The work-life balance is dead in 2018: it’s time to work towards work-life blend.
When I was a kid, my “work dad” would come home from the bank in his three-piece suit and he’d go upstairs and my “home dad” would come downstairs in jeans, looking for his martini and the download of our day while my mom cooked dinner.
Sounds very Leave it to Beaver, doesn’t it? It really was. My dad didn’t have a computer or a cell phone. I can remember the only time the office called him at home – the bank building was on fire. But other than that – there was complete separation of work and home life.
We do not have that luxury. We carry our laptops home and even when we don’t, that pocket-sized computer means we can work 24/7.
At best, we can strive for work-life blend. Our personal lives will seep into the work day and our work will seep into our personal time. But for many agency owners, what that translates to is that you are always on and always working.
That’s not only unhealthy for you but it’s unhealthy for your business. You can’t grow your agency if you have to do everything that’s mission critical. Everyday I talk to agency owners who bemoan the fact that they can’t get everything done because they are too entrenched in working in the business, which means they do not have the time they need to work on the business.
If you hear yourself saying (or thinking) “I am the only one who can do XYZ” then you know your agency is broken. Whether you’ve hired super junior people and then not invested in them to mentor and grow them, or you have kept a stale employee on even though they don’t really have the skills or talents you need – some combination of choices, consequences and circumstances have created this situation and that’s probably on you.
The good news is – you can also correct the situation.
That is the conversation I wanted to have with Scott Beebe who is a strategist, teacher, and business coach for My Business On Purpose. He is also the host of the Business on Purpose podcast.
Scott is all about liberating small business owners from the chaos of working in their business and helping them get their lives back by being really clear about what their business is about, what they want to get out of the business, where they have unique opportunities to contribute to the business, and when and where they need to learn how to get out of the way.
Scott shares some very practical tools for stepping out of the day to day and resuming your rightful place as the visionary and leader of your agency. Listen to this podcast episode (https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/scott-beebe/) and begin to envision what your life could be if you truly achieved a healthier work-life blend.
You’ll probably never get to the Ward Cleaver level of work-life blend, but you certainly deserve to feel like your agency supports your life as opposed to your life always sacrificing for the agency.
