Wednesday, April 26, 2006

ResultsManager Straddles Both Worlds

More of guest poster Kyle McFarlin's series "Conquering Your World With ResultsManager." In this post, Kyle builds on the theme he started yesterday.

Take it away, Kyle:

I'm going to submit something of an arbitrary thought on the balance of projects you have up in the air at any one time. I'd say that about 30% of your projects should be of a personal nature and 70% should be professional. And I've got a feeling 90+% of people disagree with me here, but luckily I'm not going for consensus ;).

I fully understand that work is where the necessities for having a personal life come from.

But likewise, the personal life is the core from which the strength to address the professional life arises. So, there are less active personal projects personal (30%) than professional (70%), but the personal core of projects are really more important, because they make the professional output possible.

The point is life is circular, and if you aren't adressing your personal areas you are continuously being bitten in the ass by personal aspects of your life you've neglected. If you let a problem with a child go for weeks or months because you were too wrapped up in professional pursuits, what might have once taken 3 hours to address could end up taking 30. And if you don't believe me, then you've never seen absent parents find out their teenager has a substance problem.

So for you hard charging types, I'm saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in your personal life. At the end of the day, why let personal issues be blood sucking maggots to your professional pursuits when they can be the very foundation from which you spring forth to attain career greatness?!?!

Essentially, I'm implying no matter who you are, anything from a Granola Crunching Earth Mother to a 100 hour a week CEO, your personal life will call you back: you can either face it proactively or reactively. You must drive profitability not only in the professional realm but also the personal realm. And why not?

Won't it be a great day when you realize doing pushups instead of nothing makes your spouse more attracted to you, prompting an early morning 'closeness session' that drives up your endorphins, resulting in heightened brain chemistry that allows you to contribute the killer idea in the 9am meeting that gets you a promotion? Jim Collins calls it getting the "flywheel spinning" and Gandhi referred to life as "one interconnected whole".

But if you're seeing that skillful management of your personal life allows you better business results, isn't that both fun and a bit intimidating? After all, you could have a 2 or 3 year shitstorm you'll have to face in order to get back to good karma ;).

Yeah, you're going to have to shoot your way out, and no amount of technology can save you from that. However, if you're willing to embrace the culture, the technology can give you the best tactical view possible of the shootout, giving you maximum odds of achieving victory.

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