By KENDRA McQUILTON //
My dad used to say, “The hardest thing in business is surviving success” – a phrase that always stuck with me and, for many years, shaped my work ethic.
When he said it, he was referring to the danger of getting too comfortable. After years of pushing hard, people finally “make it,” and then they ease up. They don’t maintain the same tenacity they had when they were trying to become successful. They take their eye off the ball, and the business slips backward.
As my mentor and someone who’d been an entrepreneur his entire career, I took his words to heart. For many years, I lived with a continual sense of pressure to sell more, do more, be better, never relent.
People used to always say to me at networking events, “Wow, you’re everywhere!” And they were right. I couldn’t allow myself to miss anything, because that would mean we might have lost an opportunity to drive the business forward and that was unacceptable.
And while we were successful in the financial sense as a result of these efforts, there was a dark side that those on the outside might be surprised to learn, going on almost constantly behind the scenes. My dad and I were often stressed or angry, arguing with each other, worrying about cash flow, living under the weight of a relentless pressure to maintain and increase what we’d built.
Kendra McQuilton: Work hard, live free.
After all, if we didn’t push, no one else would. How could we relax, when there was always another opportunity we should be pursuing? Another event, another contact to make, another conference, another email, another marketing campaign.
One night in November 2015, I got the call that changed my life forever. My dad had been diagnosed with gastric cancer at the age of 66. A relatively healthy man, we were shocked and devastated. Nine months later, he passed away.
After he passed, and I found myself running the family business without him, I began to see that phrase – “surviving success” – in a completely different light.
I looked around me: the success we had enjoyed, the material benefits, the property he’d bought in upstate New York, where he and my mom moved, just what he’d always wanted. But suddenly none of it meant anything, because he was gone.
I will forever believe that my dad fell victim to the stress he experienced his entire career. Yes, there were many rewards that came from what he built and the “wins” we shared. But even during the best of times, he wasn’t able to deal with anger and stress in effective ways.
To almost the end, he suffered from this aspect of his personality. And I can’t help but think his death was a result of the compound effects of regular anger and stress.
He “survived success” in the way he defined it – we were doing better than ever as a business. But ironically, it was the way we were pursuing that success that he could not survive.
Redefining “success”: There’s plenty to be said for hard work, but not at the expense of what matters most.
I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t end up the same way.
As painful as it was losing my dad, the new perspective I gained on what it means to be truly “successful” in life has been a gift to my wellbeing. I no longer worry about the business. I do my best and prioritize my family.
Over the years, our dedication and strategic approach have paid off in significant ways. As a Certified Woman-Owned Business, we’ve had the honor of helping school districts save more than $1 billion in energy costs, a testament to our commitment to a sustainable future. We’ve successfully modernized older municipal facilities and infrastructure, demonstrating how our expertise can lead to both financial and environmental benefits.
This is the success my father spoke of – hard-won achievements built on relentless effort and a clear vision.
I will continue this work as long as I can, as long as I’m enjoying it. I won’t be a prisoner of my work. I was so caught up in the pressure before, and I couldn’t understand how meaningless it was in the grand scheme of life. But now it’s clear to me.
Please ask yourself: Is the stress you’re experiencing in your job worth your health? If you received a diagnosis tomorrow like my dad’s, would it have been worth it?
There’s no avoiding stress in life, and some of it is good. But I ask that you be honest about how much of it is in your day-to-day life, how good you are at handling it and whether you’re making the changes you need to make to minimize it.
Because none of this matters if you’re not here.
That’s what “surviving success” means to me now.
Kendra McQuilton is CEO of Smithtown-based energy and engineering consultancy Energia.
