“Wealth is not found in what you own, but in how you spend your time. A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can let alone”
- Henry David Thoreau
Do you get stressed with the amount of ’stuff’ on your ‘to do’ list? Are you overwhelmed by the complexity of modern life - either at the office or at home? Do you often wish for a far simpler lifestyle?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you’ll enjoy the following interview with Leo Babauta. Leo is a thought leader and author on productivity and simplicity. He’s the author of the hugely popular blog Zen Habits which is one of top 100 most popular blogs in the world with more than 80,000 subscribers. He’s also the author of a new book that comes out next week - “The Power of Less.”
I recently interviewed Leo to discuss the new book and also get he’s thoughts on how we can all become much more effective in managing our careers and lifestyles in 2009 - particularly in view of the current economic climate.
Sital: Leo, many of our readers won’t be familiar with you and the Zen Habits blog. Can you briefly tell us about yourself and how you ended up writing the blog and becoming an author? Click here to read the rest…
“There’s usually a minimum threshold that gets someone to pick a job and stick with it, but beyond that, the things we do are expressions of who we are and what we love and the impact we wish to make, not selfish acts designed to earn a few extra bucks. (No one paid you to read this post, I bet).”
I often get asked questions about my own blog and newsletter -“So why is it free? Where’s the catch..?”
Similarly when I refer candidates to recruiters or pass across business leads to contacts, I sometimes will over hear people say ”That’s good of him - but he is of course getting a financial kick back for it!” - which makes me chuckle as it’s completely untrue.
Every major set back or stumble I have suffered during my career has taught me a valuable lesson.
Where I initialy chose to ignore the lesson – the stumble often turned into a fall until I learned the lesson. Whether it be a lesson about people, business, life - or indeed a lesson about me.
A point summed up perfectly by Oprah in this 4 minute clip from her recent address to the 2008 graduates at Stanford University. Advice which applies in equal measure to those at the beginning of their careers as it does to more experienced individuals like you and me.
Have you a particular career challenge at the moment?
Here’s a tease from the tip in my weekly newsletter ‘Straight Talk’ - if you haven’t already, I hope you’ll sign up
In life, in business and in your career, asking the ‘Why’ question is what achieves progress. Asking ‘why’ creates breakthroughs. Asking ‘why’ creates innovations. Asking ‘why’ solves problems.
Every major financial institution is currently asking itself the question “Why?”
(Aside from the obvious “Why did we ever get into the sub-prime business?!”)
They are looking at which markets they are involved in. Which products and solutions are on offer?
And then asking Why? What purpose do they serve?
Asking these questions will create the breakthrough to achieve a turnaround and ride out the tough market.
You should be doing exactly the same thing. Asking yourself ‘why’ questions about your job and your career.
When you start asking questions of yourself you start to uncover insights and motivations that you didn’t realise were there. You start coming up with solutions to problems that previously seemed unsolvable.
1. “Mark - my boss. I’ve forgotten what he looks like - I never see him. We exchange emails, do conference calls - but it’s all about business. I know we’re busy, but rarely do I get any quality time, feedback or discussion about me or my career. Even when I try raising the subject, it’s always ‘Everything is fine, I have another meeting to get to. We’ll speak soon.’ Cheers Mark.”
2. “Charlotte in HR. What does she do all day? OK, well I do get some help when it comes to hiring & firing my team. And I suppose she is a nice enough person. But do I get any support from her regarding my career? Do I actually trust her sufficiently to even have an open discussion about me? Not a chance.”
3. “My team. They have constant gripes and complaints about their jobs, careers, salary packages etc. Many of these things I have little control over. But I do my bit to give them direction, keep them engaged and motivated. But who is doing that for me? Where is my support? I rarely have the support or tools to do the job, but am expected to just get on with it. Great!”
4. “Charles, the head hunter with his overly posh ‘Lloyd Grossman style’ accent (surely no one speaks like that when they are at home, do they?). He talks about being an advisor and consultant to help me make the right decisions, but I’m never really sure how impartial these guys are. After all, his main focus is earning fees, right? And in the current job market, there is only one person Charles is looking out for - and that’s Charles.”
5. “Sheila - my wife. She’s constantly complaining about me working long hours, not seeing the kids enough and not spending quality time with her. But at the same time she’s happy to just spend, spend, spend like there’s no tomorrow. Doesn’t she realise that there won’t be much of a bonus pot come the end of 2008? She simply doesn’t get it…”
I get fed up with people talking about “Work-Life balance.”
To me, the term Work-Life Balance infers that ‘work’ is the opposite to ‘Life.’ Which in the literal sense could mean death (!) or something equally negative.
Which really is nonsense.
Our ultimate aim should be to do work that is interesting, fulfilling and meaningful whilst still enabling you to achieve goals and priorities in other parts of your life.
i.e. Work that compliments other parts of your life - instead of competing against them. As soon as you talk about a balance between actvities - the assumption is that they are competing actvities.
Here are a selection of headlines from one newspaper last week:
- ‘Oil price to soar beyond $150 per barrel’
- ‘American Airlines puts surcharge on hand luggage to cope with fuel hikes’
- ‘Basic food prices up 30% on last year’
- ‘UK house prices to fall 7% in 2008’
- ‘Lehman to lose 5% of workforce’
- ‘JP Morgan to cut 8,000 Bear Stearns Jobs Worldwide’
- ‘No more big bonuses for 2 years say banking bosses’
Quite depressing hey?
Your disposable income is falling, the value of your biggest asset (the house) is falling and with various job cuts and hiring freezes you will have fewer resources with which to get the job done this year.
So quite possibly you’re getting less reward and not a huge amount of job satisfaction.
“But that’s financial services” - you might think – “you take the rough with the smooth.”
Well I agree – to an extent. You need to be able to ride the bad times. But every market has its winners and losers. You can still come out a winner in the current market.
All you need are the right strategies and mindset. Here is a 5-step model to help you make more money AND get more job satisfaction.
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"The Top 10 Career Mistakes To Avoid"
