Work/Life Imbalance

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

The Amex OPEN Forum published a provocative and thoughtful piece earlier in the year.  Mostly I agreed with the content; some was sappy.  In summary, some of the key points were:

• You can always win - you are not foreordained or predestined to accept tough circumstances
• Be a cheerleader - a potentially losing proposition, with an act that can quickly wear thin; encouragement is good, but relentless rah-rah labels the perpetrator as a poseur.
• Learn new things - become a conscious life-long learner, and don't be afraid to re-learn old things
• Create memorable experiences -for your employees, for your colleagues, for yourself; expense is not necesarily great, but the event you've created is a message of positive recognition
• Always have fun - if you're not, you're doing it wrong, or with the wrong people at the wrong place
• Never forget that you are not your job - that your job does not define you
• Make these real for all those around you by living them - every day.

Look, these are as simple as they seem - just tough to execute.  

Do what's right.  Trust others.  Be a hero; be a leader.