Does Work/Life Balance Matter?

If I were to ask you the question “do you have a perfect life? I challenge you to consider what your answer would be? Few people dare to believe that their life is perfect, or for that matter, that they should be so entitled to live a perfect life.

It’s likely if I asked you if you feel you have a GOOD Life a much higher percentage of you would agree.

The tricky question is who controls the quality of life they live? If I challenged you to go out and start living the perfect life, is that a challenge beyond your control, or is it an obtainable quest? An equally important question is, should you be allowed such a blessing? For most people, that’s where we tend to get caught up. Are we worthy of living the perfect life? Or so we think.

But, If I gave you five minutes, a piece of paper and a pen, could you articulate precisely what your perfect life would look like? It’s kind of ironic that when you head off to an important work function I’m guessing that it’s not regular practice for you to hop in an Uber hoping that without a word the driver will know where you need to go? Instead, you define your destination, chose a route to get there, and follow that route. But for something as important as the path to living the perfect life, most of us fail to even clearly define what a perfect life looks like. For many, when we try to define it, we reflect on others, who we believe have a perfect life. The Jones’ who have a bigger house, a fancier car. Or maybe we look up to our favorite Hollywood star, living the jet set lifestyle. But what so many of us forget to do is consider what life would feed OUR soul, and bring purpose, fulfillment, inner peace to us?

Most studies conducted on this topic report that 5 to 10% of people claim to have a clear understanding of what they desire from life. In 2013 I confronted this very question as I reflected on my own life. I was enjoying considerable success in my career and was the classic definition of busy. In fact, I was so busy that I forgot to take the time to inventory my quality of life. I was fully embroiled in what I like to call the 9-5 to 65. I was travelling about 75-100 nights per year, hopping from one airport to another, in a quest to prove I was special, a prodigy perhaps. The person I was trying to prove it to… Myself. I was a dreamer as a kid, never taking much too seriously. Then I grew up and got a career. As I began to realize success in my career, I suddenly got really serious. I developed an addiction to winning, in an endless quest to be the best. Somehow, I seemed to believe that if I was the best at everything I did it would erase the memory of this less than serious kid who simply enjoyed life. It seemed like there was no space for both.

Now certainly there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the fruits of success. For most people in business, success is like a drug that feeds us, excites us and drives us. With every win, our brain produces dopamine, which is nature’s way of inspiring us to want to win again, and again.

That was me. I won sales contest after sales contest and managed to convince myself I was somebody. I started to get caulky, and perhaps arrogant. My life got very black & white. Every person I met was either someone who could help further my success or stand in the way of it.

Young Shawn dreamt of a simple life. I used to tell my father I was going to sell t-shirts on the beach, so I could surf, explore, and live. But suddenly, I found myself obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder, almost as if I was embarrassed by the carefree dreamer I once was.

Now again, there’s nothing wrong with pursuing a successful path in life. No matter whether you’re a doctor, or a professional athlete, or a sales woman, or a machinist, we’re all helping to make the world a better place. No one is greater than anyone else. But regardless of how busy you get, you MUST maintain balance. The 3 Pillars of a Balanced Life, a concept I developed in my book WITHOUT A COMPASS, speaks to this. The 3 Pillars are Self, Community, and Career. I let my career consume so much of me, my Self and Community Pillars were starving. That obsession on my career pillar was making for a healthy bank account, but I was starting to crumble. On the verge of burnout, my family relationships were tense at best and I was quickly losing my edge even at work, where I was most comfortable.

I reached a point where I barely even knew who I was anymore, beyond the title on my business card.  

I remember being interviewed for what I thought was a dream role, and they asked, “what do you do?”. I was confused. I had just spent 15 minutes detailing my career to date, and another 5 or 10 articulating my recipe for success. I thought I had answered that question.

The interviewer must have sensed my confusion which prompted her to add “in your spare time”. Suddenly I was faced with the toughest question of the interview.

I had gotten so busy chasing success, chasing the next win, I had given up almost everything else. It seemed as though I spent more waking time in airports and restaurants than I did with my family. When I came home from a business trip I would kiss the wife, hug the kids, then plop down on the couch, and start answering emails. I was that guy who would interrupt my wife with “I’ve got to quickly reply to this” as she was telling me about her week.

Then I took the flight

It was February of 2013, and I was on a flight to Tampa Bay. Things had gotten bumpy at the company I was with. Organizational changes saw me moved to a different division, and they brought in a “superstar” to head up the division. In reality he was a micro manager who had no capacity for humility.

My having grown sales from a start up to $9M per year in 3 years meant nothing to him. His only objective was to bring people to fear him. Suddenly the worth I attached to my success and self-importance began to feel empty.

The flight was taking me to a company sales meeting where I would endure 4 days listening to him tell us how brilliant he was. Without a strong, healthy Self and Family/Community Pillar to lean on, I was ill-prepared to deal with this new reality.

When our landing was delayed, we were put into a holding pattern over the gulf of Mexico. For roughly 30 minutes we circled over water and beaches. Sprinkled around were little white blotches, that identified as boats. Boats in marinas, boats at anchor, and boats underway. Collectively, they brought me back to a simpler time. A time when I could answer the question “what do you do?”. My younger Shawn, or what I often call my Dreamer Shawn persona loved to waste days away being on or in the water. I’d often go out on my 12’ day sailer and spend a whole Saturday or Sunday out there. Riding the waves, pushing the boat until it flipped over, then I’d flip it back right and do it all over again. One of my biggest fears is deep water, but on those days, I’d find a way to overcome. As the sun would set, I would watch until it disappeared over the horizon, before packing up. When I wasn’t on the water, I was looking for a beach, taking a road trip or just finding a way to enjoy nature. Back then it was simply about living life, experiencing life. Happiness and peace was so easy then.

Looking down on those boating communities brought me to I realize these were people immersed in living. Not stuck in the 9-5 to 65 obsessed with winning but instead working to live. I was sure that most of them had successful careers but also found a way to strike a healthy balance with their Self and Community Pillars.

Over the next 4 days I endured the time with my new boss, and committed to rediscovering myself… my whole self, a balanced self. I saw this as the first step on a new path toward my perfect life.

During those four days in meetings, and the following travel day, the vision of the boating communities and the connection to my younger days became burned in my mind. That younger Shawn was actually likeable because he knew what he wanted, kept it simple, then went out and got it. I wanted that Dreamer Persona back in my life! So, when I got home from this sunny trip to Florida, I announced to my wife that we should sell everything and go sailing.

While I wondered how hard she might slap me when telling me to snap out of it, she instead said “SURE”. In analyzing the unexpected reply, I learned that she endured a weeks’ worth of snowstorms which dumped 20” of snow, with temperatures of -20 degrees. Coincidentally, she too was in the midst of organizational changes which left her feeling just as uninspired as I was. It was the perfect recipe for re-discovering ourselves, and what was important to us.

Getting back to where we started this discussion, I was a person who had no real idea what was truly important to me in life. Success in your career certainly helps pay the bills and makes it more worthwhile giving up a third of your life. But career success alone does not build a whole and complete person. In fact, it is only one component of the 3 Pillars of a Balanced Life. Much like a tripod, the other two pillars, Self and Community, create a balance that builds and sustains a healthy existence.

Your Self Pillar can’t be mentioned often enough. It is the foundation that we build on. Just like a house, if your foundation isn’t solid, the house will collapse. That’s where I found myself on that flight to Tampa Bay. I had under-served my Self Foundation for so long that my house was collapsing. I based my entire identity and happiness on who I was on my business card, and how many wins I had. As the value of career success was diminished, I didn’t have the balance that comes from a healthy Self to lean on. Rather, I was burning my candle at both ends, and found myself exhausted, and drifting.

Your family and community pillar is one where you build your outlying support network. When things are going well, we all help others to collectively build a stronger world to live in. Often, you’re called on to support others in your network when they struggle. The satisfaction of which helps to build a stronger Self. If you do this well, you will also gain the support you will need during your own times of struggle.

Both as an employee, and as a manager of people, we must appreciate how important it is to focus on all 3 pillars equally. Many companies are finally starting to adopt this theory. There will be busy times in any organization. It will result in missed ballet recitals, little league games, or even graduations. When an employer mandates to the employee to pay back that time to the other two pillars, it’s proven that it will result in a happier, healthier, more productive employee.

So now that we’ve discussed why you should dare to seek the perfect life, full of balance, purpose, and fulfilment, the next question should be how do you do it? Most people, when pressed, SAY that they are in control of their own destiny, so it should be easy right!?

Or will it?

The problem is that most of us tend to live life out where I call the rumble strip. That’s the narrow spot on the side of some highways that’s dimpled or carved out. It’s designed to warn you if you’re driving off the road. They count on that warning to get back to the middle of the road. It’s as if they’re content to live life on autopilot. Not considering that just maybe our best lives are beyond the rumble strip.

I was like that. If I got a raise, I would wait for the extra bill I was sure would come up. It was always one step forward, one back. I was content to take life as it came to me… until I dared to ask the universe for more. I dared to define a better life and set out to live it with intention. Suddenly when I encountered a setback, I worked harder to go two steps ahead. I dared to seek out what was beyond the rumble strip.

Getting beyond it doesn’t mean the hard work was done. When I was on that plane hovering over Tampa Bay, I had a wonderful vision in my head, but I also had competing voices in there discussing the idea. Now understand I’m not schizophrenic, it’s just that I have 3 points of view on the world and everything in it. I call them the 3 personas… Responsible Self, Dreamer Self, and the Headshaker.

My Dreamer Self was my dominant persona as a kid when I dreamt of living a simple life by the sea, selling t-shirts on the beach. It’s the influence that encourages us to dream big with no limits. The problem is that Responsible Self eventually wins most arguments by telling us what society tells us; we must go to school, get good grades, graduate, get a job, work 9-5 till 65 and acquire what the Jone’s have.

Generally, when Dreamer Self tries to counter that argument, the Headshaker tends to come in like a wrecking ball, warning of all the worst-case scenarios that almost never happen. Responsible Self sits back with a “my work is done here” on its face.

There is however a way for Dreamer Self to win this argument and overcome all of the self-imposed shackles that keep us from affecting change in our lives. You see on the day we’re born we’re given the most precious gift we’ll ever get. We don’t know how much of it we’re given, and we often waste far too much of it on frivolous things. If we’re lucky, we learn it’s value before it’s too late. That gift is time. We trade time for possessions, we trade time for the ability to exist, but we often also trade time for empty things like a house bigger than we need or status symbols such as fancy cars or expensive jewelry. Don’t get me wrong, if any of those things feed your sole, good on you.

For me, I choose to think about that inevitable moment that is the ultimate destiny of each of us. That moment when we take our last breath. In the history of mankind, I strongly doubt anyone has ever said, in that moment, “I wish I had worked more”.

If there is an afterlife, I believe you’ll get to take your memories with you. I doubt that the wealth you’ve built will also ride along. If there is nothing beyond this life, I’ll still take much more comfort, in my last moments, from the memories I build than the wealth I build. So simply put, I work hard, I give my all, but I’ve learned how to work to live.

That is the argument that builds collaboration between our Responsible Self and our Dreamer Self. That collaboration will help you to silence the head shaker, overcome conditioned beliefs, fear of failure, change avoidance, and get you on the road to defining then realizing your dream life. That collaboration is what saved me from burnout, and brought me back to a high level of performance and productivity.

For us, we ended up sailing more than 2500 nautical miles, from Annapolis Maryland to the Florida Keys, then back to Toronto, between September 2014 to June 2015. Not bad for a captain whose biggest fear is deep water, a 1st mate who doesn’t swim, and 2nd mate fresh out of high school, and no clear vision of who he wanted to be when he grew up. Add in 2 large, furry Alaskan Malamute dogs, rescued from troubled homes, and we had quite the reputation.

During that time, I renewed my connection with my wife, and cemented our relationship more deeply than I ever thought possible. My son embarked on the journey an awkward teen, but came home a confident young man who found his compass. Our two rescued dogs lived a life that was never promised them, and they embraced it gleefully. They proved that the truest form of strength is how you respond to the things you can’t control. Our collective growth was immeasurable.

The following winter we logged more than 12,000 KMs in a 20-year-old motorhome, driving through Canada, the US and most of Mexico. We met people who are often maligned but discovered them to be some of the most generous we’ve met. While most, if not all of us have been to Mexico, the real Mexico is found beyond the resorts, and tourist attractions, in the small towns, villages, amongst the people who exist there. 

The year after that, we ‘settled down’, buying an old wood building on the edge of the jungle, on the hills of Roatan Honduras. The million-dollar sea view lent itself perfectly to opening the Jungle Reef Inn, after a complete renovation. We hosted guests from more than 40 countries. Most were people looking for a different experience than big resorts offer. They were there to meet the locals. We were blessed with their many stories, along with the opportunity to become a small part of them.

Mistakes, we made many. But we learned from each one and kept pushing forward. We’ve had more than our fair share of detractors… people who believe firmly in the 9-5 till 65 and didn’t hesitate to tell us. Our goal was never to inspire those who don’t wish to be inspired. My hope is to reach those who are ready to be inspired and help them to see THEIR path to living their own dream life.

Remember that I’m available for one-on-one Executive Coaching, Team Coaching, and Keynote Addresses. While my favorite topic is Work/Life Balance, I also address a range of issues pertaining to corporate life, and the challenges that affect productivity in the pursuit of excellence.