The following story is to convey a very small idea with rather big implications - how a short sale can be used to bring out the ways in which we all may be setting ourselves up to collapse for the sake of some single gain:

Come one, come all! To the magical adventure of the circus seen like never before! Tents all around and sights galore. Music, magic and muse adore. When you enter, you may notice one thing, the tent is merely empty and the trapezes bare but for a single hanging bar. The town you love has paid all this money, for a mirage so grand, its memory is still sweet like honey. There isn't any substance because the focus was on making it happen.

You wonder how the tent towered, and the cages rumbled, but there were no performers which really makes the dream nothing at all. The dream of something you had never seen bursts like the dot com boom because the large expense and grandeur of such an investment did nothing but dazzle and awe. You hoped to bring new light to a rural town, but it turned out to be really nothing more than a myth.

Let's say you knew it would happen, but the cut from the ringleader would allow you to move out of the single light landscape, away from this rural place.

Did you really win? Striking a deal over a mirage that was really dust, leaving the people with nothing. It improved morale and gave the people around you new life. It allowed success like never before seen. At first, a small cut was nothing but an added bonus. You could finally leave this place that was rather underserved and perhaps outdated. It would seem this is a simple fallacy that we all should see, but we don’t. At least not in our own eyes.

This story isn’t as farfetched as it seems. It’s quite similar to the housing market crash of Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that were improperly credit rated and hashed together by major banking corporations during the housing bubble of the early 2000s which would bust in Q2 of 2007. The new film, "The Big Short", gives fantastic light to a rather complex operation that took place at the hands of many banks, SEC regulators and credit raters during this time which preyed on subprime mortgages that couldn't possibly be paid for by the homeowners. The bubble finally burst and gave a few lucky fund managers the chance to expose Wall Street to a rather big neglect and to cash out themselves by short-sale: Hedging that the housing market would bust and paying handsome profit should it fail. The film depicts the investors who were successful in the 2008 US economic downturn felt the moral dilemma.

But in reality, we all hedge against something. It’s easy to say in retrospect that bankers and hedge fund managers should have just avoided the situation. But maybe that’s easier said than done. Before they even knew it, the dragon of a beastly little slip reared its ugly head as fraudulent behavior; for the big banks, it was losing millions of other people’s money once again through the famous Wall Street Bailout. For the ingenious short sale protagonists, it was living with knowing they made incredible profit off the hardship that would ensue millions in the housing collapse.

Now how does any of this possibly relate to where most of us are in our day-to-day lives? Well, it may not be present in creative accounting like Enron or a Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme, but this does manifest itself in other ways. It’s tough to look in our own direction and call fault; however, looking close enough at our own standing actually reveals a crucial imbalance that we would otherwise miss: We all hedge against something and inevitably bet some part of who we are against another in order to get the leg up in some way. It's often careerism, achieving a certain social status, or physical stature. What we don't realize in focusing all our attention on one area, is that it may cause the foundations of everything else to crumble beneath us. We miss the short-sale that is happening as everything else falls away.

So how do we avoid having an incredible hedge that is really betting on a crumble in who we are as a whole? For starters, don’t allow yourself to become all-consumed with one area of life. Careerism, social stature and financial security tend to be building blocks for a rather unsustainable lifestyle. As Bill George notes in his book "True North", our lives on many levels consist of values, self-awareness, motivations, support and an "integrated life." When one area of our lives becomes excessively weighty, our compass for true north tends to be offset, which can lead to disastrous outcomes, like Wall Street's focus on profits and making mortgage loans to people who can't afford them. This is the extreme case, but again we could just as easily be those bankers and fund managers.

Personally, I see that focusing on a few areas of life really ensure that we don't miss the short-sale that is happening in our own lives:

Values. What are the unwavering guiding principles in our lives? It seems this encompasses everything about a guided compass, but it lacks a few pieces that back up who we are. These are important to know and should be found through reflection and with deep conviction. It will determine a proactive response to a situation that warrants a reactionary process, thus improving our ability to focus on other areas. This is the oil that makes everything run. Many find it through spiritual practice or meditation. The important part is simply not to neglect it.

Relationships. We must have balance among our understanding with peers, mentors and mentees (professional, friends and family alike). Without this, there’s not much of a foundation for us to focus on improving any of the other things. We must not be short in this area because shorting it will leave us with nobody to celebrate with in times of success or turn to in times of distress. It's important to be small in this area. What this means is that it isn’t about us as individuals. Being small is about making sure there is a human element to who we are.

Grit. It’s that funny word that is defined along the lines of drive and determination. There’s no way to avoid hard work. It takes knowing what you can and cannot do. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. Make sure there is sustainability in every opportunity and area of your life. This is where we really prop up the other two factors of our lives.

Strive for excellence in everything through the promotion of others so much that we present uncompromising values and add value to all that we do. Success is merely a byproduct.

Be small, but stop cutting yourself so short.