Setting priorities: Looking after our ecosystems

It's our duty as soloists to turn our back on today's work-obsessed culture. When setting priorities, we must ensure our work takes its rightful place alongside other priorities. When we suffer due to lack of balance, so of course does our business.

I have come across two similar ad campaigns which have angered me no end. The first, a TV ad, features a beaming bride who keeps smiling as she takes a work call during her ceremony. The second, on the radio, has a dad reading a bedtime story, before taking a call then cutting it short, explaining ‘Sorry son, it’s daddy’s work.’

It makes me want to run a counter campaign: “Lost – Priorities & Perspective. Last seen before the Industrial Revolution.”

Aren’t adverts supposed to be aspirational? Can anyone tell me what is aspirational about working at your own wedding, or having a client interrupt time with your son?

I think we soloists need to lead by example by unapologetically ensuring work takes its rightful place when setting priorities. It is our duty to show the drones how it's done by putting at least as much conscious effort into staying healthy and making our relationships a success as we do into our work.

Each of us is responsible for our delicate ecosystem of work, health and relationships. For this ecosystem to survive, each element and its interrelation needs to be nurtured and respected

The good news is it should be easy for soloists, free of the strictures of tut-tut-you’re-five-minutes-late corporate culture, to ensure there’s harmony between these elements.

And now the bad: lots of soloists are so frightened of not being taken seriously they busily emulate Jobland. In their zeal to create a career others will take notice of and have respect for, they end up creating a black-hole business which consumes all of their energy.

Naturally this way of setting priorities has got “counterproductive” written all over it as when energy does not get replenished by time “out”, our business ends up suffering anyway.

My business partner and all round good guy Robert Gerrish explains the role of the review process he sometimes undertakes with coaching clients, 99% of whom are solo business owners. “I’ll find out how they think they have performed in their business. Then I will ask ‘And how about as a partner/parent/friend?’ If they stall on the answers here, it’s a strong indicator something is out of whack and trouble is not far behind.”

Just because you take a Tuesday afternoon to lie down with a book, lark about in the ocean or have a long lunch with friends, it does not mean you don’t take business seriously and aren’t committed to it.

Time out is not going to kill you. But over-committing to your work just might.

Sam Leader is a director of Flying Solo and its editor. She is the co-author of Flying Solo - How to go it alone in business.

12 comments | Add your own 1 2 | Next» View all»

Good stuff, Sam. I saw one of those ads too and thought it was so dumb. Even when we're having to work really hard - long hours are sometimes inevitable - it's so important we keep our 'real' life priorities in mind. Ian Knowles from Perth, Australia
Great article Sam....keep on teeing off! Gregg Utting from Whyalla, Australia
I love this! The whole notion of 'being taken seriously' is funny, don't you think. My efforts in that area result in my 11 year old daughter calling me a 'nerd'. And that is certainly not what I want to be when I grow up. karen from melbourne, australia
I am not a soloist, but took yesterday off to fix my car, and had the opportunity to work from home. I was productive but even better - I could spend quality time with my wife. After the job ends, you still have a life. Bill from Melbourne, Australia
I've yet to see someone on their deathbed complain that they didn't work hard enough ! Grant Hyman from Sydney | Read my articles
Here are a couple more offensive ads I noticed recently:
A mobile phone company showing how their video phone allows a dad to work late and still say goodnight to his young daughter.
A laptop manufacturer proudly trumpeting how with their laptop, a business can still "leverage the productive skills" of a heavily pregnant woman working from home.
Are these just examples of ignorant desperate advertising? Or are they part of an insipid calculated effort to brainwash employees into accepting the unrelenting incursion of work into their lives? Zern from Vermillion

12 comments | Add your own 1 2 | Next» View all»

Add Your comments

Preview comment

Name

Website *

Town / city and country

Email (never sold, displayed or given away)

* This will link your name to your site. So please avoid self promotion elsewhere! We delete spam, disrespectful or off-topic comments.