A few months ago, the CEO of Pimco got a devastating letter that altered his career.
It was from his 10-year-old daughter. As Mohamed El-Erian, the former chief executive of the investment firm, recounts in Worth, he was perplexed as to why she wasn't listening to him. The girl's reply was a doosey:
She asked me to wait a minute, went to her room and came back with a piece of paper. It was a list that she had compiled of her important events that i had missed due to work commitments. Talk about a wake-up call. The list included 22 items, from her first day at school and first soccer match of the season to a parent-teacher meeting and a Halloween parade. And the school year wasn't over yet.
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After initially getting defensive, El-Erian acknowledged that his high-flying job had caused him to miss a lot of important moments. Within a short time, he stepped down as CEO and "opted for a portfolio of part-time jobs that requires a lot less travel and offers a ton more flexibility -- enough I hope to allow me to experience with my daughter those big and little moments that make up each day."
El-Erian writes that it has been the right decision. Now, he often wakes up his daughter, makes her breakfast and drives her to school. He and his daughter talk a lot more and are even planning a vacation together. Acknowledging that not everyone has the privilege of doing what he did, El-Erian, who made $100 million in 2011, writes that he's lucky because "this is providing me with greater opportunity to experience key moments in my daughter's life before they are too quickly gone."