Love in the Time of Economic Indicators

Matt’s in love.

This may seem pretty mundane given that it’s Spring and a young man’s fancy is supposed to turn that way.  But Matt is a first class Explorer.  Traveling man for a lot of his professional life.  Not exactly a bon vivant – too hardworking for that – but not a cocooner by nature.

When the economy was rocking, Matt was an executive in the human capital industry, hitting the bright lights in the big cities with pretty young things and being surprised when nothing evolved into the long term.  He’d lament, and I’d laugh and say, you need a Watchdog.  An Explorer needs the one who’ll make a home base for him (or her), even if those travels are just on the web or in the cerebral cortex.  But Watchdogs don’t go for flashdancing.  They’re more the ‘comfort food’ of the relationship world.

So I asked Matt if he was familiar with the theory of one of the world’s great economic experts who said something like this: when the economy is up, it’s easy to find a great job but harder to find love; when the economy’s down, good jobs are hard to find but love is easy.  He guessed Galbraith.  I laughed.  It’s Helen Gurley Brown, former Cosmopolitan editor and author of Sex and the Single Girl.  (I never actually referred to her as an economist but really, her pronouncement is more accurate than the predictions of the average pedigreed academic.)

Matt put it together pretty quickly and realized how distracting his success was to his goal of finding love.  He also admitted how right I was about who he’d really fit with.  But of course I had all the theory behind Role-Based Assessment at my disposal.

So here’s the moral of the story.  The economy is off and is likely to stay that way for a while.  You might as well look for love.  And don’t restrict yourself to the personal kind either.  (Caveat: Do not confuse love and sex!)

Find people you love.  You’ll know when you’re there because you can work easily with them and feel great about it.

Figure out how to create an organization with them and do something.  It doesn’t matter what as long as it’s something you enjoy doing together.  When the economic smoke clears, you might find yourself with everything you ever wanted – a great job and great love.