In Chapter 2 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Are Your Personal Priorities Changing as You Get Older?" After getting married in the past year, Graham faces a new challenge of figuring out the balance of growing his career to provide for a family in the future and being an engaged, present, and supportive husband.
Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: How are your personal priorities changing as you get older?
Mark Graham: Personal priorities and professional priorities haven’t always synced with me. I’ve always been someone who from a very early age has placed a lot of value and a lot of time in my week into making sure I succeed in a professional space. Particularly someone who graduated college with an English degree, which I quickly learned wasn’t the most helpful degree to have in the world.
So I think I’ve really had to work hard to get where I’m at. You know, now that I got married in the last year, and understanding and balancing how important my wife and our relationship is, and how important our marriage is, you know, I need to learn how to dial down the amount of time that I spend at the job working on professional stuff, and be able to figure out how to spend more time, you know, continuing to build our relationship and make sure that my wife’s needs are being met, and that she’s happy, and that we’re having fun together, and that we’re doing things together more often.
So that’s something that, you know, I’m really looking to spend more time on, and continuing to focus, and get that balance where it used to be professional-personal, you know, start to get those things a little bit more here. And, you know, as a man, hopefully, you know, we’ll have a family sometime soon, you know, I still need to place a lot of emphasis on, you know, ensuring that I’ve got a good career, and I’m able to provide for a family at some point. So, you know, figuring out that balance is something that’s definitely a work in progress, and something that I need to, you know, just continue to spend more time on, and figure out where that sweet spot is.