Affluenza
Several years ago I had the ability to juggle the key things in my life: family, health,wealth, job/career, relationships. However when I got out of bed one morning ready to juggle the events of the day I suddenly found myself no longer able to juggle. Iwondered what was wrong with me. I was sick. I was ill. I was suffering from a disease called Affluenza. When I saw this word for the first time in the book of the same name by Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss, I recognised that it was made up of two words-affluenza and influenza. The meaning I made of this term was that in the busyness of life in the new millennium with all of its material advantages we are making ourselves sick with our addiction to overwork, overspending and overcommitment. I realised that if I wanted to make myself better, if I wanted to cure myself of affluenza I had to create more life balance. I had to learn to manage my time and myself in a more joyful and efficient way.
Posted by Roy Miller
Corporate Brian Tracy International Trainer
http://www.eatthatfrog.com.au/perth.php
The Notion of Work/Life Balance
What is it that you have to constantly juggle as you cross the many bridges in your daily life? By reading this blog you will discover the seven laws of life balance. The notion of life balance is quite new and it seems like a phrase that we hear often. I consider it a phrase that sums up the challenges we face in daily life in the twenty-first century. Recent research has shown that demands on work life balance are increasing due to more working people having to assume more responsibilities. These increased responsibilities are the result of more dual earners, more working women, more single parent families and more working people with responsibilities for elder care. Add to this the technological changes which have occurred in work places in the past twenty years and it is not surprising that there is more job insecurity, greater work demands on individual workers and the blurring of boundaries between life and work. With technology it is so much easier for people to bring work home and spend their evenings working from their home computer. If you are reading this blog it is most likely because you wish your world contained more life balance. Perhaps like many people your goal is to have a more balanced and more meaningful life outside of work. During my ‘Eat that Frog’ training workshops and one on one coaching programs many of my clients often declare that their life is out of balance. When they make statements like this I ask them to describe what an unbalanced life looks like, feels like or sounds like. When they feel their life is out of balance they use words like heavy or pear shaped or noisy. And when I ask them to imagine what their life would look like, feel like or sound like when it is in balance, they describe it using words like soft, smooth, flowing, quiet on the inside. Imagine that your life is in balance, what sorts of things would you write down to describe it. Please take five or ten minutes to do that now…….. My next blog post is about ‘Affluenza’. And each one after that will be on each of the seven laws of life balance.
Strategic Thinking
The Quality of Thoughtfulness
The ability to think and plan strategically is perhaps the most important single skill of the effective executive. In a longitudinal study of leaders who, in retrospect, made the best and most effective decisions, the single quality that stood out from all others was the quality of "thoughtfulness."
Thoughtfulness may be defined as a careful concern for the secondary consequences of each decision and each action. This is the essence of strategic thinking.
Your Most Powerful Tool
The most powerful tool that you as an executive have to bring to bear on your work is your mind – your thinking ability. Everything you do that sharpens and hones your ability to think with greater clarity before acting, will benefit you and help you to move upward and onward more rapidly in your career.
The best way to approach strategic thinking is two pronged. This means to work simultaneously on the personal and the corporate. Increase Your "Return On Energy"
In personal terms, strategic planning is an exercise in increasing "return on energy." Your greatest single asset is your earning ability. And your earning ability is nothing more than the total of the mental, emotional and physical energies that you can apply toward getting valuable results for yourself and your company.
Anything that you can do to increase your return on energy invested will increase your overall levels of effectiveness and contribution in every area of your life, especially, and most importantly in your work.
Action ExercisesHere are two things you can do immediately to increase your return on equity and your return on energy.
First, think about everything that you are doing in terms of its financial return to your organization. What are the things that you do that yield the highest return on equity? Whatever they are, do more of them.
Second, think in personal terms about the things you do that give you the highest return on energy. Where do you contribute the greatest value and achieve the greatest satisfaction? Whatever they are, do more of these things.
Taking the struggle out of the juggle
Taking the struggle out of the juggle: the seven laws of life balance
This blog is all about the challenges of managing ourselves in time, personal effectiveness and personal leadership. As a Corporate Brian Tracy International Trainer one of the courses I facilitate is Eat that Frog. The Eat that Frog book and seminar training program of the same title has really had a powerful and positive impact on all aspects of my life – personal and professional.
So much so that I wrote a piece called ‘Taking the struggle out of the juggle: the seven laws of life balance’. This blog will bring this creative piece to life over the next few weekly entries.
So let’s start…..
Once upon a time there was a traveling minstrel who always carried with him three gold nuggets. One day he came to a bridge that warned travellers that the bridge could only handle a maximum weight of 6okgs. The traveling minstrel weighed 58 kilos and each gold nugget weighed one kilo. As you have worked out the minstrel was carrying excess weight of one kilo. How would he be able to safely cross the bridge? After careful thought and consideration the ingenious minstrel figured out the best way to cross the bridge without exceeding the weight limit was to juggle the gold nuggets while he walked over the bridge……
Roy Miller, Corporate Brian Tracy International Trainer, Wealth Empowerment Institute
Break Away From Old Ideas
Highly creative people tend to have fluid, flexible, adaptive minds. Here are three statements that creative people can make easily and which you learn by regular practice.
Admit It When You Are Wrong
The first is simply, "I was wrong." Many people are so concerned with being right that all their mental energy is consumed by stonewalling, bluffing, blaming and denying. If you’re wrong, admit it and get on to the solution or the next step.
Face Up to Mistakes
Second, non-creative people think that it is a sign of weakness to say, "I made a mistake." On the contrary, it is actually a sign of mental maturity, personal strength and individual character. Remember, everybody makes mistakes every single day.
Be Flexible With New Information
The third statement that creative people use easily is, "I changed my mind." It is amazing how many uncomfortable situations people get into and stay in because they are unwilling or afraid to admit that they’ve changed their minds.
If you get new information or if you find that you feel differently about a previous decision, accept that you have changed your mind and don’t let anyone or anything back you into a corner. If a decision does not serve your best interests as you see them now, have the ego-strength and the courage to "cut your losses," to change your mind and then get on to better things. Action Exercises
Here are two ways you can break out of narrow thinking patterns and become more creative.
First, be willing to admit that you are not perfect, you make mistakes, you are wrong on a regular basis. This is a mark of intelligence and courage.
Second, with new information, be willing to change your mind. Most of what you know about your business today will change completely in the coming years so be the first to recognize it.
