A good friend of mine reminded me of something very important. He returned my own thoughts back to me about how we all need to leave work at work and not let it affect the biz of you. He spoke of not letting work define you as our work has so many issues lack of clear direction other than making profit. To let the problems of our working lives bleed into our personal lives is a desecration of our who we are. Considering the dysfunction and lack of integrated leadership present in our workplaces, why would we take any of that home?

It’s difficult though. We spend so much of our valuable resources at our places of work leaving so little time and energy for our own pursuits.  We invest ourselves so heavily that we leave little behind for our marriages, kids, hobbies and connecting with our environment. Our creative outlets begin to dry up leaving us barren of spirit. We are left unable to do those things that will steward our resources into the future. To rectify this situation we have to find super human abilities, not sleeping, become buddha like in letting it go, or simply stop giving a fuck about it all and let our careers and futures slide into oblivion. We all have to strike a balance that meets the needs and expectations of our particular circumstance.

For myself, I invest my energy deliberately which this good friend has called my super power of compartmentalizing. I focus my attention on the task at hand giving just enough time and energy to accomplish what’s needed. When I’m at work, I’m at work. I don’t let my personal life bleed into work and vice versa. I compartmentalize my resources. I apply energy as necessary and attempt to be as effective and efficient as possible not letting excess time or energy spill into the different aspects of my life. I continually seek mastery of my activities whether that be at work or home. To keep my sanity avoiding automatization I add energy to make things fun. I enjoy whatever compartment I’m in. I play with situations to push my limits and continue learning. Like a little salt or pepper on food, I add humor to make things more palatable.

Instead of defining ourselves by our work, it’s important to remember we are more then what we do. We have lives outside of work and the expectation is we manage our personal biz so we can balance work and life. But that’s not all. We have to manage ourselves so we maintain our living now while not sacrificing the future of ourselves, family or environment.  Don’t define yourself with work. Define the biz of you with the full scope of your life. In your obituary what would be the one sentence used to sum up your life? What would a friend, spouse or child say in your eulogy? Would it be about work. Mine won’t.

Thank you Jon for the reminder to manage the biz of you.

If you’d like to open a dialog on this or any topic on this blog, feel free to email jacob@bizofyou.com

I apologize for any typos, punctuation or grammar errors.
Feel free to comment and let me know of my errors so I may correct them and better my biz.