Hot Potato

I think I have realized there are 2 layers (at least) of balance – internal balance which the one you own that you can directly impact by the choices and actions you make and external balance the energy and choices of others that impact you regardless of your actions.

Examples of the external balance layer might be the boss with unclear goals and expectations on the team, the manager who is always changing direction, the family member who never has their act together or the friend who is perpetually late.

Let’s talk about the manager who is always changing directions creating an unpredictable environment for the team. On one level you have certain degree of control over how you respond when a change comes up, "I was working on XWY and changing direction now will cause Blah to happen". On other level you are forced to react to the situation, maybe its working late, changing your entire project plan, or hiring new vendors and depending on the situation it might cause you stress and anxiety to never know when a change might occur - which contributes to feeling out of balance, regardless of how many boundaries you set or how accountable you are to yourself.

So then, because this is reality and these types of people will always be in our lives, how do you find balance when those around you are imbalanced? What can you do to mitigate the stress this type of external layer plays in your life?

I don’t have the answer. Sure some of it is about confidence and clearly articulating a response in a way that is not defensive or wont get you fired, but outside that I’m at a loss. What comes to mind is the game “hot potato” and finding the way to develop some sort of skill that lets you catch and throw the wonky mojo as fast as possible so you don’t get burned by a potato that is not yours.

Feeling it a bit more

Funny that writing about being out of balance – made me feel a bit more in balance. I find it odd that that just by admitting something, your perspective can change and the power something holds dissipates to something a bit more manageable.

So now what? It’s simple – I’m going to spend the next 2 months enjoying what I have right now, and appreciate the incredible opportunities and choices I have in my life. I will resist the urge (and sometimes it’s a big one) to live in the future – I will live only in the moment as best as I can through the rest of 2008.

Professionally, that means enjoying my corporate clients, embracing the projects I have, being open to new projects I might not have considered before and most importantly – being opened to my creative self. That means listening to my ideas about how to begin a conversation so much larger then this blog, talking to people about what they have experienced, lost and found in their journeys for balance and finding my voice and the best way to tell the stories that millions of people can learn from and relate to.

Maybe Obama inspired me more than I realized - the change begins here on this random blog, the change is now in how I think about what I’m doing and being opened to what is around me. The change is in how the dialogue takes shape, a change I can impact if I have enough courage to do so. Because what I’m learning is that choosing a life of balance is not for the weak at heart.

Confession

I’m not always in balance. You can tell when I’m out of balance because I write less. I avoid my blog because I feel like an imposter writing about balance when I’m not feeling it. I know that these are the times that I should be writing more – because that is the whole point – to talk about the real issues when life gets out of balance.

I left my full time job 8 months ago to dedicate more time to working on work life balance issues - which started with developing a program for work life balance with an executive leadership coach. Well, the pilot program didn’t happen – with the economy the way it is the belt on corporate training programs got tight real fast. And the hard truth is, that belt isn’t going to loosen up any time soon, so now what, because I have too much passion to wait around for Wall Street to get it’s shit together. This set back got me thinking that maybe I’m on the wrong path all together.

In an effort to collect my thoughts I bought a giant white board. The thinking was I’d grab a marker and start organizing my thoughts– maybe color code some things – draw some arrows and boxes and develop a new plan. What came out was a list of 8 items, a list I wrote before almost 2 years ago to the day sitting on a beach in Hawaii watching a documentary film festival for my birthday. It was a to do list for a book and documentary about people working themselves to death. Note to self: create interview question about avoiding the obvious and how that relates to balance.

Is balance in your genes?

I had an interesting conversation last week with a close friend about balance. He suggested that some people might be more pre-disposed to being in balance than others – maybe even to the point where the desire to be in balance is in the genes.

It is possible, for example when you look at addiction, his hypothesis could be true. Some people are built a certain way and are predisposed to act a certain way based on the chemistry in their body. After thinking about this and wondering if a drunk can sober up or a smoker can quit smoking why then can’t someone who is used to living in chaos learn to live in a more balanced way?

Just like an addict has to learn new routines, identify triggers and place themselves in new scenarios, so does a person striving for a more balanced life. For example in one of my early blog posts I talked about how I had built my life around others who were out of balance like I was – so when I was late, I missed dinner or simply didn’t show up – the behavior was tolerated and forgiven.

So is it that because being out of balance isn’t life threatening (at least on the surface) it’s easier not to try to be in balance? Has a relationship ever been destroyed or a family torn about because one of the members is out of balance? Maybe not in a way that is as dramatic as with drugs or alcohol, but my guess is its slower more drawn out way, that over times builds and builds.

So then the question I ask is how do you motivate a person to aspire to live a more balance life if they see no perceived threat and/or benefit to their life? I assume that it is just like with an addict – the one seeking balance must want it enough to make the lifestyle changes to support it – because in the end balance is a personal lifestyle choice.

Being you

As I see it, a huge threat to being in balance is the struggle faced being true to yourself. There are so many influencers on an individual every day that impact how someone feels about something, but in the end the feeling that matters most is your own.

If you are like most people, you want people to like/love you, so it’s easy to honor other people’s wants and desires over your own, for example putting the feelings of your partner, children, boss/co-worker before your own.

In the end, you end up paying a higher cost to your life’s state of balance by ignoring your true feelings and instincts. Most times when you don’t honor how you feel it ends up coming out (normally quite sideways) and does more harm to your state of balance than if you’d taken the difficult path and honored your feelings in the first place.

So why then do we cause ourselves harm and emotional hardship by ignoring our true wants and desires? Why then do we do things we know we shouldn’t do or don’t want to do, make commitments we know we are not going to keep or say things we don’t actually mean?

I think we do it because managing the internal balance between horning what’s right for yourself and supporting those around you is one of the most difficult things we as humans do. There is no guidebook, and there is no support or encouragement for this behavior as we grow up from our families or society at large. We are taught to please people that ego is negative and there is a very thin line between confidence and conceit.

The part that is most amazing to me is that say for example your partner/spouse treated your emotions with such lack of regard, constantly not listening to you saying one then doing another time and time again; most of us would end that relationship. So why then we do tolerate such disrespect from ourselves?

Being your job

I think a year from now the world might be better off having experienced the economic turmoil of today. I certainly don’t want to see businesses fail; people lose their jobs/ homes and families fall into bankruptcy. What I’m talking about is a potential shift in values and re-examination of self-worth that could be a possible output of these times.

One of the reasons I started this blog months ago is I see so many people, (and I did it myself for years) define themselves by their job. I feel passionate about the conversation that work and life needed to be balanced because the perception is they are 2 different things – work and the rest of your life. And what I have found is work is part of life, not a separate segmentation or subset of who you are.

As we see people get laid off and companies dissolve many people will experience a crisis of self – who am I if I’m not a banker, mortgage broker, real estate agent? The answer is simple – you are the same person you were the day before you your job went away. Only your perception of who that is has changed.

That is the essence of my passion on this topic, why I blog and talk about work life balance – to help people discover that work and life are not separate – you have one life, one self and being honest with yourself about what you want in all areas of your life closes the gap between feeling torn between the two.

So what does this have to do with the economy? It is simple, hopefully people struggling will find they are the same person and that what they value and how they treat people doesn’t change because of how they earn a living or what zip code they call home.

With any luck, because of this experience people might choose to live with less in order to close the gap between work and “the rest of life” to have more in other areas, areas that maybe until now didn’t seem as important.

Need vs want

As I watch and read about the current economic climate – I keep going back to the same central thought – need vs want. One could overly simplify the current situation and argue that we are in this situation because people’s individual wants far exceeded their actual needs.

As I see it, the prime examples that are ground zero for “the meltdown” are people who bought more house then they could afford on their current income, and people who flat out lied about their income so they could buy a bigger house then they could afford.

Just because banks offered to loan people more money than they could afford to pay back, it didn’t mean people had to take the money. Let me ask you this – if someone offers you pot, does it mean you need to smoke it? Of course not, my point is there are many things that are offered in life that you don’t actually need or might not be in your best interest to accept. And it is up to you to say no when it doesn’t make sense or feel right, in this case – not many people said no and borrowed as much as the bank was willing to give.

Why didn’t people say no or only take what they needed? Perhaps it felt good to have more than what was needed, or perhaps people are not used to asking themselves is this really what I need?

Perhaps it’s a balance issue and that if people had the skills to be clear about what is important to them and understand why it is important they might make different choices. Was it really about having a bigger house, or was it about not knowing how to fill the homes people already had with things you can’t buy.

Balance in Chaos

According to the BBC today, “Wall Street has lost more than a fifth of its value in the past 10 trading days and is heading for one of its biggest weekly falls since the Dow Jones index was created 112 years ago.” Gulp.

Times are crazy and right now and as I see it the need for a personal balance is critical as so much of the world feels out of balance. If you are like most people you might be trying to figure out what you can do and you want to jump right into action and try to “fix the problem” – which is a natural human reaction. It’s important to remember that if you spend all your energy all day long trying to fix something you can’t control – or even influence- you’re in danger of running yourself into the ground, which is bad for your mind, body, sprit not to mention your job, family and community.

I’m no expert here – but I my gut tells me if people who are facing foreclosure, bankruptcy, job uncertainly, dwindling in saving or 401(K) accounts, might want to take some time to play with their children, focus on a hobby or enjoy the beautiful fall colors of October. I’m pretty sure it won’t cause any harm, mostly likely the world won’t even miss the fear and anxiety of millions of people.

So go be – enjoy all that is in front of you today and this weekend. I encourage you to find balance in an unbalanced world in a way that works for you. You might be surprised how your perspective on life might change – if even only for a few hours.

Wikipedia on Work Life Balance

Very interesting stuff listed on Wikipedia under Work Life Balance …. Did you know that according to Wikipedia, “The first enforceable hours' law in the United States was in 1874 when Massachusetts enacted a law which limited the amount of time that women and children could work each week. This limit was set at sixty hours per week.” Read more

balance - group and self

The other night I was chatting with a friend of mine who is a wicked sharp intuitive coach type and we were brainstorming ways we could work together. The conversation brought me to a big idea about balance that I had not thought of before. There is balance of an individual and there is balance of a group. I know it’s a really simple idea and might seem very obvious to many, but hear me out on this.

Sometimes an individual is out of balance and they feel tension in all areas of their life – and sometimes an individual might have pretty solid internal balance – but the team they work on, or family they are part of are out of balance – thus creating a different type of tension. And sometimes an individual might not know which area of balance to address only that they have tension in their life.

In one example boundaries need to be set with the self to make choices that line up with internal values – in the other boundaries need to be set with others to support the values of the group. Both examples involve boundary setting – however the way to go about setting the boundaries is different. One is internal reflection about your own needs and the other is external awareness around how your needs intersect with those around you.

Either way internal awareness is needed though sometimes the path is a deeper internal reflection, that is the area my friend is a master at, and other times, once the internal needs are at least bobbing around the surface, the way those needs comingle with others can be addressed, you guessed it the area where my work is focused.

I don’t know what shape our potential partnership might take -I don know that that for a individual to have balance – we both have a role to play.

Over e-mail

It is nice to know that I’m not alone in the world with how I’ve been feeling about e-mail the last year. There is just too damn much of it. It seems that more and more people are hiding behind e-mail in place of face to face interaction and that many are using it to cover their butts so they can avoid accountability for their decisions. Even worse I’ve seen e-mail bullying on the rise – where people use it as an intimation tool, writing things they’d never say in a meeting to obtain group by in. I was a mid level no one in the corporation I left and there were days I’d get upwards of 400 mails. I got to a point where I felt like my job was to answer e-mail, I lived in my inbox out of survival for my job. (I don’t even want to think about all the nights in front of the TV – I plugged away, chasing the elusive under 50 unopened mails before turning in for the night.)

Yesterday, there was an article in the Seattle Times, The e-mail inbox is falling out of favor that stated, “According to a growing number of academics, "technologists" and psychologists, our dependence on e-mail — the need to attend to a constantly beeping inbox — is creating anxiety in the workplace, adversely affecting the ability to focus, diminishing productivity and threatening family bonds.”

The best part of the whole article for me was, “Timothy Ferriss, author of "The 4-Hour Workweek," says that what's wrong with e-mail is that it simulates forward motion but doesn't necessarily mean action.” I think he nailed it – and it explains why hundreds of thousands of people come home every night from the office and don’t feel like they accomplished a thing.

Enjoy the article and as a little game ask yourself next time you send a mail – why you are choosing e-mail as your communication tool.

Back at it

So I’ve been off the blog for a bit. Not because I’m working too much –or I stopped caring about this because I left my corporate perch, quite the opposite. I’ve been on the down low because I’ve been wrestling with how to blog about work life balance and create a program for balance at the same time without making this blog sound like a marketing mouth piece for my business.
So I stopped posting until I got comfortable with how to write about the journey, not the program, and still produce some hopefully relevant observations to ponder.

I’m collecting lots and lots of observations on the subject. It might be because I’ve been interviewing people on the subject nonstop for the last 2 months, regardless – I'm seeing many things. When people discover what I’m working on – they have thoughts to share – deep, intimate thoughts rooted in emotional struggle and difficult choices they’ve had to make. I’m also finding that the people who have the fewest thoughts on the subject are the ones who need to talk about it the most.

I spoke to a room full of people a few months back on some simple principles around creating boundaries for balance – at one point in my presentation I thought a few of the women in the room were going to cry – and I thought – holy shit – this is big – people want to know they are not alone and they want a forum where it’s ok to admit – they can’t do it all. It was an incredibly powerful moment – a moment I realized I have a new level of responsibility with developing this program. I feel a greater sense of responsibility for the authenticity in what I’m saying and doing and am driving hard to create an opportunity for others to be real with themselves and create a new future that is different from the past.

Pill Popping

A disturbing headline this morning - More Americans are taking prescription medications. In the article it stated that, “Americans buy much more medicine per person than any other country.” And Medco's data show “ that last year, 51 percent of American children and adults were taking one or more prescription drugs for a chronic condition, up from 50 percent the previous four years and 47 percent in 2001.”

Wow.

I can’t help but wonder, if people had the tools and framework in place to maintain a more balanced life and learned at a young age how to set healthy boundaries around their needs if the number of people taking prescription medicine would drop. My gut tells me yes. I will use this as my inspiration today as I continue to create a program for people to build a path to finding balance in their lives.

Here is to balance being fun and pill free.

Fun

That’s right. I’m having fun. More fun than I’ve had working in years. So much fun that I haven’t had time to blog – though it’s on my mind quite a bit – as I’m spending a lot of my time creating a program for companies to teach employees how to have better work life balance. I justify that it’s ok I haven’t posted in days because I’m still honoring the content and the reason why I left my job. I’d like to post more and I have no doubt that I will as I keep getting in my groove.

The groove is even more than it’s cracked up to be – better than I fantasized it those many days I felt chained to my desk not in control of future. Sure I’ve had some technology challenges and I had near meltdown over managing my time across 3 calendars -other than that – I’m learning where and when I like work – I see patterns emerging and my I swear my skin looks younger.

In the month since I left my corporate gig – there are some days I work more than others – some weekends I work and some I don’t – the work is getting done -it’s fun because it’s about the work not the politics. I’m doing more than “fitting in” softball games, afternoons playing the park and lunch dates with my sweetie – they are becoming part of my groove – that and working out late afternoon and staying in my yoga pants while I response to e-mail with dinner cooking on the stove.

Yup – balance is brining the fun back.

Stressed out Workers

I will let this article speak for its self.

“People under great stress release hormones and nerve chemicals that weaken the immune system, rendering them more susceptible to illness, said Dr. Esther Sternberg, who studies the effects of stress at the National Institute of Mental Health. Stress can also slow the body's ability to heal wounds, she said.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004372494_stressdiet25.html

I know it was from last week – ironic it has taken me this long to post huh?

People Centered Work Life

It’s been over a week since I left the comfortable confines of my corporate job and I feel almost suspended equally between all that has changed and all that has remained the same. I don’t receive a salary any more – but I am still working for many of the same people and the money is still coming from the same cookie jar. What is different is me and my attitude – I own me now. And it’s intoxicating the freedom of deciding where I want to work and when, and yes I even managed to sneak away to the driving range one afternoon this week.

One habit I have yet to break it checking my phone for e-mails a few times an hour. It took 2 days for the exchange server to cut ties with my synced e-mail on my phone and I still out of habit grab my phone and look to see what mails I can quickly go through. While standing in the airport on a business trip yesterday I was jealous of all the folks fiddling with mail on their phones. I kept staring at mine thinking mail might appear – but not really wanting it to .

It’s not like I won’t ever sync my phone to my e-mail again – I’m sure I will – only I like to think if I do my behavior will somehow be more mindful surrounding why I need to actually check mail on my phone and when I do it. That said t is a nice diversion when you are waiting around in a long line.

Speaking of phones – I’m trying a new experiment – to use mine more as an actual phone. I’m still coming to terms with years of e-mail overload and out of fear of quickly returning to having an inbox as jammed as the one I just left – I’m going to try and use the phone more to get business done.

It’s already freaking people out a bit – and proving to be very effective – as it’s so surprising to the folks I’m calling – that I’m actually calling them. I like the personal feel it has – somehow I feel more connected to what I am asking people for or what they want of me.

The hope is to bring the human element back into my professional life – which is so odd being that my work is centered around strategic communications. I’m going old school. Who knows maybe I’ll start sending people faxes next month.

Think About it

The last day was so strange – so anticlimactic. It was odd they way people already began working around me – “Oh, you are leaving – who should I e-mail then?” No other conversation in the middle –I could just hear the subtext in their heads – because I played it in mine when I was on the other side.

“Just move out of the way so I can keep getting my work done – don’t you know I have commitments I need to make good on so I can have a good review and make more money– you are no longer relevant to my work and therefore I no longer need to make nice with you – so please tell me – who should I contact to get my work moving?”

It was fitting my last meeting was with a consultant that was hired to work with me on one of the projects I agreed to keep working on. This person I actually worked with in my first job at the company and he broke up with the company a couple years ago for many of the same reasons.

He gave me some advice I that I knew the moment he said it would stick with me for years to come and help me guide as I grow my consulting business. I’m paraphrasing here – his message was – though it’s tempting finically - don’t get too busy with too much work – you are a valuable consultant to this company because you have time to think about things – to push back and make suggestions to your clients. They pay you to think because they are too busy steeped in fire drills and politicking to have the time to think. That is your value as a consultant – that you have time to think about the projects. I love that.

I feel 20 pounds lighter today – some of that might be the result of my day at the spa yesterday celebrating this evolution mixed with the mental freedom I feel having more of a say in how I spend my time and having created the space to be able to think about the projects I’m hired to do.

The last day

The world appears very quite in this moment. My office walls are naked. Clear tacks are randomly dot my cork board holding nothing in place. My lamps have been packed way and the harsh overhead light makes my office feel cold and yellowish. I’m listening to hallway conversations take place for projects I no longer care about and the urgency seems very obtuse to me right now. I’m minutes from walking out on my last day as a corporate employee to evolve my life in the direction I’ve dreamed about for years. I’m sad and excited all in the same moment. A beginning and ending at the same time.

For the first time in 4 years I have zero items in my inbox, my sent folder and my drafts folder. My hard drive has been wiped of anything that might allude that I, me, this individual had that computer and my life tucked away on it for years. The hours I spent banging away on the keyboard, the late nights, Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons – no trace at all on the still shinny HP, that is no doubt already scheduled to go to someone else.

In an instant I deleted thousands of e-mails – and felt tiny pieces of my corporate ego fall into the recycle bin along side. I spent a good amount of time trying to reason with my self why I needed to keep my sent e-mail from 2004 and like a toddler my hand acted impulsively and hit the delete button before my mind had reached a conclusion and I smiled and kept deleting. And now I am uncluttered – my space – my mind – my computer is empty – open and clean to accept what is next.

Good bye corporate life – thank you for all that you have taught me and all that I have learned.

Separation Anxiety

You’d think I was leaving a cult or something given what I’ve been writing and feeling about leaving my corporate job. Not only am I having this personal soft moment and romancing the idea of the working for a large corporation – some sr leaders in the company have gotten wind of my departure and have taken that time to seek me out in an attempt to sway my thinking.

I was blown away by the fact my CVP spent 30 minutes in my office trying to understand my position on why I wanted to change my relationship with the company. I have a tremendous amount of respect for this woman and was quite frankly honored by the complimentary things she said about my work performance and her genuine care for me to make a solid choice about my professional future. It was really a great feeling.

When I explain it was just as much about striving to gain work life balance AND having time to develop a program for others like me to learn how to have better balance and boundaries – her response was that I stay at the company and develop the pilot program for her organization as part of my job. I was speechless. What an incredible offer – one that monkeyed with my head all day and all night long.

The temptation is great and for half of the day I actually entertained the idea. I’m going to resist it and bet on my plan. I’ve committed to myself to go on this new journey and I’m not going to go back out on my word to myself. Nor am I going to back out on my commitment to my new vendor company, my new clients (which includes another CVP at the company) or my future vision I want to build for my life.

I have to keep going forward and push for a life with more freedom in my schedule, more financial reward in proportion to the work I do and give myself the chance to develop a program that has the potential to have a huge positive impact on people’s lives.

It’s good to feel wanted and valued and it’s good to see that others believe in me as much as I believe in myself. To be honest -I would have been disappointed if no one tried to tempt me to stay – I didn’t expect it would be my CVP and her GMs - and that's really cool. It comes down to this – if I stay I would always wonder what I could have built - and I don’t want to look back even in 3 years and regret not taking a gamble on myself.

And I pledge to myself that I will pilot my program in my CVP’s organization because weather I’m an employee or a vendor I think deep down she supports the idea and knows her organization could only be made stronger by balanced employees.

Romanticizing the Relationship

Yesterday there was an event for all the professionals in the marketing communication discipline at the company I work for – in all there were 7,000 people invited to the event. It was a big event – our CEO gave the keynote – infused the group with energy about what a great time it is to be a marketer at this company and how we have the opportunity with all the tools we have to fundamentally shift how marketing is done in a digital world. Then our SVP of marketing talked in more detail about how we can do it and spent a good part of her talk on career development.

I saw people I hadn’t seen in years and connected with past mentors – I cautiously told people of my plans to become a consultant and change my relationship with the company. The reactions were consistent– how could you leave the family? Why would you do something like that? Once work life balance worked its way into the conversation – I became their therapist – they totally understand and wish they could have better balance and don’t have the “guts” to do what I’m doing. The reject then embrace responses made me feel odd – so I stopped telling people midway through the day.

I came home from the event in a funk. I was even second guessing my decision – and embracing all the great things about the company – grasping the opportunities I have to be part of a fundamental shift in how communication is done with new digital tools. I already missed the fact I wouldn’t be able to attend this event next year given my vendor status. I was thinking about how cool some of the people are and I was appreciative of so many great training programs.

I was sharing all this with my partner who bluntly looked at me and said in simple relationship terms – your romanticizing a relationship that doesn’t exist – you’re like the abused spouse who forgot the pain of the last beating – it wasn’t even a year ago the paramedics peeled you off the floor when you collapsed from over work. And it was just this last weekend you had to work instead of go to a baseball game (he didn’t say that – I added the last part – because I still feel guilty).

He was right – I’m holding on to the idea of what I wanted it to be like and not being truthful with myself about the reality. I still love many things about the company and that is why letting go is hard – because it’s admitting the relationship didn’t work out the way I wanted it to – letting of the idea is sometimes harder the putting up with the crap.

In short – he said get it over and move on – there is no need to doubt what I am doing – but it’s ok to mourn the loss of the idea. He reminded me I will find a new community of marketers and communication professionals to pontificate the future.

After all when you clear the space of the old negative – you create new space for the new positive to enter your life. I need to clear this space so I can fill it with energy and passion to develop work life balance curriculum so others can have these same conversations with themselves about what is really important. It's ok to let go.

The Fantasy of Balance

Regardless if you work for a corporation, yourself or you don’t work at all – deep down we all think about the things we’d do better or change if only we have more time to do it. The last few weeks have left me feeling a bit inadequate as a friend, lover and business person, so the other night I began thinking about the things I want to do better given this new chance to mold my day when my consulting business starts full time. The illusion is I will have more time or rather I will be more in control of my time to really own decisions for how I balance my life.

Some random things I’d like to change, do or strive for:

answer my emails the same day I get them
call friends I haven't talked to in months to just say hello in the afternoon
send thank you note for the little things
send birthday gifts on time and plan enough so they won't always come last minute from Amazon.com
return calls the day I get them
go out to an early dinner and have one too many glasses of wine before 6pm
workout in the middle of the day
buy groceries at the Wednesday farmer’s market
meet friends for lunch
conduct business in coffee shops
write on my blog in the mornings
pick up the phone in place of writing e-mails
have fun
work from the boat a couple days a month
celebrate how cool my job is
be grateful for the problems I have

Happy Business Birthday to WLB

Been a bit since I’ve been able to post – have been sucked in by the corporate machine – days jammed with meetings, overflowing e-mails and the last 2 weekends I’ve ended up working a few hours. I have walked into the house at the end of the day on at least 3 conference calls barely acknowledging family. One night I felt so guilty about breaking my own boundaries – I stood outside in the drive way for 30 minutes to finish a call before walking in.

At the same time I’m giving in a bit slightly out of guilt knowing that April 15 is my last day as a full time employee with my company. As I mentioned, I’m leaving to start my own consulting company and my first contract begins on April 17, ironically (and on purpose) with current employer. (hold your comments and let me explain)

I won’t lie – it was just easier that way and the money is too good to turn down. Using the relationship example - I look at it like we are a couple in counseling now and maybe I’ll be able to stay in the relationship now that I’ve set my boundaries - or maybe I will file for divorce – only time will tell. For now consulting for my current company was the best step I could take to begin forming the balanced life I aspire to.

Today is the official birthday (paper work filling and fee paying day) of my WLB Consulting Group, LLC. Get it – WLB - Work Life Balance Consulting Group – sounds corporate enough where I have 3 partners and meaningful enough to me to remember why I am doing this.
The ultimate goal with WLB is to create, teach and distribute content that will help people ask the questions they need to identify what balance means to them and the tools to take accountably to achieve that balance. (More to come on this in the coming months as I have 2 brewing partnerships to support this direction that I will blog about once they are finalized)

To pay the bills and support that long term goal of WLB – I will be offering consulting services to help business improve the way they communicate to each other and generate awareness around how a business is perceived by its employees, partners and customers through communication and perception audits, content create and so on.

It’s amazing how much my attitude about my work has changed looking at my endless piles of to do’s now as clearly defined scopes of work that I can bill for and seeing my co-works now as potential clients. I seem to like everyone and everything a bit better.

E-mail Overload – You’re Not Alone

In case you needed more validation than conversations with co-workers – being buried in your in-box is a global work productivity issues. A firm in the UK estimated that dealing with pointless e- mails is costing them £39m a year. Some companies have gone as far as to hire e-mail consults and create e-mail free days. (Note to self: add e-mail consulting to list of new services for my business.) Not only has that but the article stated that Britons take 14 million sick days due to stress every year and that can be related to too much e-mail and having it available to you 24x7x365 on a variety of devices.

The article also mentions Ray Tomlinson who in 1971 ( that is 36 years ago for those slow at math) wrote the code that enable him to send e-mail between two computers.
E-mail might have been created 36 years ago – however it only been 15 years (give or take) that businesses began adapting as it a communication tool. It’s odd now to even consider business without e-mail.

I think back to my first job out college where our company was just building a Website and trying to figure out how to make it more than a brochure on the computer. Somehow without e-mail I managed to sell a great deal of print advertising for a national magazine using my personal charm in meetings or by phone and a fax machine to close deals. I wonder if I would have sold more or less ads if had been using e-mail at the time.

Now most companies use e-mail as the primary communication tool to do everything – talk to clients, make deal, communicate to employees and now employees us it as a proactive way to protect themselves from bad deals, angry clients or back stabbing co-workers. (Which I’m convinced doubles the amount of e-mail in my in-box.)

Maybe they should change CC in Outlook to CYA – because that is the primary reason people add someone the CC line. Which makes me wonder how did people cover their asses before e-mail?

About Balance

Balance is different for everyone – the questions that get you there are the same

The idea of balance is not taught at school

The concept of balance in not disused in most families

The practice of balance is not reinforced by current American business models

The need for balance is essential to heath and well being

Balance at work is marketing speak for recruiters

Most introductions to balance come from a crisis of imbalance

Learning balance is a hard

When one area of life is in balance another goes out of balance

There is no end point for being in balance it’s always evolving

Balance is like unconditional love – you know when you have it and it requires honoring yourself to experience it fully

Expectations

Expectations are a dangerous thing – especially if you don’t communicate to other people what they are. Obviously this is true in romantic relationships – we’ve all seen (or maybe been in) the scenario where one partner has an expectation they fail to express and then they are mad and confused when the other partner fails to meet that expectation. Or worse – the expectations become so high that over time one partner expects the other partner to fulfill every need they have. (For many reasons this second scenario has disastrous results as it’s unrealistic to expect one human can meet every changing and dynamic needs of another - no matter how pure and genuine the love – it’s just not realistic.)

Just like it’s not realistic to think one company can meet every one of a person’s professional expectations. Working for a company is a lot like being in a romantic relationship. First you have to define what you want in the partner (company) and then date, (interview) to see if there is a match. When a match is found the courting, (working) begins and all is great –you meet the family (team) experience the honeymoon phase that leads to marriage (promotion).

One partner (company) is usually really clear on communicating expectations and giving feedback on if they are being met (review and compensation). The other partner (employee) is really good at being reactive (high performing) and attentive (dedicated) to the expressed needs.

All is great – one partner (company) is having their needs meet and the other (employee) is being rewarded for their behavior. This is great if the attentive partner (employee) is communicating their expectations (career path, training, promotion timeline) and a healthy relationship dialog is occurring.

However from what I’ve seen in the corporate world most times this looks like toxic relationship and at some point the attentive partner (employee) realizes that they have their own needs and because they were trying to impress the other partner (company) they forgot to communicate their expectations as the relationship grew and evolved and their expectations are no longer being met. And maybe by then the expectations were so huge that there was no way the partner (company) could ever fulfill them because the other (employee) wanted all their previously un-communicated expectations fulfilled whether it was rational or not for the other (company) to fulfill.

Be clear on the expectations you have for your company to meet, ask yourself if they are realistic and if you have clearly stated what they are – if not take the chance – you might be surprised what might happen if you are clear about what you want.

Making it Work

I’ve started this entry about 10 times now. I want to say so many things and at the same time I’m so over talking, writing and thinking about balance as it applies to my silly little drama. I need a balance break.

I see people at work way more senior then I spread so thin I wonder who’d they be without work. I see how they only fill their lives with work – all night, every weekend, all the time. I see how they look down on those with children as under achievers, and make snide comments when a parent makes a balance choice. I hear the rude remarks and it’s disgusting.

I see a friend with 3 young children face cancer for the second time and struggle with the need to hang on to his benefits to afford treatment knowing work takes precious time away from his family. I see self employed friends and family fight just as hard to build a business and make time for each other as any corporate working stiff.

And I see myself letting go, giving in to the notion my experiment with my company has already failed. I’ve given up on the hope that I can be in balance and work for a company that is out of balance. I just don’t like the way it feels so it doesn’t matter if it’s possible or not. It’s like being a vegetation chef in a steak house kitchen – why would anyone do that? And any curiosity around if it could work for the sake a good essay or two – is long gone.

I pulled the trigger a few weeks ago and now the gun is going off – I’m starting a consulting business and I want to keep this dialog going. My intent is to tell other people’s stories here – not the doom gloom of too many hours and e-mail overload but the positive solutions and ideas from people who are making it work. Because it can work it – you just have to want it to.

The Devil You Know

I thought the journey to finding balance was going to be much easier once I had accepted accountability for my own actions. I thought that having the awareness mixed with setting boundaries and saying no was going to be the hardest part of the journey. I was naïve to think it was that simple.

Now that I see the world in a different way – I can’t unsee it and go back to the way it was before. It’s like when you are looking to buy a new car, you become aware of all the cars like that one on the road when before you hadn’t noticed how many (enter car name here) were driving around.

Now that I’ve tasted the succulent flavors of balance - I’ve become almost allergic to the smell of mania and bitter bite of craziness around me at the office. It’s making me physically anxious like I’ve eaten a bowl of candy and chased it with a pot of coffee.

It’s more than that – I’ve become even more aware of the balance struggle among my friends and family – and I realized I live in a half world mixed with those who inspire me to move forward on this journey and those who’d like me to just shut up and stop talking about it because they are still in that denial, self preservation mode making my ramblings a threat.

Which extends the thought of balance past the work environment to the home environment – and how the interpersonal workings of a family and friend network can be just as disruptive to ones sense of balance as a toxic work environment can be. And moving forward from that type of balance disturbance can be even trickier than changing jobs or saying no to a boss because you are dealing with deep emotions, obligations and years of history.

For many – being out of balance is all they know and even the idea of being in balance – causes panic. Change is hard – especially when it’s for the better – because there is no “better” comparison to mirror – no understanding of what a positive change will feel like. And that creates fear – and fear creates indecision and tolerance of toxic situations – weather it be at home or work. It’s the whole devil you know thinking.

In the end it always goes back accountability for yourself. Ask yourself - do you want to live with the devil you know or are you ready for the pitch fork to be removed from your ass?

Sage Wisdom

Not much time today to write – another day of back to back meetings and over 130 mails in my in box. I felt so passionately about a comment a wise woman posted a couple of days ago that I wanted to surface it so everyone can benefit.

“So many people spend the first half of their life earning all their wealth, losing half their health, then the last half of their life spending all their wealth gaining back their health (often never getting it back). Don't lose it in the first place.”

No need to say more.

Work life Balance or a Balanced life?

Is apprising to achieve work life balance the same thing as aspiring to have a balanced life? That is the question that came up this weekend while I was in Vegas. The answer to this question is ground zero on the topic. I think that work life balance and living a balanced life are two different thing – albeit related concepts that go hand and glove, they are different realities – different mental states of being.

Like addition or loss I see steps here. First there is awareness that things are not working they way they are, the recognition the dam is going to break. The easy default is to examine work – because there is an obvious villain to blame – and it takes up so much of our time it makes sense to start there. Then amendments are made – a week or two is taken for vacation, a sick day – finger in the dike solutions.

Next phase is personal accountability – the vacation was nice – but now setting boundaries and say no is needed – and the relationship with work begins to change. Then a peaceful state of accomplishment – for a short while – a little balance honeymoon if you will – until you feel the leaks – the water slowing dripping in – you realize you are still not living the life you want. Somehow you still don’t have time for the kids, your spouse, education, family, hobbies – whatever it is you wanted to do to feel more in balance.

The last stage, the dam breaks – and water gushes everywhere - it’s not work that needs to be in balance or your relationship with the company you work at that needs to be examined – it’s you that needs to balanced and your relationship with all parts of yourself that need attention. There is no villain here to blame – no bad company or mean manager - just you in a kayak with some hard choices to make to get to your peaceful island of balance.

For some these choices are quitting a job, moving to smaller community, giving up income to become a full time mother/father, opening a small business, pursuing a passion – they all require a fundamental life shift that go way beyond the notion of putting work in balance.

Which brings me back to the question at hand - I believe that in order to have deep sustaining work life balance – one must first be on the road to inner balance or they will paddle around in circles.

Everyone’s Got a Story

Since I started posting I’ve been receiving many e-mails from people who can relate to long hours and feeling drained. Just last night I was talking with friends over dinner and one of them had worked 10 days in a row about 10 hours a day on the 11th day – burnt out and stayed in bed. Another friend talked about leaving home at 5;30am to avoid commuter traffic and staying at work until 6 or 7pm. That’s a long week that doesn’t allow much time for anything other than work.

These friends are not alone – I know at least 10 people, who keep similar schedules and I’m sure you know just as many too. How many of you have family members, friends or loved ones who constantly miss events because of work or are “too tired” to do anything on weekends? It doesn’t matter where people work – I think it’s the same feeling if you are bagging groceries, own a business or are playing corporate games.

What last night’s conversation made me think about is that work life balance isn’t just about the individual it’s also extends to family, friends and community. The impact rolls through society - “I had to work”, has become such a common and acceptable excuse for missing life events – most people don’t think twice about what this means.

My guess is we as a society and individuals are in denial about how impactful this dis-balance has become. This denial – is preservation in many ways. The self denial at least for me was what keep me moving forward everyday – the family denial is what keeps arguments from happening and a false sense of harmony in the home – the community denial is what keeps psychologists in business.

And once you stop the denial – in some ways you become a threat to those around you. Those who are steeped in the cycle don’t want to be challenged. When I started leaving work at by 5:30pm there wasn’t a huge amount of support from anyone. A few people even asked if I was sure that was “ok” to do. When I stated challenging my friends for working on weekends – their responses were chilly and worst yet when friends blew me off for dinners and coffee – I called them out on it. Just like many of my “out-of-denial” friends has done to me months before.

When I was deep in the zone I had 2 friends who actually put me on “probation” because I had missed so many engagements with them. And for what? To sit at my desk alone and write a document that no one really cared about for a product that wasn’t going to save the world, anyone’s life or do anything that special. What in the world was I thinking when I made the choice those documents were more important than, friends, family and myself?

Preservation is what I was thinking.

Pulling the Trigger

Because balance is so subjective – I want to be clear what I mean by balance and set a common understanding that most who read this blog can identify with. Simply put work life balance is not having to choose one at the expense of the other. To me it means operating in a place where it’s not one or the other – but a blending of the two supporting each other.

For me that means making it to family events on time, every time, with no lame, “sorry I had to work” excuses. It also means having clear start and stop times for work, working smarter not harder while at work, not being exhausted by the time the weekend comes so I have energy left to engage with friends and family. Most importantly it’s not feeling like my career will take a hit if I attend to my health needs or the health needs of those I love – doctor appointments, gym time, sick days and so on.

I might have just tanked my career this week because I’m naïve enough to think that I might be the one in my group of over 1,200 to make a difference. I took a stand and said the meetings were too much, the workload too much and the expectations on my role too unrealistic. Deep down I was prepared to leave my salary, my benefits and walk out the door to become a consultant in an effort to gain balance in my life. It’s just that important to me.

The counter offer at first was to go part time – which made me realize my manager was completely missing the point or wanting making it an easy solution for the team. This isn’t about working less – it’s about changing my relationship with the company to one of mutual respect for each other’s time and value. The next suggestion was take time off – and come back refreshed – again not the point – I don’t need time off - I need clear work goals, less politics and time to do my work. The final offer was we conduct an “experiment” and I work remotely 3 days a week – but we don’t tell anyone.

What the hell? I have nothing to lose. So back to the million dollar question – can I with awareness for my accountability in work life balance riddle – live a balanced life if my company is out of balance regardless of the physical time I spend in the office? The meeting requests won’t stop, nor will the late night and weekend e-mails or endless scope change.

You might be thinking just leave already find a different job, become a consultant or whatever and get over it. Maybe you are right – it’s the type A entrepreneur overachiever in me that wants to see what will happen if I push the comfort zone in this relationship. You could say at this point I'm just poking the bear. Maybe I am.

It’s a Bit You and Mostly Me

It has been 6 months since I hit the work wall both literally and metaphorically. The first 3 months of that fall out I faced the cold truth and accepted it was me that was at fault not my company. Which speaks to a comment made on an earlier posting – the company didn’t force me to work all those hours and expend all that energy – I forced myself to do it based on my perception of what the company expected out of me.

Out of this experience I’ve come to believe there are 2 parts to the work life balance riddle. The first is personal accountability, being able to set boundaries and give push back and the other is working in a culture that doesn’t reward unhealthy work behavior like working late night and long weeks.

Personal accountability in this area was really hard for me to accept- given I’m a type A entrepreneurial overachiever. Saying “no” to work is the second hardest thing I’ve done at my job in the 4 years I’ve been at the company. I thought my peers or management might perceive me as incompetent, a slacker or an underperformer. I might be seen as weak if I say no and my own colleagues would compete harder against me for promotion and bonus dollars, and maybe even make a play to get me off the team if I dragged team performance down by saying “no”.

By far hardest thing I’ve done since that hot night in Orlando was leave my office by 5:30pm everyday no matter what project I was working on. That was hard for 2 reasons – the underperformer perception I just mentioned – but more importantly – the fact I had nothing to go home to because I has spent the last 38 months doing nothing but working late at night and on weekends. And truth be told working on a document at 7pm at night is a hell of a lot easier than being faced with an empty condo and no plans. It’s not that I didn’t have friends – I did – it’s that they were all working. Isn’t there a saying somewhere that we surround ourselves with people like ourselves?

And that was exactly what I had done – I had built and entire life around being consumed with and defined by work – my friends were all on the same fast track – the men I dated – were running the same race – which made it really easy for me to escape accountability – when I missed dinners or didn’t talk to my friends for weeks on end – it was ok – because they treated me the same way. And that was the thrid collapse –me alone on my kitchen floor – no paramedics – just me accepting the life I’d constructed.

The first 3 months I accepted my part – changed teams, set boundaries, said no, and begun to create a life outside of work. The last 3 months I’ve been trying to solve the second part of the riddle – the work environment part. I can set all the boundaries I want – say no all the time – and still end up in back to back meetings days on end receiving e-mail from my colleagues at 2am or Sunday afternoon.

Leaving me with the million dollar question – can an individual who accepts accountability for their part in work life balance – live a balance life if the place they work is out of balance? I don’t know the answer – but I know I’m about to find out over the next few months and capture the experience on this blog.

A Humid Summer Night in Orlando

It was a hot summer night in the Amway Arena in Orlando, Florida the first time I collapsed from exhaustion directly contributed to the hours I was working and the immense stress I was under managing a particular project. Yes, I said the first time, which implies and confirms there was a second.

The second time was 2 days later, only that time I didn’t lose consciousness and the paramedics didn’t come like they did in Orlando. That time a trusted colleague scooped me up in the unintelligible puddle I was and drove me home at which point I took a forced 2 week “vacation” at the strong urging of medical professionals.

My doctor said my body was in adrenal failure. He also said that my job was killing me. He didn’t write me a prescription for any drug because there were none to take for my condition. What was wrong was my job and his medical advice was to get a new one, working 40 hours a week with a lower level of pressure and expectations around my performance. It was a rather alarming few days followed by my shrink and my Chinese medicine doctor both saying the same thing. “Your job is slowing killing you.”

Where do you go from there? Really – what comes next? I didn’t quit, though looking back that might have been the best thing for me to make a clean break. It’s difficult to say because the hardest lesson is the one I’m facing now and that is facing the truth that the experience fundamentally changed my core and altered my tolerance for toxic environments, what is important to me and how I view work.

Because I was addicted to the glamour (if you can call it that) of the job, the ego and the lifestyle, and to be quite honest I was emotionally lost, I stayed at the company. I did switch jobs, twice now in fact, am I’m still not clear why I haven’t left.

I’m sure part of it is I wanted to prove it was me that needed fixing and if could learn to set healthy boundaries and define “work life balance” that my ego and lifestyle would remain fed and my relationship with the company would be fine again. What I missed was once I defined work life balance – I saw clearly the relationship with the company no longer meet my needs. And here I sit, trying to figure out how to break up with a corporate giant – how do you say to a corporation, “No really, it’s not you – it’s me?”

Stop the Madness

I have what many people would consider a difficult and challenging job. I work for one of the world’s top five most powerful and recognized companies, in a high pressure role interacting with corporate vice presidents, communicating business strategies attached to billions of dollars in revenue, surrounded by high performers with type A plus, plus, plus personalities.

From the minute I hit my office to the minute I undock my laptop I run at 110 percent mental capacity. On any given day 50-100 e-mails might cross my desk. And no, there is no junk mail that makes it through our firewall – these are direct specific mails most of which I need to take an action on, usually within that day. The cultural at the company is always online, always on mail, always connected – so the expectation for replying to mail within hours is a company standard.

As if the e-mail load wasn’t stressful enough – I’m in meetings on average between 5-6 hours a day – at times I go days in a row packed back to back with meetings – no lunch, no breaks, no time to answer e-mail - I’m lucky if I can figure out how to pee and grab an apple off my desk.
The other day, when I was feeling partially spun up and exhausted – I counted that in a four week time period – I only had eight hours of non meeting time, divided into 30 minute chunks over 20 days. That’s not a lot of time to actually do my job, which requires time to think, process, write, build plans and find/motivate people to execute against them. That’s hard to do in 8 hours a month.

You might think by reading this I’m important at the company, maybe I’m a vice president or in a visible leadership position. You are mistaken – I’m a no body at the company – there are thousands of me here. Though I’m senior in my role and career – I’m in the sandwich world between the big money and the little money – the big thinker jobs and the little tactical jobs – the company wouldn’t miss me if I left because there are hundreds of people waiting in line to have my job – and they remind me of that to keep my head down and focused.

This isn’t new to me – I’ve been at the company for 4 years. I’ve lived this reality everyday for 3 years and 9 months without a single question or hesitancy to rise to the challenge. Then one day something changed…

Work Life Balance – the ironic corporate cliché

For anyone who has ever spent any time in corporate America, knows someone in corporate America, sleeps with or is married to someone in corporate America – you’ve no doubt heard the over ripe buzz words “work life balance”. What these words actually mean I’m not quite sure, though I’m positive they go way beyond fancy boardrooms and contrived meeting spaces into auto shop locker rooms, big box store break rooms, teachers lounges and every water cooler in-between. This blog is dedicated to working stiffs everywhere who are sitting around having virtually the same conversation about their overworked, over scheduled, over stimulated, over budgeted lives regardless of industry, education, income or geography.