1.5 - About University

15.1B ALANCE: TAKE C ARE OF Y OURSELF!Inspired by Kevin Cashman, Stephen Covey, David Irvine,Harold Kushner, Robin Skynner, John Cleese, and Robert Pirsig.If you want to be around for a long time as a leader, you need to find balance in your own life,and help others find balance in theirs. Fast Company says it all about the corporate culture ofthe new millennium. “Sleep Is the New Status Symbol for Successful Entrepreneurs,” says aWall Street Journal article. The refrain is the same: faster, smarter, creative destruction; shortercycle times; the customer is always right; business at the speed of light. Alongside this freneticorganizational culture are disturbing societal problems: rising divorce rates, rise of depression,increasing use of violence, overuse of mood-altering drugs, downsizing and early retirementscreating an underemployed class.This tool will help you navigate the maze of external influences toward finding, establishing,and maintaining your own balance. Suggestions to start an exercise regime and schedulequality time with the family are merely platitudes if you don’t first answer the fundamentalquestions outlined here.1. Understand who you are. If you do not regularly step back to ask and act on some fundamentalquestions about who you are, your purpose and your priorities, you are condemnedto live at the mercy of external influences. Blaming others for your circumstancesprovides only temporary venting and relief. You need to take control of yourown life.2. Distinguish what is urgent from what is important. This fast-moving world encourageshigh-energy fire fighting—dealing with urgent matters. Being busy, amassing tons ofairline points, receiving hundreds of e-mails, and making big bucks are the hallmarksof success. But as Stephen Covey points out, the truly important things in one’s life arerarely urgent, yet they get shuffled behind the ever-increasing urgent items demandingour immediate attention.3. Nurture your close relationships. Close relationships are not business acquaintances orpeople in your network. (Note the word work hiding there!) Human beings are socialbeings. You need people in your life who make time for you, with whom you can discussany issue, on whom you can depend in times of stress, and vice versa.4. Simplify your life. Advertising and the urge to keep up create many false “oughttahaves.” Separate what you really need from a) what others may think you need, and b)what you want. Every one of those unnecessary wants complicates your life. Like monkeyson your back, they demand to be fed, they defecate, and they tend to procreate.5. Integrate more reflection and renewal into your life. A good leader needs to think. A greatleader needs to think at much higher and broader levels, and in a much longer timeframe. Find a time and place for reflection. Many leaders find reading reflective booksa source of insight and inspiration. Listen to your body. Take your vacations! Reserveyour weekends. Take responsibility for taking care of yourself.SECTION 15 TOOLS FOR TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF 451