First, a reminder… Don’t forget to organize all your “ F” files today (as described in the Alphabet Strategy post a few days ago).   Now on to our next letter in the ABCs of Business…

Dec 6.  “F” is for Family (and Friends)

As we work in our businesses, one of the greatest challenges for many of us is achieving balance between work and not-work (I don’t say play because I believe that for most successful entrepreneurs work is more fun to them than play is)… 

Life passes so quickly you have to stop sometimes and consider…

“What is the purpose for which I am doing all this?” and

“Am I achieving that purpose?”

We don’t choose most of the people in our family (our spouse is the only choice we make).  But they are the people who are close to us when we are born, and they will be close to us when we die, and it is in our best interests to get the most joy possible from our families.

 At the same time, the ideas and principles that we pass down to our children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren will become some of the bedrock that makes up their lives, and might get passed on to future generations.  Might as well make it some good solid stuff.

Trying to achieve balance between work and spending time with family and friends can be a difficult thing to achieve… and there are no easy answers to this challenge– every person needs to find it for themselves.  My purpose with this post is not to give you the answers, but to get you started in thinking about this balance on your own so you can develop your own answers. 

Coming into the Holidays as we are, with a Fresh New Year on the horizon, this is a perfect time to make some changes in our daily interactions with our friends and families…to work on improving the balance in our lives…

You’ve probably heard the old saying…”On their deathbed, no one wishes that they had spent more time at the office”…

I think that there is some truth to that statement, but it conflicts (or seems to) with another old saying…“The only thing you live to regret are the risks you didn’t take”…

How can we reconcile these two sayings which both have a lot of truth in them?  

We turn to a few more quotes, that’s what…

Abe Lincoln said…  “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Mark Twain said… “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.  Dream.  Discover.”

I think that the answer lies in a few different directions, and here are a few things to consider…

1. When you are with your family and friends, are you really there?  Are you paying attention? (try to live in the moment)
2. Are there people from your past- friends or family—that you haven’t talked to in a long time and need to connect with?  (make a list and call to personally wish a Merry Christmas or Happy New Year)
3. Are you spending enough time and effort creating experiences and memories with your friends and family?  (time together doing memorable things)
4. When you are at work, are you trying to be as productive as you can with your time?   (the number of hours don’t matter as much as the output.)
5. Are you still looking for more friends? (they are all around you)
6. When you take a vacation, do you experience it with your family?

My life philosophy can be summed up as follows…

“If there is an afterlife, the only things we’ll bring with us are our experiences, our relationships, and our knowledge. I want to have plenty of each, the toys are less important.”

Tomorrow, we will move to “G” and we will be discussing “Google Alerts”… (I was going to talk about the movie Groundhog Day and decided to save this till later)

A few more quotes to ponder as you think about work/family balance…

“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”—George Bernard Shaw

 “One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead”—Oscar Wilde

“Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.”—Charles Kettering

And a few movies to watch this holiday season…

“It’s a Wonderful Life”

“The Family Man”

“Groundhog Day”