The Why VS the What

I was forwarded a very inspiriting video by Simon Sinek called “Start With Why”, of which he has a book of the same title. He says that “There are leaders and there are those that lead. Leaders hold a position of power and influence. Those who lead inspire us.”

Aside from this being required viewing for any entrepreneur, he has some great points about leaders and motivation. More than that I think his message also translate to those who are seeking better balance in their life – think of yourself as the organization he is talking about and ask yourself – what is you why, then look at you how’s and what’s and see where they line up. Time and time again I see in my workshops most people forget, or don’t even know, their own why’s.

Do you know your why?

Worst Place to Be a Mom

Now I’m not a mother, but I can tell you this news story still got my attention in a big way. According to a new survey compiled by Save the Children which analyzed a range of factors affecting the health and well-being of women and children, (health care, education and economic opportunities) the United States ranked 28 out of 160 countries. Norway, Australia, and Iceland were the top three counties to be a mom. One of the reasons provided for the U.S. position was that this country ranks behind many other wealthy nations in terms of the generosity of maternity leave policies. Bull’s eye right in the heart of a woman’s struggle work life balance. Even through the data shows that work life balance is no longer just a woman’s issue; studies like this are a good wake up call to the unique challenges women face around the choice to be a mother and have a career.

More on Stress

Stress is on my brain right now as I’m piloting a new workshop offering called SPUN Up that teaches people how to think about Stress in a proactive way. Let’s face it, we all have some level of stress in our lives and it’s not going away anytime soon, so we might as well learn how to make peace with the parts we can, let go of what we can’t do anything about, and have fun despite it.

A fellow workshop facilitator friend sent me an updated number about the cost of stress that is absolutely mind boggling. According to the American Institute of Stress, in the United States it’s estimated that stress costs $300 billion annually to U.S. business. The cost is attributed to “absenteeism, employee turnover, diminished productivity, medical, legal and insurance expenses and Workers' Compensation payments.” That is a whole lot of cash that could be used for innovation, education and maybe even higher salaries, if only people were more balanced with themselves and their work environments.

For those of you that work from someone, there is also a nifty little stress test on the site to measure how much stress you have. For those of you that work for yourself the questions are a good reminder to ask yourself what type of environment are you offering your employees and yourself.

Stressful Jobs

Last week I moved into a new office, a loft style space with 12 foot ceilings and my company name (Work Life Balance Consulting Group) on the door. The space is large enough that I can teach work life balance and stress management workshops onsite for about 15 people, and quite enough where I can get some great writing done. To my surprise the fire inspector showed up on my second day to take a look at the space, happily I passed inspection with flying colors. What was interesting about the experience was the conversation I had with the fire inspector on the topic of workplace stress.

Even though a new study posted on CNBC ranked firefighters as having the most stressful job, my firemen told a different story. He said most fire fighters are not that stressed in the same way corpraote workers are and that they have great work life balance for the most part, even though they have incredibly stressful jobs. Most of them pick these jobs not for the compensation but because they want to be of service and they want a flexible schedule, sure it’s hard living together with 10+ men sometimes, but the family/brotherhood aspects create a second type of compensation or payoff. My fireman friend went on to say that for highly stressful situations, ones that involve kids, intense hours still resulting in death and badly burned bodies the firemen in his district get same day stress counseling. They get together, talk about their feelings, vent a little, unload, debrief and move on. According to him, most of his peers deal with stress incredibly well because their jobs help put the little things into perspective.

Later that day I began to wonder if mangers in corporate America talked more openly about stress and the stress brought on by change if more employees would feel less stressed because their experiences and events would be out in the opened and acknowledge. What would happened if after a reorganization or layoff a work group did some sort of stress coaching?

Toxic Managers

A big part of work life balance is the people in your life, both in and out of work. When it comes to work, your relationship with your manager is extremely important when trying to set a stable balanced environment. Some good questions to ask yourself: Do you like your manager? Are you learning anything from them? How do they make you feel? What do you like/dislike about their management style?
Unfortunately not are bosses are inspiring or do their part to create a healthy working relationship. Having a toxic relationship with your manager can cause great amounts of stress and instability in your work life that will carry over to the rest of your life. I came across this article on Yahoo about how to recover from the “bad boss blues”, there are some good nuggets in here if this is a situation you are currently facing.

Listen to Your Body

The mind and the body are connected. We listen to our mind when it tells our body to do something, like walk, talk, jump, run type and so forth. Why then do we ignore our body when it tells our mind we are in need of a break and too much stress hormone is engulfing our body? I recently found a very simple power article by Women’s Day that covers 9 warning signs for stress in your body, that apply to men and men.

Multitasking is for Suckers

I didn’t use to believe that multitasking was a waste of time. I prided myself on being an amazing multitasker, able to juggle many things at once and hold multiple thoughts in my head while performing different actions. I thought I saved time. What was hard to admit was most times I ended up revisiting many of the tasks I was doing to finish them or fix them because I wasn’t fully completing any task.

In my research journey on work life balance I have found countless studies that prove multitasking is another way of saying “divided attention” and is a waste of time. There is something to be said for what I call level one multitasking which is more around the flow or organizing your day or your process in an effective manner. Like starting the laundry before you cook dinner or printing a long document out while you go grab a cup of coffee. A new study in Journal of Science reports that the brain actually “splits” in half to multitask and to do anything more than two things at once can result in irrational decisions because they are only being made with half of the brain.

I don’t know about you, for me I prefer to use my whole brain when making decisions. This article is a good reminder to stop and think even more when I’m tempted to divide my attention and do more than two things at a time.