Finding Work/Life Harmony Through Purpose

In August 2015, I sat in a room with John Maxwell for what was the closest I had been to him in the decade and a half that I had been studying his work. If I’m being honest, I was completely overwhelmed. This session was just prior to the event where I would complete my initial certification to use the material that had such an impact on my life to that point. It was surreal! I had left the company I had worked with my entire adult life less than a year before that and I had just filed the paperwork to make Dove Development & Consulting a thing. I frequently share how during this session, John detailed that he needed us to always exceed the expectations of everyone we worked with while using his material - and how few in society are willing to truly do that. But he shared one other thing in those two hours that provided me with a kind of clarity like I never had before.

To that point in my life, and at least as much today, I had kept a very busy schedule. I started my first 40-hour/week job as a carpenter immediately after my freshman year of high school; I had just turned fifteen. I didn’t work as much once school started that fall, simply because I still didn’t have a driver’s license and the construction crew I had worked with wrapped up their day just after I got off the bus. I started driving the following spring and only remember a few weeks from then until now where I clocked less than forty hours. Truth be told, I can’t point to many since receiving my high school diploma where I didn’t log fifty or more. Make no mistake here though, I’m not complaining at all! I’ve always seemed to find a way to enjoy most of what I’ve done. Through all that though, there were many times where I was accused of being a work-a-holic. I never bought into that crap; for me, it was just a matter of enjoying some of the finer things in life - like eating food and sleeping inside, and that required me to earn enough to pay for those things.

With that in mind, here’s what John said that impacted me so much. Someone in the crowd asked how he was able to maintain the appropriate work/life balance with such a packed schedule. John was in his late 60s at the time and was still speaking around the world no less than 200 days each year. John’s reply was like nothing I had ever heard! He responded by saying that “work/life balance is an illusion that too many people lean on as an excuse to be lazy.” He went on to detail the importance of achieving “work/life harmony,” which few of us in that small group had ever heard of.

Most folks are able to survive by finding a reasonable job that provides them with the steady 40-week at a fair wage, even though that’s become substantially more difficult as we’ve seen pricing on basically every essential item double over the last three years or so. But I haven’t met many people who get excited about trudging through a boring routine just to survive… And that brings us back to the importance of leading with a clear purpose; one we can latch onto as leaders and the ones we can help each of our team members strive for. Quite frankly, one of the most important things we’ll do in our leadership role is help our team members identify, connect with, and achieve the purpose that’s most important in their life. That’s where we can find what John referred to as work/life harmony - so that’s where we’ll pick up next time.