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.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
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.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
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?”
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?”
Friday, February 1, 2008
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…
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…
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