This week is the national work-life balance week her in Denmark (read all about it in Danish), and in honor of that, this week’s postings will all be about balancing work and life outside of work. This is of course an enormously important skill, and any lasting imbalance in this area is likely to make us unhappy at work and in life.
It’s been getting more difficult for many of us to maintain that balance for a few reasons:
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Kareem Mayan emailed me to say that he couldn’t believe he’d never heard of Life Is Good, a company whose founders Bert and John Jacobs go by the respective titles chief executive optimist and chief creative optimist.
I can’t believe I haven’t either, but now that there’s a great article about them in inc magazine, I have. From the article:
Sixteen years ago they hawked $10 T-shirts featuring their own artwork from a card table on the corner, making themselves scarce whenever the cops swung past. “It’s a one-way street so one of us could always keep watch,” says Bert Jacobs, who is now 41, the older brother by three years. “We had a folding table so we could pack up quickly.”
It’s great to hear the founders of a $100 million business saying things like:
“Don’t determine that you’re going to be happy when you get the new car or the big promotion or when you meet that special person,” explains John. “You can decide that you’re going to be happy today.”
John also points out that the assertion is, in fact, a modest one. “It’s important that we’re saying ‘Life is good,’ not ‘Life is great’ or ‘Life is perfect,’” he says. “There’s a big difference. We know that there are lots of bad things in the world. But overall life is good. You have to focus on the good things and help others to focus on the good things.”
I agree, life IS good :o)
According to this article, many people waste their sundays fearing their mondays.
“I never sleep on Sunday night very well because I’m worried about going to work on Monday morning,” said one worrier. “My job is very stressful and you kind of have to gear up for Monday and getting back into that.”
That’s horrible, and I can only imagine what having this experience week after week does to people.
But mostly, I’m worried that the expert quoted in the article advices people to create some calming sunday rituals ie. to watch TV, play games or talk to a friend, but doesn’t say word one about fixing your job or quitting your job. If that’s how you feel on sunday, then it’s obvious that something about your mondays needs to change.
Raise your hand if you’d rather spend your sunday totally energized and looking forward to monday morning, because work is just that much fun. That’s happiness at work right there!
A great big thank you to Tim Raines for telling me about this article.
There is a lot of talk about motivation in the workplace these days. Both from managers complaining that their employees aren’t motivated and from employees complaining that their managers don’t know what makes them tick.
And frankly, it’s no wonder, because there are some fundamental misconceptions about motivation in the business world. There are four different kinds of motivation, only one of them works, and businesses and managers rely almost exclusively on the three that don’t.
That is the topic of my first podcast, which you can download here. It’s 23 minutes long and will take up 7 Mb on your computer.
Please let me know what you think. Is the sound OK? The content? What do you like about it? What can I do better? What great podcasts should I listen to, and get inspiration from? This is my first podcast, but all the cool kids have’em and I wanted one too :o)
Thanks for all the great input folks. I have decided on a title for my first book. It will be called:
… drum-roll, please …
Happy Hour Is 9 to 5 – How To Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work.
Waddaya think?
Here’s a quote from the horrible book “You Can’t Win a Fight With Your Boss” by Tom Markert, the global chief marketing and client service officer at ACNielsen. Markert says:
You can forget lunch breaks. You can’t make money for a company while you’re eating lunch . . . if you don’t put in the hours, someone just as smart and clever as you will. Fact of life: the strong survive.
[If you ignore this] you might just end up as roadkill – lying dead by the side of the corporate highway as others drive right past you.
I have always made a habit of walking around early and late to personally see who’s pumping it out. If they are getting results and working harder than everyone else, I promote them.
Riiiiiight. Remind me never to go work for this guy!
Here’s how you do it instead, from a comment from Sarah S. on this post about implied overwork:
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The best thing about writing this blog, are all the great comments it gets. As the blog gets more and more popular (and it’s totally getting out of hand right now, I love it), it seems that I get more and more great ideas, feedback, thoughts, input. Here are a few of my favorite recent comments.
Mack asked why we want to be happy at work at all and a great conversation ensued, including this comment:
I’ve seen businesses make drastic moves and have a groundswell of support from the employees regardless of the sacrifices they endure. I’ve seen businesses throw goodies at employees and they still complain. What it’s about is trust, and it’s more than just having an HR slogan of “we will be trustworthy???. The problem is that corporations don’t want people working for them, they want human resources. Trust?
If you’re arguing to make corporations see the bottom line from the long term picture (by promoting trust and human decency towards employees), you’re fighting the entire history of business in this country, buddy. Good luck!
– Jeremy
Yes that is exactly what we’re up against – about 200-300 years of tradition for doing the opposite. Call me an optimist, but I really believe that us happy people are so much more efficient and creative that we are the ones who will define the future of business.
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Last week I asked for help naming my book about happiness at work and great suggestions have been flowing in. Thank you to everyone who’s contributed.
I can still use more ideas, so please let me know what you think would be a great, eye-catching and happy title.
My favorites so far are:
The book also needs a catchy subtitle, and here are my favorites so far:
What do you think? Any of this grab you? Got any more ideas? I’m still totally open about this and have made no decision, so write a comment if you have a suggestion.
Your mission this monday, is to make today positive day. Positive day is about focusing on the good stuff rather than the bad stuff, and while you will be doing exactly what you normally do, you’ll be doing it with a positive focus.
Here are the ground rules for positive day:
1: See the good in everything
If somebody brings up a co-worker, the boss, a client, an event from last week, a sports game or last night’s movie you’re only allowed to talk about what you liked about it. The good stuff only. If you have nothing good to say, say nothing. Or change the subject to a positive topic.
2: Agree first
If someone comes to you with a suggestion, and idea or a new thought, you are, of cours, allowed to disagree, but you must first say what you like about the idea and what you agree with.
3: No complaining
Sorry, but today you can’t complain. Remember, it’s only for a day, so tomorrow you can complain to your heart’s content, but not today. You’re absolutely allowed to do something about any problems you see. But you can’t bitch about it to anyone.
4: Remember the good stuff
Before you go home, do this: Write down five things that made you happy at work today.
The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.
This post is part of a series that follows A.M. Starkin, a young manager taking his first major steps into leadership. Starkin writes here to share his experiences and to get input from others, so please share with him your thoughts and ideas.
Dear me! – and dear anyone. Let me pick out two significant days since my last post that are really significant.
Thursday last week, 9:15 in the morning – everyone comes in systematically late.
My ops manager/deputy pulls me aside and says that she has had enough of this place, and that she is only waiting for a better salary offer to leave. And that I might as well begin thinking of hiring because two others are going to leave real soon.
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