You can have “all the money in the world,” yet still not be in control of your health, or your relationships, or your family’s well-being, or your emotional and intellectual fulfillment.
This is hard to remember in a professional environment since everyone’s “value” seems to be based on production: how much money the individual generates for the company, the size of his office, the office view, the parking space, the alliances, the title, the number of assistants, the base compensation and the bonus, and even the number of telephone lines. The one-upmanship never ends.
In this kind of environment, it’s easy to fall into the mindset that measures personal value, self-worth, and soulfulness by production and production alone. After all, what else is there in an industry that seems purely focused on making money as a function of production itself? Production is a mechanical term; does it really reflect the toil and dedication that good FPs actually manifest?
The problem is that it is so ingrained in Street culture that it has become a standard, and a code of ‘righteous’ behavior. Within the Wall Street Psychologist’s Gyroscope other possibilities exist such as pride, a sense of accomplishment, personal integrity, and even (on occasion) recognition.
In such an environment, there can be little trust—but much suspicion, corruption, and collusion.
Why else would they feel compelled to ask: “Would you put your mother in it?”