lee-charles-mProfessor Charles Lee is Joseph McDonald Professor of Accounting at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.  En route to speaking at the Veritas Forum at Cornell University, where he had taught for many years, he stopped by Boston.  CEA’s Justin Ren caught up with him and asked him a few questions.  Here is an excerpt. 

CEA: How to view success in our career?

CL: Happy to talk about that.  A lot of people ask about this.  Think of the following picture of 2X2:

EyesOfGod

Up on top is whether you are a success (left) or failure (right) in the eye of God.  On the side is whether you are a success (up) or failure (down) in the eye of man.  So now we have four quadrants.

First of all, it is obvious nobody wants to stay in the lower-right (quadrant IV).  And everybody wants to stay in the upper-left (quadrant I).  That is, we probably want to be successful in eye of both God and man – a win-win!  Right?

But – I am absolutely convinced that you can never stay in the upper-left unless you are willing to move down to quadrant III.  Think of the lives of Joseph and Daniel in the Bible.  We think of them as win-win, right?  We want to be like them.  But in their lives they had to give up their worldly fame, success and popularity.  They were willing and ready to move down to quadrant III, even though so doing was very costly to the eye of men.  That is the main distinction between people who focus on eternal significance vs. people who focus on temporal success.

Those who focus on temporal successes care about “What do people think of me?”  But people who focus on eternal significance care about something deeper and more significant.  It doesn’t mean that they are not aware of the usefulness of worldly success.  It just means that every so often they need to remind themselves : “ Worldly success is not my master. I am willing to put it down.” And then they did it.  –   If you have never put it down, how do you know you can put it down?

CEA: One of the arguments for worldly success is that if I am successful than I can influence more people.  What do you think?

CL:  Many of us think there is a positive correlation between success in the eye of man and in the eye of God.  If I am successful in the world, then I can be a blessing to more people.  Or, God will bring me more successes in my career if I am faithful to Him.  But if the two are perfectly positively correlated, then there will be no moral dilemma at all – there is always a win-win!  The only time when there is a moral dilemma or ethical challenges is when it is not win-win.  And I can guarantee that there will be many of such challenges in our lives.  That is why Jesus spent so much time talking about “You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24, KJV).  Mammon is not just money.  It is everything that reflects our unwillingness to focus on what Jesus is focusing on, which is the redemption of the world.

CEA:  I see.  So whenever we have doubts, think of the picture and be prepared to lower ourselves.  Thank you so much for your time.

CL: You are welcome.  God Bless!

 

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