Do you have to cut off part of your life to be a success?
In the past particularly, many men felt they had to disconnect from their family to achieve success at work. Women have been guilty of that, too.
The insightful and amusing writer, David Sedaris, gave a perfect illustration of this in a story in The New Yorker .
It’s worth reading in full, but the snippet I want to focus on tells of a friend recalling a management seminar she’d attended where they discussed having to cut off part of your life to be a success—and used the symbol of a four-burner stove to represent our lives.
One burner represented your family, one your friends, the third your health, and the fourth was your work. The instructor had declared that in order to be successful you had to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you had to cut off two.
Sedaris described his friend as seeming genuinely happy with a successful business.
“I asked which two burners she had cut off, and she said that the first to go had been family. After that, she switched off her health.”
How about you?
It’s a good question for each one of us. Have you switched off any of your burners?
We could plunge into deep discussions on the meaning of life, of success—and more. But what the results of our www.NewNorma.com white paper Life Work Balance Strategies for Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners shows is that it does really get down to how we think. (Check out the 11 strategies from successful business women outlined in the free e-white paper.)
Maybe we can’t keep all the four burners on high all the time—that would be cooking up trouble and stress anyway! However, when it comes to health, family, friends and work it’s worth getting the recipe right. But what’s wrong with one simmering while others bubble away at a good boil?
