One of the most frequent requests of new BTL clients is help with achieving “balance.” They would like to feel like each piece of their pie was sliced the same. Here’s what they are trying to tell us without coming right out and saying it.
They have some part of their system that is not getting their share. And, they’re not happy about it. Our clients, oftentimes, turn to us for help. They want help balancing all their competing slices. They want to turn the slice that looks like a sliver into one that looks like silver. They want us to shine ’em up and return the system to a state of equilibrium. A return to the status quo…
Why is it that so many prefer to “return” when, honestly, the old state was NOT so great?
Moving on. Here’s my typical response to their request for help on the balancing beam of life. This is usually not perceived as being very empathetic, but it’s honest. AND, it’s really helpful. Funny how those two go together, and how important their order matters. Honest and helpful. NOT helpful and hopefully honest. Hmmm…
First I ask them to write out their slices. You know, show me how many pieces they are trying to balance in their pie of life. Once they’ve written this till they tell me it feels both authentic and clear, we get to work. We refer to this pie as your CORE.
The first thing we look at is their crackberry. Usually this provides great clarity. There is almost always one or two slices that the client says is part of their pie, who they are in their CORE, and yet when we look for signs of life in their crackberry, said slice comes up missing. Bummer. This is when we face our first reality check. We cannot balance God, spouses, children, community, friends, hobbies, social lives, and the like when all we crack about is WORK.
24/7 never seems to apply to any other slice. Does it?
Second, balance is the wrong objective. At BTL, we encourage our family, friends, and clients to live with being out of whack. Sometimes out of whack in favor of the spouse, sometimes in favor of God, sometimes not. Sometimes out of whack toward friends, sometimes toward family, sometimes toward work, sometimes not. We’re meant to be out of balance. Just not out of balance, always, in the same slice.
Lastly we introduce our family, friends, and clients to one of our master concepts.
Integrating.
We encourage our clients to integrate their work and lives, their big dreams and their teams, their spouse and their children, their community and their families, their relationship with God and their relationships with humans. We believe that great lives are lived when we forget trying to balance and instead, turn our focus toward integrating. We’re always working on our pies at BTL. Always under construction. Always attempting to integrate great work and great lives. Very cool.
How ’bout you?
BUILT TO LEAD 
Chet,
LOVE your thoughts about integrating pie pieces. I thought an example from one of my clients could help: Let’s refer to him as “Ringo.”
Ringo, father of four, righteous husband, committed CEO, went out and bought himself a set of drums to pursue a passion that he knows nobody is going to pay him for, but that allows him to learn a new hobby AND spend some good, raucous time with his two adolescent sons who have taken up the GEE-tar and keyboard. They jam almost every night, each is getting much better, and they’re having the time of their lives together. Integrating. How cool is THAT?
He’s recently taken this concept to his workout schedule, bringing the boys and teaching them how to stay in shape, lift weights carefully, and get THEM away from their versions of the crackberry–the “Dimtendo” video games. Now, he’s got the most persistent pair of accountability partners you can imagine. Integrating.
I’ll bet Ringo’s boys remember it as “the time of their lives.” Very cool.