To Speak, Or Not To Speak

Posted on 2 October 2007

I had a phone call yesterday being asked to speak at the ‘State of the Workforce Summit’ here in Orlando. The conference is to be attended by HR professionals and business leaders. I was intrigued as to why they would want me to speak; after all I am a life coach, not an expert on HR. The guy told me that they needed somebody to speak for 45 minutes on tips for helping busy business people attain work/life balance. That sounded intriguing to me, but then again I get intrigued by Palmetto Bugs and why on earth they insist on jumping everywhere and not either flying or just walking like normal cockroaches. Anyway, I digress.

 

I gave this request some thought last night because my immediate response was to say no. Not just because of the fact that speaking in front of 100+ people is about as appealing to me as driving nails into my knee caps but also because I know how I would want to approach it, and I wasn’t sure it would be appreciated.

 

I sometimes get clients come to me that want to help with their work/life balance and start off by saying they need to be better at time management. I usually groan on the inside when I hear this because I already know that it is going to be tough. Time management is important make no mistake, but at the end of the day you are at the end of the day and have had the same amount of hours as everybody else has. You can’t manage more hours than 24, you can’t do 18 hours worth of activities in a morning and you can’t be in two places at once.

 

So here is the deal with balancing out your work and the rest of your life. You have to decide what is most important to you. It really is that simple. If somebody asks me to help him or her and we sit down and it becomes apparent that they are working 60+ hours per week then forget it. Unless they are prepared to make significant changes then in all probability they are doomed to failure. The only people that I have ever met that do manage working really long hours and having a great social and family life are those freaks of nature that think staying in bed until 4.30am is a lie in. Either that, or they are great meditators and can recharge themselves with a 15-minute meditation at the drop of a hat.

 

Will I do the talk? Well I think I am going to refer the guy that asked me to this Blog. The answer is yes but with these caveats. I want to be able to tell people that success is not determined by how many hours they work or the size of their bank balance, that if their job demands that they work so many hours that you don’t get to see your kids grow up then (and presuming they like their kids) they should quit and that it’s cool to say no from time to time when extra projects are thrust their way. I also want to tell them that their health and wellbeing is way more important than any job could ever be. Now if anybody should get THAT message, surely it would be the HR industry?

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