A trait of the innovator is an intensity of focus. Think about Thomas Edison sleeping in his laboratory or the engineers at Apple computer not sleeping for four days straight and living on pizza and coke. Boy, that really sounds glamorous and exciting, doesn’t it? Sure, as long as someone else is doing it. But for you and I:
I can’t be innovative because I have a family.
I don’t want to be a workaholic.
I want to have BALANCE.”
The pursuit of balance today is so important. (66%) of American and (77 %) British workers – that’s ¾ list their number one cause of stress as too heavy of a workload.
I’m just getting by,
I don’t have time to be innovative.
I spoke at a leadership seminar awhile back. I spoke in the morning and stayed for the afternoon session. The topic in the afternoon was life balance. The speaker was a psychologist. Her first exercise for the group was to have us break our time down for a week, on a percentage basis, among categories like time spent on work, family, health, hobbies, me, etc. The idea was that if we could have pretty equal percentages we were healthy and if we were lacking in a particular area it showed where we needed some work. Sounded good.
I tried the exercise but quickly became very frustrated. I just couldn’t break my time down that way.
One example is golf, which is a hobby and a passion. Ok, I’m addicted. I workout with specific exercises to support my hobby, I try to walk and carry my bag. A round is about 6 miles of walking. Is this health? I’ve built hugely successful personal and business relationships with people I’ve met while playing golf. Is this business or friends? My family also plays, so we play together. Is this family time? Is this a hobby? Is this work? Is this personal time? I couldn’t figure out how to do the exercise.
I was so frustrated, I stood up at great risk, because you see I had built a rapport with this audience all morning long, and asked the question – Dr., I’m really having trouble with this exercise, I need some help. She responded, “yes, perhaps you should schedule an appointment with my office.” Professional speakers can be so catty. But as we discussed the issue as a group, she adapted her presentation to acknowledge that there is more than one kind of balance.
Like the seamless connection of the four Personal Brilliance catalysts, we should seek a seamless balance for our lives.
Photo credit: clairity
