The is morning I’m going to talk about balance; what it is, what it isn’t, and how I try to keep it.

A thread

Balance is the concept of maintaining equal-ish attention and focus in each aspect of your life: family, work, faith, fitness, leisure, study, etc.

Very few of us get it right. The hope is that the older we get the “righter” we get at it.

If I had a dollar for every senior leader who talked about the importance of balance but quickly followed up with “but don’t look at me as an example” I’d be retired in Maldives with @kashia, the kids, and Bandit.

This isn’t the way to make a point.

While I’ve not always gotten the balance thing right, I’ve gotten much better the second part of my career than the first. Part of that is establishing boundaries enabling progress.

In squadron command it was important to be overt about leaving for dinner. The later I stayed the more others believed I wanted them to stay. @tmfeltey told me once “your family doesn’t know when you leave for PT but they take stock in when you miss dinner, a game, recital, etc”

We often herald the hard worker who puts their nose to the grindstone and seems to always working hard and always in the office or accessible. Meanwhile, their performative work performance was masking an incomplete rest of their life creating strain and stress

How have I tried to maintain balance?

Make it home for dinner and participate in the meal prep and/or planning.

No work emails at home (with very few exceptions - like one every 6 months). If it’s important, they’ll call. (Candidly I need to transfer this philosophy to text too).

Planned activities together. @kashia and I do things together like walk, work out, strategically plan our empire, podcasting (coming soon). We also need time to do our own thing to decompress.

I make time for my kids. If they call at work I drop everything. They are my greatest creation. Intentionality and consistency of communication is important. Plus they’re really cool and I’m proud of them.

Journaling.

This is one of the intentional parts of my day. It starts with a ROTM - Reflection of the Morning. I write it in purple pen in my bullet journal. Tasks, thoughts and other entries are coded by symbol or color. I end with a ROTE - Reflection of the Evening

This is a good place to drop thoughts, goals, anxieties, dreams, concerns, accomplishments.

Working out.

Physical activity is important to me. I have to work out as it helps me think, blow off steam, center myself. And I log it. (I’m on Strava)

One leader I once worked with said this about balance -

“We tend to binge live. We go 100% at our work and neglect our personal life then go 100% in our personal life and neglect work. Mathematically that’s balance but it’s unhealthy as hell.”

My challenge to you -

Find the areas you can increase intentionality in your life.? Where can you establish boundaries? How can you articulate those boundaries to our hers who are obstacles to achieving balance?

My digital door is open.
End thread