that energy became consumed by concepts labeled “margin metrics.” Delivering quality work and earning a profit was no longer sufficient if those benchmarks were not met. With each retiring veteran in the early 2000s, something precious was lost. The joy drained from the work, and individuals became mere commodities.
The Pursuit of Dreams
Yet, perhaps we are mistaken. Maybe work isn’t meant to be enjoyable. After all, it’s called work for a reason, isn’t it?
Still, we find satisfaction in our discontent. The notion that work must be a monotonous chore, to be endured through sacrifice, is something we cannot accept. We consider ourselves misfits, dreamers, and visionaries. We refuse to bow to this belief and will continuously strive to transcend it.
What we wish to convey was beautifully articulated by Robert Frost in the ninth stanza of his poem, “Two Tramps in Mud Time”:
“But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.”
Thank you for accompanying us on this journey.
Sincerely,
MN Gordon
for Economic Prism