Work-Life Balance is Really About Alignment

September 1, 2011 by · 11 Comments

Today is September, which has me freaking out a bit. Just yesterday, it was . . . summer. Right? Right?! The past month has been a blur with wrapping up old projects and beginning new ones. I went on a weeklong vacation to Jamaica in July, which now feels like forever ago. Looking at the 900+ messages in my inbox right now, plus the half-dozen speaking engagements to prepare for in the next few weeks, it would be easy for me to say that I need more “work-life balance.” But the real solution to not being so “busy” is that I need to make more choices in my work and life that are in alignment with my values.

How We Currently Define Work-Balance

With the incredibly fast pace of work and life these days, we often talk about the great and ongoing Quest for Work-Life Balance. As if it were some sparkly green fairy hidden at the other end of the rainbow. (No, that would be a leprechaun. Wait, what?) Anyway, there’s been a ton of discussion about it in organizations, at staff retreats, in hushed tones by the water cooler. There are many ways the term has been defined over the years, but the one listed on Wikipedia works for the point I want to make here today:

Work–life balance is a broad concept including proper prioritizing between “work” (career and ambition) on the one hand and “life (health,pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development) on the other.

The whole way we’ve defined work-life balance thus far is the idea that we have to prioritize, or balance, our personal life or work life over one another at different times. This view, however, causes a huge sense of inner conflict and guilt in both “places,” as it were. The fact is, work-life balance is a misleading term.

What Work-Life Balance Really Is

Work-life balance is not really about “balancing” work and life at all. It is about living in alignment with your values. Have you ever noticed that when you’re not being real or authentic to who you truly are or what you really want, you feel out of balance?

  • What happens when you let your work interfere with spending quality time with your family? You realize you’re not living in alignment with your value of “family first.” You then begin to feel out of balance with who you really are.
  • What happens when your friends start complaining that they never see you anymore because you’re so “busy” with work? You realize you’re not living in alignment with your value of “friends are important.” You then begin to feel out of balance with who you really are.
  • What happens when you glance up at the calendar and are shocked to see that you haven’t gone on a date in two years? You realize that you’re not living in alignment with your values of love and romance. You then begin to feel out of balance with what you really want.
  • What happens when you look down at your plate for lunch and see nothing but fatty fats and bad carbs, day after day, eaten sitting at your desk? You realize you’re not living in alignment with your value of healthy living. You then begin to feel out of balance with what you really want.

Work-Life Balance is About Alignment

What I’m getting at here is that there is usually an event or feeling that triggers the realization that “I need more work-life balance,” as if the only thing you need to do is go see if you can find some on sale at Target this week. The inconvenient truth is that whenever we get that feeling of being out of balance, we are also experiencing a gap in our own personal integrity. It’s saying yes when we know we should be saying no (I’m guilty of this many times over, but less so than in the past). It’s saying no when we know we should to be saying yes (to things like leisure, exercise, and fun). It’s the choices we make that prevent us from fully living in accordance with what we say we care about.

Work-life balance is not about not having enough time to do all the things you want to do for your job and for fun. It’s about making the time for what matters to you. Neither your boss nor technology is the culprit here. This is about you getting clear on your values and how you want them to play out in your life. And then making changes where they need to be made.

Are you living in alignment with your values? Does your relationship with work reflect that? If not, what can you do today to change it?

P.S. Sam Davidson has a thoughtful take on work-life balance on his blog that’s well worth a read: Work/Life Balance is Different Than You Think It Is

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged With: ,

Who Are You on Social Media?

August 30, 2011 by · 10 Comments

This post is part of my ongoing Social Media 101 series to encourage leaders to learn more about social media and use it effectively in their life and work.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been avoiding the shiny new social network everyone’s been talking about: Google Plus. Or is it Google+? Either way, the network already boasts millions of users who are raving about the experience.

Yet, there are lots of reasons for me not to hop onto yet another social network. For one, I’m already on the major ones: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook . . . with little hope of ever “keeping up” with all the connections I make online. On the other hand, I am self-employed as a speaker, trainer and coach, and these online connections have proven to be critical to the survival of my business. I’m thankful for all the leads, referrals and sales I’ve gained as a result of social media.

But back to Google Plus. What’s really prevented me from jumping into the network head first is the fact that I want to be more intentional about my time online, in particular with how I connect with others on social media.

Who Are You on Social Media?

This question is sort of like asking if you are a different person at work than you are in your personal life. Since most of us use social media for both work and personal purposes, though, there’s more at stake when you’re not being real online. You’re being two different people, and that’s not cool.

With Google Plus, it would have been easy enough to put up my default profile, post the same types of updates and connect with the same types of people I’ve been talking to for years – nonprofit leaders and young professionals. In fact, those were the first people I “circled” on Google Plus. Then I thought a little deeper about that. What was my real intention for being on this particular network? Who was I going to be on Google Plus? For some reason, talking about the same ol’ topics didn’t excite me. I mean, I already talk to those folks on other networks. Why another place where I’ll hear the same information and participate in the same conversations? And it was in that moment that I realized who I am on social media has changed as my values have changed. And subsequently, so has my purpose for being online.

Is Your Online Experience in Alignment with Your Values?

Of course, we all have boundaries of what aspects of ourselves we will or will not share. I’ve shared a great deal about myself online, yet I still feel that I’ve maintained a comfortable level of privacy. Others are loathe to spill any details about who they are under any circumstances. If that’s because you’re a private person, fine. But if it’s about trying to portray yourself as someone you’re not (or hiding the person you really are) then your social media presence may be out of alignment with your values of honesty, transparency and integrity (if those are, in fact, your values).

Four years ago now, I joined Twitter to share my thoughts and connect with others. Over time, it (as well as other social networks) became a place to grow my network and explore my career evolution. Now, the pendulum is swinging back to my deep desire to connect with various types of people and share ideas regarding my personal and professional interests. It is becoming more important to me to have an authentic experience online. As we all spend so much time here as part of our life and work, it has a lot to do with being in alignment with my values and being able to honor all the different aspects of who I am as a person.

Where Does Personal Branding Fit Into All of This?

As I’ve said before, personal branding is not about selling a facade. It’s about showing the world who you really are.

That’s my take, anyway. As always, I would love to hear yours.

Two Questions for Reflection:

  1. Who are you online? Is that the “real” you?
  2. If you’re not being real online, why not?
Filed Under: Social Media · Tagged With: , ,

The World Needs You to Be You

October 12, 2010 by · 30 Comments

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman

It’s about time I let you in on a little secret. I’ve never felt completely at home in the nonprofit sector. As I began my career, what I wanted more than anything was to fit in. I wanted to be seen as qualified and competent and educated and worthy of doing the jobs I was hired to do. It was very rare that I let my co-workers in on any personal aspects of my life beyond where I went to school and where I was from. I wanted people to think that I was just like them.

Nevermind the fact that in reality, I actually had very little in common with many of the nonprofit leaders I worked with. One of my first bosses was so well-off that she barely took a salary. How difficult it was for me to be able to explain to her how much I needed a raise so I could finally quit my part-time job as a hostess and devote my full attention to the nonprofit field. Or in instances where I was out to lunch with co-workers, partners or even funders, who went around the table introducing themselves. I don’t know if this is a Washington DC thing or not, but the question, “what do your parents do” often came up in these settings. It was always really uncomfortable for me. For one, it assumed that everyone at the table had two parents. And two, that those parents had respectable careers that merited impressed head nodding from everyone at the table.

It was hard to tell my truth after hearing the stories of how my lunchmates’ parents completed Ivy League education and put them through the same, all the while embarking on lucrative careers that resulted in homes that  my colleagues had fond memories growing up in. What was I supposed to say? That my mom had me when she was 15? That my father was a drug dealer? That I grew up in the projects? That it took my mom 20 years to complete her college education and was just now beginning a stable career in her 40s? Mostly, I just tried to avoid those conversations. It pained me to sit at those tables.

It made me realize just how different I was, even to people that I was working side by side with to effect social change.

I did not yet know that different can be good. Not until people like Joe Gerstandt hipped me to the game. Identity diversity, or differences in who we are, can bring innovation to a sector that desperately needs it. It was great that I grew up differently than my colleagues. It was not so great that I felt the need to hide it.

Ever since I left Austin, I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity and what that looks like for me in my work. I’m also wondering what it looks like for other young people of color who work in the nonprofit field. Do you feel the need to hide who you really are to fit in to the nonprofit culture? Are you like my sister in blogging Akhila Kolisetty, afraid, deeply afraid to reveal all?

Yes? Then you probably need to hear what I’m about to tell you.

I hereby give you permission to stop denying yourself. Stop hiding your background and your experiences and your stories. The world needs you to be you. The world needs you to show up and show OUT and unleash the nonprofit rockstar within. What the world needs is for you to come alive with your unique passion for social change. Not to fit in with all the people who dress and act the part but have no idea what living the part really means.

Today, I wish for you what I wish for myself – the grace and the courage to step out into the kind of leadership that YOU define, not someone else. Because no matter who you are, there’s a place for you at the nonprofit table.

Filed Under: Inspiration, Leadership · Tagged With: , ,

Who Teaches Us to Question?

February 12, 2010 by · 10 Comments

I was reading Marian Wright Edelman’s elegant piece, Remembering Howard Zinn and I was struck by this part:

Howie taught me to question and ponder what I read and heard and to examine and apply the lessons of history in the context of the daily political, social, and moral challenges all around us in the South like racial discrimination and income inequality. He combined book learning with experiential opportunities to engage in interracial discussions; partnered with community groups challenging legal segregation; and engaged students as participants, observers, data collectors, and witnesses in pending legal cases.

Marian’s words made me think about my own teachers. Looking back, I realize that the most valuable lesson they taught me was to question. To think critically about everything. Everything. From my college professors who taught me feminist theory and religious studies and philosophy and Black history. Oh, and poetry. The ultimate truth. My professors pushed me to investigate what was true for myself. They taught me to even question them and the PhD certificates framed on their office walls.

When I got to grad school, it seemed like the total opposite. In my nonprofit management program, I was taught to obey all the “best practices” of the nonprofit world. “This,” my professors told me, “is how you do social change.” I read all the books and learned all the theories. I even went out to the Midwest to learn how to raise money at The Fundraising School, where they taught me everything I needed to know about fundraising.

When I first started out in my nonprofit career, I was constantly praised for implementing all the neat stuff I’d learned in grad school. “This is how you write a grant proposal,” I would say to organizations that needed help building their capacity. Not once did I broach a conversation with them about why they were using problematic language. Not once did I question the status quo.

In the “real” world of nonprofit management, I had lost a bit of my idealistic college fire. I had forgotten that I’d come to the sector not just to build better organizations, but to build a better world. I had forgotten that I’d come here in pursuit of truth with a capital “T.”

But after a while, I did begin to ask questions. Why do we do what we do the way we do it? Why do we say one thing in the staff meeting and another in the fundraising meeting? Why do we have to kiss so and so politico’s ass when they clearly don’t give a damn about the people we serve? Why aren’t we using our power to compel the community to action? Why are there so many white people in nonprofit leadership positions when so much of our work is serving communities of color?

I learned the answers to these questions and more very quickly. The easy answer? Because that’s just the way it is and always will be. The more nuanced one? Because no one wants to rock the boat with their boards, with their “friends” inside the City Council or the White House, with their funders. Especially with their funders. It’s much easier to obey.

Just ask DC Central Kitchen president Robert Egger, who has been trying to mobilize his colleagues around the country to change the way we do the work of social change for many years now. He even wrote a book about it. He even started the V3 Campaign to help them do it. Yet many people in the sector consider him a “rebel.” I’ve heard people whisper in the conference hallways that they wish he would get off his soapbox.

I want to ask them why they don’t have a soapbox. Why are they not asking the questions? Isn’t that what being an “independent sector” is all about?

I suspect that the reason that Marian treasured her time with Howard Zinn so much is because very few people do what he did. Very few people are in the business of questioning. The ones that do? Well, we call them rebels. We don’t let them sit at the big kid’s table. We kick them out of the White House.

You will say that I’m naive. I am not. I get the whole money, politics, power thing, I do. I see how it affects nonprofit organizations. It’s a hard line. Sometimes we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. But I want to see us lead from that hard place.

Because unless we do, we become merely keepers of the status quo. We become cogs in a broken wheel. And yes, we know that it’s broken. We see it coming off its hinges before our very eyes. We just don’t want to ask the hard questions that could lead us to fixing it.

Filed Under: Leadership, Politics · Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Does Anybody Know That You’re a Christian? (Or, How Come Generation Y Doesn’t Talk About Religion?)

December 17, 2009 by · 23 Comments

Or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Jew or Hindu, etc.? This question was posed on Twitter last night and it really struck a chord with me. My fellow Clevelander @MissLissa08 sparked a conversation with me and @MlleMitchell by sharing this video that challenges the disconnect between what many young people say they believe and how they actually play out those values in their lives. Although the video poses the question to Christians, it really applies to every other religion, so you can fill in the blank here. The issues are largely the same.

This video freaked me out for several reasons. I’ve said before that talking about spiritual beliefs is something that makes Generation Y really uncomfortable. But in thinking about this more deeply last night, it hit me that among my closest peers in the nonprofit world, I only know the spiritual beliefs of about 2 of them.  This really disturbs me. It drove home the point that very few young leaders are sharing their religious values with each other or talking about how those beliefs guide or inspire their work.  I couldn’t help but try to speculate as to why this is the case. How come young people don’t talk about their religious beliefs? Here’s what we said on Twitter.

Religion Gets a Bad Rap

We’re Afraid to Broach the Subject

We Don’t Try Hard Enough to Understand Other People’s Beliefs

While driving around DC in my car yesterday, I heard someone say something on the radio that just blew me away. The radio host was doing an on-location interview with a male counselor at a nonprofit in the DC area. The host asked the counselor why he worked so hard to help people through the organization. The counselor replied, very simply, “because of my love for Jesus Christ.”

What do you think? How come  Generation Y doesn’t talk about our spiritual or religious beliefs? Should we?

Filed Under: Leading by Faith, Next Generation Leadership · Tagged With: , , ,
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