Jim Bird - Redefining Work-Life Balance: One-Minute Tools to Manage Stress, Achieve More & Enjoy Life Every Day

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Copyright 2019 by Jim Bird

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Publisher: Jesse Krieger

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ISBN: 9781948787833

For my wife, Vikki, and daughters, Amanda and Kelly. You inspire me every day.

As a star consultant in a major international firm, Mark had been on more flights in the last month than he could recall. He was exhausted at the thought of another trip. With the hypnotizing hum of the planes engine in the background, he stared out the window at the oncoming dusk and thought, If this plane would just crash, I wouldnt have to take on the additional responsibilities looming ahead of me. For a moment, he considered that a positive.

That dreadfully shocking thought fundamentally changed the way Mark chose to balance his life for the better. He did not change his definition of professional success. Instead, he redefined his work-life balance to achieve it. Now, as the twenty-year president of a major US distribution company and a proud and happy husband and father, he says, That was a tipping point that made me more productive and more fulfilled in my career and my personal life.

Redefining your work-life balance in the right way has life-altering results. These pages capture that better way for you to define your best work-life balance and are supported by radically simple yet powerful tools, many of which become enjoyable habits you will consistently apply in one minute or less.

The immediate outcomes you should expect are more fulfilling relationships with those you love and care about, more joy and less tension within yourself, and more pride, satisfaction, and accomplishment in your work and with your co-workers. Over a lifetime, the tools and concepts in these pages will reduce negative stress and create more positive balance in and between your work and personal lifeevery day.

I have been passionate about this topic since my senior year at Georgia Tech where I participated in an honors research project. I could choose any topic and for my efforts receive an automatic A grade. I jumped at the opportunity. I told my professor that I wanted to create a framework and tools for how to be very successful in business and enjoy lifes journey along the way.

My professor resisted at first, saying it was too broad, but eventually he gave in. The result was one of the most important experiences of my life. It gave me the opportunity to research and study a wide range of subjects that I was interested inleadership, ethics, people skills, philosophy, time managementand resulted in a very early framework and tool set.

The techniques developed from that research were tested and substantially modified in the real world. I started and grew a light manufacturing business to a great team of 300+ people generating over $100 million in sales. A big part of our teams commitment and success came from adapting and applying these tools and respecting that in addition to having a job, each one of us has a life.

I later built an international leadership and work-life balance training firm where those techniques were refined by working with Mark and hundreds of other outstanding leaders and organizations to create a more positively balanced and happier life. Along the way, I fell in love and added the experience of becoming a very proud and appreciative husband and dad.

The result of decades of learning from and teaching others are found in the practical tools contained in this book. These tools have proven to better balance and enhance peoples lives in their work and in relationships with family and friends and their own personal well-being.

As part of that process I have personally asked tens of thousands of individuals in businesses, non-profits, government agencies, and the U.S. military whether work-life balance is an important issue to them and what results they would like to see by better achieving it. Overwhelmingly, it was an important issue and their most common desired benefits included:

More fulfilled

Less stressed

More productive personally and professionally

Get more important things done in less time

Procrastinate less

Stay focused amidst all the distractions

Have time just for me

Be happier

These are all results that the tools in our training and in this book produced for them and will for you, as well. However, before applying these tools to create a more positive work-life balance, we must first clearly redefine balance in a way that works for you.

Regrettably, that has become necessary because academics, HR departments, and the media have shallowly defined work-life balance in ways that make it unattainable, undesirable, or both. Too often these straw man definitions are used to conclude that work-life balance does not exist. Work-Life Balance Is Dead and Work-Life Balance is Impossible have been repeated headlines in hundreds of media pieces from Forbes, Fortune, and CNN amongst numerous others who grabbed a catchy title and ran with it.

If something you inherently desire is undefined, ill-defined, or impossible, your outcomes will disappoint or frustrate and can often be harmful. Fortunately, these pundits are wrong. Work-life balance is attainable every day for the rest of your life, provided it is positively redefined from these self-defeating characterizations.

Thats why Part One of this book begins by dispelling the myth that there is no such thing as work-life balance. Instead it delivers a proven re-definition that is clear, fulfilling, and attainable, along with a tool set that will enhance the value and positive balance you get from lifetoday and every day.

Part Two is about people and relationships. You will learn two powerful one-minute tools that can be applied to your life immediately. The outcome will be a more rewarding, less stressed, and happier balance with the important individuals in your personal and work life. In each chapter you will also see examples from people who have generously shared their personal stories and experiences in implementing these tools.

Part Three is about achieving the things you want in life. It delivers two tools that supercharge your thinking. You will get more quality thinking done with each of these tools in minutes than most people get done in days, weeks, or even a lifetime of typical pondering.