How can you stay connected?

As a business owner or member of the senior leadership team (or the spouse of someone who is), you will carry a different level of stress than an average employee in the business.

You will hear things and know things about the company that others are not privy to. It's not that you know all the secrets, you simply operate at a different level. You will carry the burden as well as the highlights of the business uniquely. If you are in business with your spouse, much of your conversation will sadly be around the stress and pressures of the business more than the success and celebrations in the business.

It can be difficult to have a romantic evening together when the primary subject discussed is staff stress and unpaid accounts.

So how do we disconnect from business and reconnect as a couple? For many years, I have talked with couples who have tried to find “balance” between their personal and professional life and ended up just finding guilt. They spend so much of their free time feeling guilty that they are not giving enough of themselves at work, and feel guilty at work when they are not giving enough time to home, family and friends.

This paradox tends to leave us feeling guilty no matter where we are. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't!

It doesn’t have to be this way. After 25 years in business I gave up the balance bit and pursued HARMONY. How can I find harmony between my personal and professional life? The last 13 years have been very different understanding the beauty of harmony and time mapping.

In this first section of the How can your Relationship Survive your Business course on Monday 10th May, we will talk about the "Time MAP”, Unit Time Management and how to disconnect from work and reconnect with home, friends, family and your personal life. Then (vice versa) how to be present and engaged with your professional responsibilities in the morning. No matter where you are, learning to be engaged with that moment is critical to enjoying life and getting the best from both areas of your life; both personally and professionally.

• How do we reset our mind and disconnect intentionally to reconnect in our transitional phases?
• How do we reduce guilt around our time management, or lack thereof?
• How do we become and stay engaged, enthusiastic and excited about our life?
• What will harmony look like for us as a couple and how do we protect and maintain it?

Whatever has your focus, has your life. So, focus on being connected and on what it is that brings you together. How you complement and complete each other through differences in skill, approach and perspective is most important as you become a team. Difference is a gift, not a liability. Respecting each others differences is a dividend if we use our complementary approaches to tackle our problems rather than tackling our partners.

I once heard, “Opposites attract and then they attack!”

Unfortunately this can be all too true of many relationships. The confidence and competence we feel in our partner is so attractive in the beginning because we realise we don’t have those qualities and then can become an accusation against us in the intensity of a relationship, when we realise they are so much better than us in this area of our weakness.

• How can we learn to appreciate and enjoy difference and not be threatened by it?
• How can we enhance difference so when the two become one, the best one that the two become is the best of the both of us?

These and many other thoughts will be what we discuss in our How can your Relationship Survive your Business on Monday 10th May.

We are trying this online for the first time and would love for you to join us. For the details follow this link to the website.

If you want to know more about how to plan a life you want to live in through a Business on Purpose™, please contact us for a conversation.

Ian Edwards

Business on Purpose Coaching