Years ago when I was struggling with young kids, a challenging husband (my current husband is a saint) and a stressful job as a financial advisor my father kept telling me “Adri, you have to put the gas mask on first”. I knew what he was saying and I started to listen. When you board an airplane and they explain the safety measures they always tell the parents to put your gas mask on first so that you can continue to be available to help your children, if you sacrifice yourself your children will also suffer.
That same concept applies in the real world or at least in the world of a working mom. With the encouragement of my father I started to realize that taking care of me, being good to myself was not selfish it was a very responsible act in order to be the best mother I could. What I didn’t realize was the positive impact it had on growing my business and achieving success
This afternoon I had a coaching session with a young woman; she is a wealth manager and is the primary wage earner in her family. She has a supportive husband and two children entering their teenage years. She is bright, intelligent and incredibly capable as a wealth manager but she struggles with balance. She loves her husband, she loves her children but she has difficulty shedding the scripts that have influenced who she is today, but today is different.
Her parents were immigrants; their strong work ethic paved the way for this young woman to be anything she chooses, I’m sure they hoped she wouldn’t have to work as hard to succeed. As a financial advisor she was trained at Lehman Brothers notorious for their stringent methods and long hours. More recently she was an advisor at a major institution which was an elevated Lehman environment. If you think about it, all the major influences in her life promoted long tedious work hours necessary for success or so they wanted you to think. What she has trouble grasping is that today is different and she is different.
The beauty of being a wealth advisor is that you can truly build your business around who you are, in fact the more you do just that you will feel more energized, more focused and success will come easier. This is a tough concept to accept when all you have been taught is that the only way to succeed is to work with no rest until success becomes evident, even if that means sacrificing your health and family.
There is a great book (I have the CD) called The Power of Full Engagement. This book gives many examples of people who were run down in their jobs and struggling with performance. Once they started adding more self time, exercise and focusing on the things that are truly important to them the business results followed. Even if you look at sports, any good athlete knows that you can’t continue to work the same muscle over and over again; it needs time to heal and repair in order to build, apply that same concept to your BRAIN.
I will continue to work with this client, I am determined to find a way for her to realize that no job is worth the sacrifice of not seeing your children perform in a play, miss an important baseball game much less spending a romantic weekend away with your husband. No job is worth that. Sure in order to create more balance you may buck the system, you may encounter mild repercussions to your independent ways but the benefits will surpass the hurdles.
You can NEVER go back and spend time with your kids; sometimes the damage done to your relationship is irreversible. The job will not be there for you when you are sad, suffering or aging, your family will.
