Beyond the rat race: Lessons from a corporate life

Few Bangladeshis have worked across three leading global banks, both at home and abroad. I was reportedly the youngest CEO of a commercial bank in this country. 
For four decades, I have written for local and international journals, and I have sixteen books to my name. Targets never intimidated me; I exceeded most of them, whatever obstacles came my way. 
Friends point to the recognition that followed. What most do not know is how many mornings and midnights I spent in hospital emergency rooms with chest pain, exhaustion and sleepless nights that seemed to have no end.
Between 2007 and 2010, I made close to ten such visits. I was diagnosed with diabetes at 38. Twice, perhaps three times, I collapsed in my room, drenched in sweat, and consulted doctors across Asia and North America. 
I have been on medication for diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol for roughly 25 years. Well-wishers called it the price of early success – office politics, pressure to outperform and colleagues who showed little sympathy when I needed it most.
The picture looks different today. Since stepping back from that high-flying corporate life some fifteen years ago, I no longer chase a bigger bonus or wait for a nod from above. 
My cardiologist sees far less of me, and so do my gastroenterologist and endocrinologist. Visits that once came every other week have all but disappeared. What changed? The answer, honestly, is simple. I go to the gym at least five days a week and swim four or five days as well. I no longer worry about who the highest-paid CEO in Bangladesh is, whether my boss thinks I am the best, or who is policing what I eat.
Corporations create jobs, pay taxes and keep the economy moving, yet even the best can trap people in the rat race: a relentless chase to get ahead. It wears people down and quietly kills creativity. 

Nobody is there to hold you if you stumble. Bangladesh’s private sector still lacks service rules that might soften that fall. Paul Ulasien put it well in The Corporate Rat Race: The Rats Are Winning: success is never guaranteed, but do nothing and failure certainly is.
Companies keep reshaping themselves to stay ahead of competitors. An executive must grow shareholder value while remaining transparent and compliant, and that balancing act creates constant pressure to find new ways of doing business. 
Leaders like me often navigated that pressure alone: outperform everyone, and you are still on your own when trouble comes. Ethics can feel like a moving target, and the temptation to lean on “personal loyalty” over principle is real, especially in our part of the world.
So how does one fight that feeling of being overwhelmed, of never being quite enough? You can walk away and live simply. Or, if you stay in the race, you must firmly believe in your own ability to succeed within it. 
Choose employers who challenge you but do not ask you to compromise your ethics. When global corporations hand a local executive the hardest jobs, they owe that person real empowerment and support. This was not always the case for me. Too often, senior executives abroad did not understand our market or social fabric, and thankless jobs can put tremendous pressure on one’s motivation. I was no exception; I experienced it firsthand.
In early 2009, I met an elderly, amiable man at the pool who had been swimming quietly there for weeks. One day, he asked me something I could not answer: Of the twenty-four hours, how many do you spend on yourself? I thought I already gave all of it – to work, to family and to society’s well-being. He told me no, that was not the same thing. Your time, he said, is only what you dedicate purely to your health or to improving your knowledge.
I took it to heart. Now I devote an hour a day to staying reasonably fit and another hour to reading, just to keep pace with what is happening around me. That alone, I think, has saved me the money I used to spend on hospital emergency visits during my later corporate years.
I have just crossed 65. I will leave my colleagues with one thought: spend at least thirty minutes a day on your health, and keep smiling. Enjoy your youth and, above all, friendship.

Mamun Rashid, an economic analyst, worked for three global banks and a professional services firm over a career spanning nearly four decades.