Consistently high performance comes from a balance of work and leisure.
—Dale Carnegie
Let’s begin this chapter by making an observation that may surprise you. It has to do with the limits of leadership success or, rather, with the fact that real success should have no limits. We’ve all heard of people who have achieved great things in their careers. We have all heard of individuals who have become successful entrepreneurs or the heads of big companies, but their personal lives are in chaos. Their families have broken up, they have damaged their health, or they never seem able to take a moment away from work.
These people are not leadership masters because they have failed to lead themselves effectively in the most important areas of their lives. In fact, part of the problem might be some confusion about what’s really important, and what’s less important, about what the means and what the ends are. These people may be so obsessed with reaching certain goals that they lose track of their core values.
“I don’t think it’s possible to be a great manager or a great executive without being a total person,” says the president of an international computer systems company. “You can be a good executive and make money for your company, but if you don’t get along with your spouse and your children, you’re missing a crucial part of life.
Someone once said, “No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for humanity, if you can’t look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?” Actually the person who said that wasn’t just “someone.” It was Lee Iacocca, the former CEO of Chrysler Corporation. He was referring to the need for perspective or leadership mastery in all areas of our lives. In the next few pages, we will explore tactics and techniques for helping you attain that balance. Surprisingly, when this is achieved, it will actually generate renewed energy and focus for your career.
You may be familiar with a word that describes this process. The word is synergy. It refers to the interaction of two or more forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. In everyone’s life the two major forces are the desires for professional fulfillment and for personal fulfillment. And they are synergistic. Success at one can or should foster success in the other.
In this chapter, our approach to achieving balance will come in two parts. We’ll first discuss how to strengthen your resources and develop a balanced perspective. Then we will address how all this can be applied to everyday life. It’s a dual process: training and performance, along with learning and application.
The chairman of a nationally prominent public relations firm once observed that “A successful life needs to have many dimensions for your family, your friends, your personal pastimes, and your health.” Right now, how happy are you with these dimensions in your life? Many of us are not really accustomed to thinking about them. Maybe they are subjects that you prefer to avoid altogether, but discipline is needed here. It’s a new kind of discipline, but it is an important aspect of leadership mastery. It is a willingness to look at who we really are and to ask, “Is this who I really want to be?” If the answer is “No,” then you’ve got some work to do. In fact, you’ve got some work to do even if the answer is “Not exactly” or “Not quite yet.” Remember, success is not success unless it’s complete. It is not mastered unless it encompasses all areas of your experience.
We can be more specific. A truly balanced life requires, first of all, a certain level of good physical health. Are the ways you eat, sleep, and exercise moving you in the direction you want to go or in the opposite direction? At the headquarters of a worldwide money management firm in New York City, a fully equipped workout room has been built right outside the president’s office. All employees are encouraged to use it. In fact, the president of the firm intends to see the workout room triple in size. He says, “I like to see people come here after work instead of going to health clubs all over the city. They are talking with each other and exchanging ideas, which is good for everyone.”
Getting into shape does not suggest that you have to train for a marathon. It does involve doing something that’s physically active. Many studies have shown that even a brisk walk around the block three times a week is a huge benefit compared to doing nothing at all. So, you can begin moderately, but with a firm commitment to sticking to your goals. Billy Blanks is the Tae Bo master who parlayed his karate championships and personal charisma into an exercise empire. He advises beginners to stand up straight and tell themselves they can be conquerors. And it works.
Negative thinking and discouragement saps your energy before you begin. It’s like the mental equivalent of carrying a fifty-pound load on your back. As you progress, you can increase your level of activity. At the beginning, however, keep in mind that just twelve minutes of exercise, four times a week, is all it takes to set you on the right road. That is less than an hour every seven days, the equivalent of watching a weekly sitcom.
Just as fitness and activity are crucial for personal leadership mastery, so is proper rest. Americans are working harder than ever before. This may be fine, but they’re also sleeping worse than ever. This combination of a longer workday and less rest time can be a recipe for disaster. A recent study revealed a direct correlation between reduced hours of sleep and physical aging. A sleep-deprived thirty-year-old, for example, may outwardly look his age but his body may be functioning like someone fifteen years older.
More specifically, you may identify yourself as a morning person or a night person, but this can be self-deluding. Consider this: For thousands of years no one even knew what a night person was. There was no electric light. There were no twenty-four-hour coffee shops or late-night infomercials. People rose when the sun rose and went to sleep when darkness fell. The obligation to feed animals, do time-consuming domestic chores, hunt, or farm plots of land made going to bed early and getting enough sleep a matter of survival. Interestingly, with this full schedule, people were free from many of the most dangerous health issues that burden modern society. Until the start of the twentieth century, many doctors saw very few heart attacks or cases of cardiovascular disease. This was partly because people gave their hearts a rest at night.
Some recent studies of sleep habits can help with this. Researchers have determined an invisible cutoff line that separates two distinct sleep behaviors. That line occurs at ten o’clock at night. There are people whose sleep habits position them on either side: those who go to bed before ten and those who stay up much later. So, if you are in the second category, try making some adjustments. If you still have work to do at night, it’s better to rise early in the morning than to stay up toiling past midnight.
What if you simply can’t sleep? First, make sure that you and your doctor rule out any medical factor that might disturb your sleep patterns. Consider whether recent or frequent travel has upset your internal clock. Often, particularly among business travelers, the body’s rhythms get out of whack from trying to adjust to different time zones, until you feel as if you’re permanently in the twilight zone.
If you wake up frequently during the night, there may be something you feel you’ve left undone. So try to identify what that might be. Dale Carnegie himself recognized this principle. “If you can’t sleep,” he advised, “then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying.”
Sufficient rest and consistent exercise need to be fundamental components of our lives. A software executive in Palo Alto, California, commented, “I’m not exactly a staple on the late-night social circuit. In fact, I go to bed at 9:30 every night. Now, this amuses my wife and mildly embarrasses my teenage daughter. But I honestly believe anything I may have accomplished professionally has been because I sleep early and get up early. While the other guy is shutting off his alarm clock, I’ve already had my first good idea of the day.”
We all need maintenance and we all need to refuel. It is not just severe illness or major accidents that take their toll on a human being. As with an automobile or any other piece of machinery, normal wear and tear can have long-term effects.
One of the ways to prevent anything beyond normal wear and tear is to maintain a healthy and well-balanced diet. Do you eat breakfast each day? Do you get enough fiber, fruits, vegetables, and protein in your diet? Do you often skip meals? Do you take supplements regularly? We are often guilty of running on empty throughout the day, frequently when we are busiest and most in need of fuel.
Just as parents are advised to put their own oxygen masks on before attending to their child during airplane emergencies, effective leaders need to be sure that they take proper care of themselves before they attempt to care for others in their organization. While skipping meals during a busy day may seem like a short-term gain, this can have a negative long-term effect on you as a leader, and on the bottom line of your business. Your mind needs to be sharp and clear. Without proper care, it will dull.
Since the effects of wear and tear accumulate gradually, they might be hard to spot. Proper nutrition and exercise are imperative to effective leadership. If you take care of your car, you should devote at least as much attention to your own physical and emotional well-being.
Besides keeping in good physical condition and developing healthy lifestyle habits, there should be times when you completely get away from your work and just relax. For people in demanding leadership roles, a vacation isn’t just an indulgence. It is a necessity. It provides you with an opportunity to reset your internal clock, see new places, and make new friends. Most important, a vacation can be an opportunity to reconnect with the people most important to you. It doesn’t have to be weeks at the seashore. Even a quick weekend trip can be an effective strategy for rejuvenation.
So far, we’ve been talking about creating balance physically and emotionally. It is equally important to stimulate yourself intellectually and perhaps even artistically, if you’re so inclined. Education is a process that should never stop. In fact, unfortunately for many people, real education doesn’t even begin until they’re in their middle years.
For a leader, learning should have a definition far beyond what takes place in formal schooling. You can learn from everyone. You can learn from everything. It doesn’t need to have an obvious application to your career.
Gaining a better understanding of American history, visiting an art museum, or even reading a trade journal from outside your industry will enhance your interactions with other people both at home and at work. When was the last time you were inside your local library? A prominent trial attorney in San Francisco takes home four books a month and reads them, but he doesn’t look at the titles before checking them out. By picking books at random he’s developed knowledge of philosophy, history, fiction, and even higher mathematics. Sooner or later these have all helped him in his work. More important, they helped him feel that his world is continuously expanding, instead of getting smaller and smaller with each passing year. The Chinese have a saying, “After three days without reading, talk becomes flavorless.” Many very bright people would say the same thing about life.
Just as the intellect needs to be cultivated, so does the spirit. This does not necessarily mean formal religious observance, although many people make that choice. Spiritual awareness is very important. The reasons may be difficult to express in numbers or words, but there’s no arguing with the abundance of personal evidence.
In the late eighteenth century, there was a mutiny on the HMS Bounty, a former British collier that had been outfitted for a botanical expedition in the South Pacific. Captain William Bligh and eighteen crew members who remained loyal to him were set adrift in a small boat. Their boat could carry only meager supplies of food and water, while the men remaining on the Bounty had full provisions. Although the small boat sailed for weeks, there was no loss of life on it, and, miraculously, morale remained high. The captain demanded the strict rationing of food and water. He also began and ended each day with prayers and readings from the Bible. In fact, after they were finally rescued, both he and his men attributed their survival to the attention they had given to spiritual needs, as if the food and water were less important. It’s interesting to note that the mutineers, who stayed with the ship, quickly degenerated into discord and violence.
You may not feel as if you’ve been set adrift in a small boat, or maybe you do feel that way sometimes. In any case, you have a spiritual dimension that needs to be respected and developed. For many people who do this, the benefits are very clear. They have fewer stress-related health problems, suffer less from anxiety and other psychological disorders, and in general seem to be immune from feelings of despair and loneliness. These are the facts. Use them to your benefit. Make time in your life for a spiritual dimension.
In fact, time itself is the key element in a balanced lifestyle. We will look at that issue more closely in the next chapter.
1. At the beginning of this chapter, we discussed balance in all aspects of your life as a leader. On a scale from one to ten (one being very unhappy, and ten being extremely happy), rate your happiness in the following areas of your life:
Family:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Very unhappy | Extremely happy | ||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Very unhappy | Extremely happy | ||||||||
Personal Pastimes:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Very unhappy | Extremely happy | ||||||||
Overall Health:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Very unhappy | Extremely happy | ||||||||
Now review each scale, and list at least three things that you can do to improve your rating in each category.
2. Balance in the area of your physical well-being is also required if you wish to be a truly fulfilled leader. Rate your state of health in the following areas, then make the necessary changes to improve your rating in each area:
Sleep:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Not enough | Very well rested | ||||||||
Exercise:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Do very little | Exercise regularly | ||||||||
Nutrition:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Very unhealthy diet | Excellent diet | ||||||||
3. Earlier in this chapter we mentioned a prominent trial attorney who takes home four books a month from the library and reads them. The trick is that he does not look at the titles before checking them out. This gives him a breadth of knowledge in a myriad subjects. Make a point of trying this yourself. Set a date and time, and at least once check out four random books from the library and read them. Make note of any insights or knowledge that you gain from doing so.
4. Following some kind of spiritual practice or principles in your life proves to enhance it. With the massive responsibilities that leadership masters face on a constant basis, they often find greater ease in their lives when they have some basis of faith and trust. Have you incorporated a spiritual dimension into your life? Write three steps that you can take to further cultivate it.