The Positive Energy Workplace

Last week I talked about 5 ways to "be" to enhance your work/life balance: flexible, present and aligned with your body and its wants and needs, an energy stand for self-care, present with your people, and efficient. If you practiced and embodied the energy of these this week—or even added them into your intentions—you're a step ahead of the game. This week, let's take on the "do" of optimizing your "balance" this Summer.

It's Summer time! For many of us that means school's out, our kids' schedules are completely whacked, and demands on our time and attention are even higher as even though "school's out" — business is not. Unless you have camp or the Magical Land of Grandma and Grandpa's to send your kids to for the Summer, you may be trying to figure out how to still lead a great business, do solid work, and be an awesome parent/spouse who doesn't let another summer slip by.

Recently I helped a client get ready for an intense conversation with his team. There'd been some big stuff happening in their division, not all of it great. He had a "state of the union" to deliver as well as some requests. His concern was that if he didn't handle it well, he'd create a mess, not have any clean next steps, waste time, and ultimately demoralize the team. He was nervous.

I'm off for a couple of days with a good friend of mine hiking in the desert, staying hydrated, and talking biz, life, and everything in between. Trekking the trails we've moved seamlessly from topic to topic, silence to chatter, catching our breath to being in the zone--appreciating the present state with every step. Seamless. Nourishing. Good. A couple days to reboot, refresh, and rejuvenate in order to come back stronger and clearer on Monday.

You walk into work on a Monday, feeling pretty great, and are immediately greeted by the "stress bug." People zooming around, stressed out about the week at hand, discussing their weekend dramas, worrying about their next meeting, or just feeling overwhelmed by all the "magic" of Monday. Your mood starts to shift as you feel the pull of the "dark side" — the dark side of stress. What started out as an awesome Monday is quickly becoming a bummer. And nothing bad has even happened to you. In fact, not much has really changed for you from the moment you walked in the door. The only thing that has changed? You're surrounded by stress.