Social Selling: Myth or Magic? (Guest Blog by Sam Bessant)

I’m thrilled to welcome back guest blogger Sam Bessant. Her first contribution to the Bennis Inc Blog, “Success Versus the Work-Life Balance” continues to receive top hits! Learn more about Sam in her bio following this post and be sure and visit her personal blog here.

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Social selling is a relatively new concept to the world as its dawn has only come through the dramatic shift we’ve all made to living our lives through social media in the last few years. The whole networking game has changed and we now have easier access to more people and more information than we’ve ever had before. But what are we doing with all this information and what impact does it have on our working lives?

The term “social selling” is being banded around left, right and centre by people who consider themselves forward thinkers in the field but few seem to understand what it really means and whether it really involves any actual selling. A new pothole for salespeople to stumble into is the idea that stalking prospects on LinkedIn and sending them a half-arsed message constitutes selling. Similarly, there is the idea that following an event on Twitter is just as good as being at the event; reading a blog about how to sell is the same as mastering the technique yourself…the list goes on. The problem is that actions taken by your “virtual” presence in the online world are just that – virtual and intangible. And the results will be too. At some point, that world of Web 2.0 needs to meet with more old fashioned actions because we aren’t living in a fully virtual society yet. People still rate people and personal relationships built up through phone calls and meetings; some people aren’t even part of this huge social network, preferring to remain aloof and test your persistence in reaching them.

So we circle back to the question of “what is social selling?” and is it something that has been created by the very people whose advertising revenue relies on us using their social networks? I would suggest not. Social selling is actually very powerful but it needs to be thought of as a tool; one singular tool in a whole toolbox of potential sales techniques. What social media allows us is the opportunity to understand more about the people we want to engage, more about the companies they work for and more about what other salespeople are doing to win themselves success. It gives us an “in” and helps to reduce the awkwardness of the initial contact because we have enough information to make contact with purpose. We don’t have to spend ages battling with switchboards to get hold of a name and we can send messages directly to C-level contacts we’d have spent months trying to target previously, but this is only the beginning.

As with more traditional sales methods, social selling takes time. You still need to qualify your prospects and build a relationship. The social media piece simply allows you to do some of the legwork before you make contact so that you can wow them with a compelling story tailored just for them. A mistake commonly made is thinking that all of the information a salesperson needs can be found online. This is not the case. What you can find is a great foundation to hop over the initial hurdles so you can spend your valuable time working on real sales opportunities rather than arguing with gatekeepers. So social selling isn’t a myth; it’s a real thing and there are real opportunities being found through social media. However, it isn’t magic either. Nobody will do the hard work for you and you’ll still need to be creative in the way you approach people and ensure you deliver the service you’d expect yourself. Social selling is a valuable tool which you can’t afford to overlook but remember…it is only a single tool and cannot replace your entire tool set.

Sam Bessant lives in Reading, UK. She currently works the standard office 9-6 while trying to finalize the direction she will take to start her own business. Sam’s blog, 20somethingfreak was created to help Sam and others understand what it is to be in your 20s and for Sam to share some of the millions of daydreams she has every day! Be sure and visit Sam’s personal blog: www.20somethingfreak.wordpress.com.

 

Shifting Away From Shift Work: Forgetting the Life of a 9-5er

I realized I’ve now spent more of my career as an entrepreneur, building my own business and setting my own schedule, than I have as a 9 to 5 employee to someone else. It’s a milestone I’ve proudly earned by taking many other risks and sacrifices, but I still can’t help but a feel little spoiled for the life this has provided. When my friends or family encounter a restriction because of their work schedule, I’m oddly aloof as to what this feels like. I’m unable to recall what it’s like to have to report to a desk every day at a specific time and stay there regardless of what, if any work needs accomplished during those exact hours. Work doesn’t always come in between 9am and 5pm and it certainly doesn’t stop coming in at all other hours of the day. This raises the question of why, with all of the technology that allows us to work from virtually anywhere, do we still chain ourselves to a desk for a block period of time?

I don’t know who I should credit for its original quotation, but this following thought often weaves itself into my conversations with people who ask me about entrepreneurship. “As an entrepreneur, you get to choose the 80 hours a week you work.” The hours of work per week will change, but the message remains the same. Entrepreneurs may put in long hours, but at least we get to choose these hours. This allows us to weave work around life, travel and important events that we may otherwise have to choose between. I jokingly say that if I worked a 9 to 5 job, I would max out my vacation days before February of each year and with every passing year this joke becomes more of a reality. I’m grateful that the length of my vacations, holiday breaks and time spent with family are at my discretion. With a husband who also runs his own non-profit, I’m quite certain that without our flexible work schedules we would be like two ships passing in the night. Instead, I’ll join him on a business trip and work from hotels and coffee shops. Or we’ll both choose to work from home for a day to spend a little more time together.

When you’re an insomniac they say that you’re never really asleep and never really awake. As an entrepreneur, I feel quite similar with my work schedule. At any given time I never have to be working, but I’m also never not working. Email and cell phones connect me at all times with my clients, so whether I’m sitting in front of my computer or out grocery shopping, I’m just as accessible. This allows me to do anything at any hour of the day and so I try to be strategic with when I do what. For example, entrepreneurship has allowed me to visit the doctor or hair salon at times when most people have to be at the office. I can do my grocery shopping when the store is dead rather than fighting with the weekend traffic. I also schedule my meetings to avoid rush hour so I can easily sail down the highway and spend more time than absolutely necessary in transit. These may seem like small perks, but I couldn’t imagine life without them.

I’m barely able to remember what life was like when I had the same exact routine every morning and a set time to be out the door. Every so often these clouded memories come back when I find myself scheduled for an early morning meeting or poor planning has left me stuck in commuter traffic. My immediate reaction is “How do people do this every day?” After the moment passes and I re-enter my entrepreneurial world of constant change and variable schedules, I realize this is also a reasonable question that anyone else may choose to ask me…

 

A Penny Saved Is More Than A Penny Earned

As far back as the 17^th century, the idiom we now know very well, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” was first quoted. And though the true author of this phrase may be up for debate, the meaning is quite clear. It is just as useful to save the money we have as it is to put our efforts into earning more. For hundreds of years this remained a solid block of financial wisdom and even just a decade ago I would say it still held true. However, given the recent changes in our economy, culture and job market, I’d like to propose a more accurate version on this longstanding proverb that may become the words of wisdom we pass along to future generations.

A penny saved is more than a penny earned.

It’s quite literally what it sounds like. Keeping a hold of the pennies we have is now more cost effective than earning more pennies and in some cases even dimes and dollars. We can do more, live more and enjoy more by cutting back than we can by taking on additional means of income to finance our spending sprees. Spending less is the new way to get rich. But what makes this true? Well, there are several compelling reasons why these little copper and zinc Lincolns are worth more in your piggy bank than they are on an additional paycheck:

We underestimate how quickly pennies can add up. I can never pass up a heads-up penny (and with this economy, I might soon be picking up the “unlucky” tails-up ones too). While this is more to fulfill my childhood good-luck-nostalgia, I laugh at how quickly my coin purse fills up from these pennies from heaven. Sure it’s hardly enough to buy a cup of coffee at the end of the month, but a penny is just the monetary amount we use as an example in this quote. Think bigger – five, ten, twenty or even a hundred dollars put aside in savings can equate to a huge cushion at the end of the year. And if done right, we will have hardly missed this extra cash. Moreover, because we don’t think pennies can ever amount to much, we’re less receptive to small ways to save them. Pack your lunch or morning coffee, commute with a friend or only buy groceries you really need (not just because they’re on sale). A quarter here, a dollar there and you’ll soon find enough spare change to finance that dinner out without taking on more work or putting yourself in debt.

A penny earned is really only a fraction of a penny. If you happen to be in the 10% tax bracket, every taxed dollar you earn is worth only $0.90. But don’t forget to tack on FICA, state and a ton of other taxes I’m too depressed to mention and that little penny begins to look a whole lot smaller. What this means is that you put a lot of energy and effort into earning just a fraction of what you’re time is really worth. By placing your focus on spending less rather than earning more, you’ll gain additional time to do something other than work and enjoy the money you do have to its fullest.

If you can fully immerse yourself in the savings lifestyle, you’ll save exponentially. When I first started my own business I went into extreme savings mode. I cut out all the financial fat that I had been wasting money on for far too long (a big cable TV package, a reserved parking spot, too large of a healthcare plan) and I found hundreds of extra dollars in my monthly budget even though I was making considerably less. Though I have slowly worked my way to a more stable income and comfortable lifestyle, I realized I didn’t really want to add back in those luxuries even when I could afford them again. We still live on a meager weekly grocery bill and I’ve all but lost my excitement for retail therapy, but I truly don’t miss it. The money we don’t spend on these little things we instead put toward travel and eating out – two luxuries that are far more memorable to me than yet another pair of shoes I don’t need. Get into the habit of living a savings lifestyle and you’ll be amazed by how you’ll find fun in the challenge of saving money and lose the love for unnecessary spending.

A penny saved gains more than just dust – it gains interest. Although interest rates aren’t great and you can’t exactly invest just pennies in the stock market, there is still great value in saving and investing your money to whatever degree you can. As mentioned above, a penny earned is worth slightly less than one cent while a penny saved  and invested is worth slightly more. While earning extra pennies, you’re giving up time and energy, but saving pennies requires complete inaction. So don’t think spare change needs to sit in a pink piggy bank somewhere, put it in a savings account where it can earn (even a little bit of) money while you do nothing more than live your life.

The penny itself is worth more than one cent. Back in 2006 this New York Times article shared that it actually costs more than one cent to create a penny – 1.4 cents to be exact – because of the cost of metal and production. As the demand for certain metals continue to rise, who knows the worth of the penny now or how high it will reach before the United States Mint takes these little guys out of circulation altogether. And when that happens? Your quirky pennies that will become a relic to future generations might (might) be worth a lot more someday. This is meant more for humor than it is for financial advisement, but keep this in mind the next time you’re walking on the side walk and spot an orphaned penny – that’s at least 1.4 cents you’ve just gained!

The heads-up side of things: Learning to save your money will always be the best financial advice you can ever receive. I’ve personally found so much value in learning and living this truth because it taught me that time spent doing things I love is far more valuable than time spent earning a few extra dollars. I would much prefer to cut back on my spending and manage my wants for the ability to pursue a passionate career and live simply but happily. And while a penny earned is no longer equal to a penny saved, hearing this proverb still makes us stop and reflect on our spending habits – and for that it’s worth all the pennies in the world!

 

The Work-Life Imbalance

Often I come across an article or a quiz asking me to examine my “work-life balance.” It’s a term we should have all encountered by now – whether in a magazine, an HR seminar, even in a casual dinner conversation. To nod your head and affirm, “Of course, I have a great work-life balance,” carries a sense of pride as if you’re really saying “Yeah, I’ve got it all together.” But what defines a work-life balance? Must the parts always be equal to keep the scales from tipping too far in one direction?

We spend the majority of our waking hours working in some capacity. In the best case scenario, only 40 hours of our week is spent in a formal work environment, but what about all of those evening and weekend emails, phone calls and “emergency projects” that cut into the little time we’re already given for “life?” Such tasks sneak extra weight onto the “work” side of the scale and can lead to an imbalance we don’t even know exists.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve taken more notice to how I’ve been chipping away at my free time by choosing to do a several minutes of work-related tasks here and there. Even just a few minutes can turn into hours over the course of a week. For example, I try to finish up my last work project of the day no later than 6pm. But while I enjoy dinner and a little bit of television, my mind is still very much on work. If I hear the chirp of an email – I answer it. And so this persists throughout the evenings and into the weekends. My best estimate is that on average, I burden myself with an additional 7-10 hours of work each week beyond what’s expected or demanded. When all added up, that’s a full day! A day in which I could have taken a road trip, enjoyed the beautiful fall weather or simply decompressed. And while these off-hour emails may help progress work, they put a major halt on life.

Back when I wrote about The Two-Day Truce, I urged everyone to resist the urge to do unnecessary work on the weekends because it only causes the recipients of the emails to feel the pressure to respond. Essentially it takes away from everyone’s weekend. I have gotten better about not being a weekend warrior with work, but I realized an even bigger problem. We’re so trained to work, we do it without even knowing it. Consciously we may feel like we’re living a pretty balanced life, but really our scales are so off kilter they’re nearly falling over altogether.

I couldn’t tell you how many times a day I check my phone for new emails, especially after “work hours.” I’m not sure I would want to know. By proactively checking for emails and refreshing my inbox, I’m looking for work to do instead of enjoying that other component that should fill our time – life. A true Work-Life Balance is so much more than saying you leave your office or close your laptop at 6pm. Chances are we’re very accessible to work during any of the hours in between. But when we’re at work are we this accessible to life? Every week’s schedule is different and there’s no doubt that there will be some weeks that demand an imbalanced share of our time for work. The key is to find the balance not every day or every week, but over the long run.

The Work-Life Balance may not be so much about balance after all. Maybe it’s more about flexibility and our openness to work more when we absolutely have to, but to also seize extra moments of “life” when the opportunity should arise. If you can’t close down by 6pm tonight, don’t sweat it, but plan for some extra relaxing time in your schedule later this weekend to make up for the difference and realign the balance!

What about you. Is your work-life balanced…flexible…or somewhat of both?

 

Finding Stability In Constant Change

Ask a business owner, entrepreneur or self-employed person to describe the qualities of their chosen career path and I would be shocked to hear them use the word “stable.” Stability is a very desirable perk for any job that simply isn’t in the description of entrepreneurship. This should come as no surprise to those of us who have willingly ventured down this path. We know what we signed up for – and we also know the benefits in which offset the lack of stability. But is it possible for the chaos-embracing entrepreneur to find stability amidst this constant change? Can change be turned into a constant?

I think so.

Each day is wildly different. There is little rhythm to the type of projects I work on day to day and month to month. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because so much of my work is hard to plan for or anticipate, I’ve found stability in creating a schedule for the work I do complete on a weekly or monthly basis. For example, each morning my to-do list always begins with logging on to WordPress and commenting on five other blogs. Every Friday I write my Bennis Inc blog post for the following week. Then of course there is the client work that is regular and reoccurring such as scheduling social media updates or blog writing that gain a place in my work “schedule.” By having a set time carved out in my schedule for this anticipated work, I can then dedicate my remaining time to the unanticipated – and sometimes urgent – projects that always come up. Not only is this good time management, but it gives me a feeling of stability and regularity amidst the ever-changing variety and quantity of my work.

Another way in which I’ve learned to feel stable in a career field that most certainly is not is that I’ve changed the way in which I view contracted work. Each month my work may change, but what won’t change is my ability to seek out new work as I need it. With the skill to hunt you’ll never go hungry. Even as clients come and go, I never run the same risk of having my income go to zero in one day’s time. It would be a slow and gradual process for which I could react and prepare. In other words, I don’t carry the same fear as someone who could be laid off. So while there is stability in a regular income and a bi-weekly paycheck, there is always the risk that it could all come to a halt almost instantly. As a traditional employee, the process of being interviewed, hired and placed on payroll is much longer than signing a new client. And due to contracts, I will always have at least one month’s notice of losing a client rather than only receiving a pink slip and the rest of the day to clear my desk. Realizing this unique benefit of entrepreneurship, I now know stability can be found in the confidence I have to always be able to seek out new clients and more work.

The career path of the self-emplyed is in no way predictable or certain, but if you look in the right places you will find that stability does exist. It may not make for the biggest lifeboat, but it can still help to keep you afloat until you can again find calm waters.

 

Post-Vacation Panic: Tackling the Mountain of Emails

It feels great to be back!

I hope you enjoyed a relaxing long weekend and celebration of Labor Day. But I hope you haven’t enjoyed (too much) the small pause from the Bennis Inc Blog – because I’m excited to hit the ground running with some new posts I think you’ll really enjoy.

A two and a half week hiatus of travel is no joke. While I felt rested and energized from this prolonged time offline, I’m now facing the harsh reality that there’s a lot of work to be done. Even with emails being sent and phone calls being made from coast to coast when I could carve out some time, I felt more reactive than proactive. This is an odd place to be for an over-planner and an all-hours worker. It’s easy and tempting to allow this feeling to overwhelm me to the point of panicking or shutting down, but before I click “refresh” on my email, I’m going to take a deep breath and take a more strategic approach to this mountain of work.

My knee-jerk reaction when looking at a slew of new emails is to quickly click on each one, even just for a second, to first get rid of the awful illuminated look of an unread message. I then make a split section decision as to its priority. Both of these habits are dangerous. First, just because a message is “read” doesn’t mean its taken care of. Leaving a bunch of read but unanswered emails in your inbox will make you feel like you’ve accomplished something when really all you did was cover up the blinking red light. Second, it’s hard to tell the priority of a message by simply skimming it. Sometimes the most important information or question come at the very end. Deleting a message based on its first paragraph is…well, judging a book by its cover.

So instead my plan is to tackle this mountain step by step, email by email. I’ve been in the game long enough to know when I work most effectively – and it’s by focusing on just one project and seeing it through to completion before beginning another. My two and a half weeks of backlogged work is no different. I need to start at the bottom and handle each message one at a time. Whether this is a major task or a simple click of “delete” for junk mail, I gain nothing by trying to do it all at one. In fact, I only seem to lose time that way.

This brings me to my final post-vacation work strategy which is don’t think you need to do it all right now. I’m going to keep in mind that all of this work didn’t come in over night and so I should allow myself at least a reasonable time to catch up. Sure I’ll need to work double time, over time and in high octane mode to keep things moving and clients happy, but this doesn’t mean burn yourself out on your first day back.

So with that I’m feeling centered, focused and dare I say slightly excited to see what’s been going on while I’ve been away. I might be eating those words come Wednesday, but I’m about to find out…one email at a time.

And when stress hits, I’ll just remember this little slice of heaven where I felt so relaxed!

 

The Key to Time Management: Increasing Your Personal Bandwidth

Have you ever had moments in your life when you think “There is no way I will ever be busier than I am right now!” Then months or years later, you take on more projects, a new job or maybe a hobby and you again think, “No, now is the time in my life when I’m at my absolute busiest—I will never be able to fit even one more thing on my schedule.” But somehow we do. And so this gradual adjustment to an ever-increasing list of commitments continues on. It’s interesting for me to think back on times in my life when I felt the busiest and most stressed. My task list of those days now appear mild in comparison to my current schedule – but then again I was a college student who made afternoon naps a standing appointment on my daily agenda.

So how do some of the busiest people in the world continue to take on more tasks and always seem to find the time to accommodate them? I’ve concluded that it’s only possible through the well-refined skill of “increasing your bandwidth.” Just like the bandwidth on your internet determines the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time, we each have our own bandwidth for the amount of work we can individually take on in a single day.

Think of the well-known saying “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” Us “busy people” know that in order to possibly accomplish all of our given tasks we need to work quickly, efficiently and stay organized. There’s no room for procrastination or second-guessing; we have to keep the projects moving through the pipeline in anticipation of the new projects that will be added to our agenda whether we like it or not. You might be able to think of a few people right now – that when a task is asked of them, they dive in head first with how they will tackle it and are already on step 2 before anyone else has picked up a pen. These are the people who are fortunate enough to have learned the skill of increasing their bandwidth, or gradually easing into taking on more and more tasks so that one or two rush projects thrown in the mix doesn’t even break their stride.

I truly believe we can all learn to increase our personal bandwidth, but unfortunately it’s not as simple as calling up our internet provider and asking for an increase on our account. It can’t be bought with money, it can only be learned through time and practice—and simply getting comfortable with processing more data more quickly. For me personally, this has become a critical component for success in my business. In addition to my continual clients, I receive many one-time projects that come with little notice and a short window of opportunity to say Yes. If I let other projects build up, when this unplanned business comes my way, I’d be forced to turn it down. It has proven invaluable to me to keep my bandwidth as open as possible so that I can always take on these projects. It’s also amazing the way we can adapt to stress and a high volume of work. I’ve found that during slow periods of work, my motivation to tackle even the most reasonable task list diminishes. Yet, when I’m busier than ever, throwing family obligations and even planning a wedding into the mix and I knock these tasks off my list with ease.

At the end of the day, we’re only ever as busy as we make ourselves. You’d be surprised where you can find extra time in your day to accomplish something if you really want to and you’d also be surprised the unnecessary items you can take off your list because they’re inhibiting your efficiency. What’s most important is to never assume you know how busy or how free someone’s schedule is just from looking at them. Just because a busy person can get the task done, doesn’t mean we should expect them to pick up the slack. This might be a golden opportunity for us to practice expanding our own bandwidth and to become a more valuable member of the team.

 

The Two-Day Truce: Reclaiming Respect for the Weekend

I can’t be the only one to confess that my blood pressure raises and eyes dilate when I hear the all too familiar “Ding!” of my phone when a new email comes in. I’m like one of Ivan Pavlov’s dogs, except instead of salivating, I’m overcome with the urge to immediately check my phone and respond instantly with an answer to or acknowledgement of the pending request. This mindset can make for a stressful week, but apply it to the 2-days we’re supposed to allow ourselves for rest and relaxation each weekend and this flirts on the brink of insanity.

As a new business owner, I’m told – this too shall pass. But what if it doesn’t? What if fate should have it that my obsession with instantaneous answers isn’t linked to my young entrepreneurship, but rather the growing trend in technology? Now we’re no longer flirting on the brink of insanity, we’re outright courting it with a fancy dinner and bottle of wine.

I can’t help but fantasize with the idea of living in a 1950’s office environment just for contrast. What was it possibly like to lock the door on your business at 5pm Friday and be unreachable until 9am Monday? Moreover, what was it like to wait around for a written memo to be passed from office to office until an answer was returned hours…or days later? The TV show Mad Men might give us a glimpse into this lifestyle, but we will never truly know what it is like to live it. What some might see as a business-stifling, slow communication process, I see as the key to a work-life balance. With the aid of ever-connecting technology, we have officially become accessible at all hours of the day and so we have trained ourselves, and our peers, to expect immediate responses regardless of weekends, holidays and once in a lifetime occasions like weddings, funerals and even the birth of our own children.

I acknowledge that I’m somewhat at fault for this. I check emails on my phone with the same repetition in which I breathe or blink. And answering emails on the weekend only encourages conversation because I voluntarily make myself accessible. So this weekend it stops. I want that 2-day break; I earned that 2-day break – and so did you. So why do we continue to choose to watch our phones rather than watch a movie with our significant other? Why do we use our weekends to pitch to a potential client when we could be pitching to our son or nephew on a beautiful sunny day?

Let’s call a truce. Let’s work hard this week so we can designate this weekend for rest and relaxation. But I can’t do it alone. I challenge each of you to limit your emails this weekend to urgent communication only. Ask yourself, “Can it wait until Monday?” And then get out there and enjoy an entire Saturday and Sunday to yourself. Lock your email, just as you would your office door, at 5pm on Friday and open it again Monday at 9am. I promise you that calling a Two Day Truce, won’t result in the demise of your business, but more likely will result in allowing others to also reclaim the respect for their own weekend.

 

The Yes List: Finding Meaning in the “To Do” List (Guest Blog by Amy Gaines)

The following blog post is part of the Bennis Blogger Battle. Support Amy by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment and sharing it on your social media! The blog with the most hits, wins.

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In a recent battle with the ever-growing To Do List, the relationship between completing TDL tasks and building a personal brand developed new meaning: that of being a concrete, comprehensive, collected list of commitments.

Commitments are just that – something we have committed to complete by saying “Yes.” When we complete these tasks, our integrity, trustworthiness, and personal marketability increases because our word turned into our action.

And yet, maintaining the perspective that every item on that list is an opportunity to grow and improve our personal brand takes work. It takes work to guard the items to which we commit, work to keep track of those commitments, work to follow through on those commitments, and work to give 100% of our effort to those commitments. And in the midst of all that work, the tie between our word and our action is easily buried.

However, investing in the effort needed to maintain that perspective reaps significant benefits. Let’s take a closer look at the work involved in building your personal brand by making your word equal your action.

Guarding the TDL

If we are quick to say yes to everything, our commitments become unruly. Even high performers that churn through tasks quickly will eventually be overrun by an unkempt TDL. Learning to say “no” to certain commitments creates an opportunity to limit what goes on your TDL and allows you to focus on specific tasks. Good guidelines for identifying what goes on the TDL include: basic job responsibilities, direct requests from managers, [your] special interest projects, and personal favors.

Organizing the TDL

Many, many resources exist for taking and maintaining stock of commitments on the TDL. A personal favorite is the “Getting Things Done” series by David Allen. Regardless of the method, keeping track of the madness is mandatory.

Acting on the TDL

Break your commitments into actions and act. Keep stock of the resources you need to act on your commitments. Analyze the time a commitment will require before adding it to your TDL to ensure you have the time to complete the actions needed to follow through with the commitment. Above all else, learn to take your word (your commitments) and turn it into action.

Shifting our perspective to recognize the direct connection between our word/our actions and our personal brand is crucial to both success and sanity [especially in the professional world]. Recognizing this connection reminds us of the meaning and importance of each and every task on our TDL because that task is ultimately linked to a commitment. Completing our commitments sets a foundation of integrity for our personal brand that gives us added encouragement and footing to move forward successfully.

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Amy Gaines is a functional software consultant in the higher education industry. Her specialties include recruiting, admissions, and enrollment management. She loves to travel, read and write, and chase a thought to completion. Helping customers improve their processes, efficiency and reporting gives her the most satisfaction. Please support Amy by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment below and visiting her personal blog “This Imperfect Life” at greyceiling.wordpress.com

 

Success Versus the Work-Life Balance (Guest Blog by Sam Bessant)

The following blog post is part of the Bennis Blogger Battle. Support Sam by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment and sharing it on your social media! The blog with the most hits, wins.

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In this day and age it is often assumed that one cannot be truly successful at work whilst also being successful in other areas of their life. We hear a lot about work-life balance and in the movies at least, the most successful executives are portrayed as sorely lacking in the social environment. Is this really the case though, and if it is, what can we do about it?

To gain some perspective on the subject, I posed the question to a selection of people I know and the answers that came back were as varied as the people that gave them. They ranged from working for a boss who likes you, having free evenings and turning your work mobile off outside of working hours to loving your work so much that it is your life. It was this last answer that really got me thinking as it’s the one which is most ambiguous. On the one hand, your work being your life might be a great thing if it means that your work flexes to fit into everything that you do. On the other side of the fence, is that top executive whose work is their life as there is no life for the work to flex around.

So how do you know if your work / life ratio is actually balanced? Well, the first thing you need to consider is what “balanced” actually means to you. What are your priorities and how much do you enjoy your work? If your main priority in life is to get to the top then you might be happy to spend 3 times as many hours working in comparison to how many you have for socializing per week. However, if you work merely to pay the bills and dislike your job intensely, you may want to flip that ratio on its head.

Essentially, a work life balance is as unique as the person whose work and life are in question. A true balance comes from within, from the feeling of contentedness that comes with happiness. After all, regardless of personal differences and aspirations, we all only live once; so for most of us the aim is to be happy for as much of that life as possible. My advice to you would be to weigh how much of your life is spent happy vs. how much is spent in discontentment. If you fall on the side of happy the majority of the time, you’ve most likely got your work / life balance right and that may be working 20 hours per week or working 60 hours per week. It’s really not about work vs. life, it’s about happiness and how you balance the elements of your life to achieve it.

Sam Bessant is 26 and lives in Reading, UK. She currently works the standard office 9-6 whilst trying to finalize the direction she will take to start her own business. Sam’s blog, 20somethingfreak was created to help Sam and others understand what it is to be in your 20s and for Sam to share some of the millions of daydreams she has every day! Please support Sam by “Liking” this post, leaving a comment below and visiting her personal blog: www.20somethingfreak.wordpress.com.