Is It Possible To Be Ultra-Successful and Have Balance?
Have you read or heard people talking about having work-life balance? I have and I’m not sure I buy the concept. In my experience it is the proverbial situation in which you can’t eat your cake and have it too. Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t witnessed a lot of ultra-successful people who have a lot of balance; professional athletes come to mind.
We make sacrifices every day we get up and go to work. We decide that paying bills and providing for our family is worth leaving them for 8-10 hours. We give up that time in order to get ahead.
But when I look at CEOs, professional athletes, entrepreneurs, etc. I don’t see a lot of balance. I see a group of people that work hard to achieve their goals and sacrifice a lot of personal time in order to do so. Typical entrepreneurs are not taking 3-4 vacations per year, but they are working a lot of nights and weekends totaling 70 hour weeks.
I wonder if the sacrifice is worth it. At the end of life I have to believe that they wish they had spent more family time. Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe they do not regret all of the personal time sacrifices.
I don’t know.
The one thing I do know is that if anyone wants to achieve a goal, tremendous sacrifice will be required.
Danny
I think it’s easier these days than it used to be. With modern technology, we can still go on trips and vacations (or cut out early on Friday) without being ‘unavailable’. I do think there are particular fields where it is more difficult to be successful and have work/life balance – a CEO of a publicly traded company, for example.
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I agree. A national radio host (ultra-successful guy) has said that “work-life” balance is a fairy-tale. It does not exist in people who make millions of dollars a year. They tend to be workaholics.
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I’d settle for one million in a lifetime!
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Ref D.E.Haggerty, I beg to differ because during holidays trip with family,if you are constantly disturbed because of modern technology,I think we are not caring for family time.Personally I feel trips especially with family to be utilised to the fullest.It is not possible to be ultra successful and have a balanced life.To some extent it is unfortunate.
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I agree with you. You can have or you can have the other, but not both.
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It does seem to be impossible in today’s world, and that is a problem for many. Perhaps, the best way to be ultra-successful is to be so in love with and enjoying what you do that work becomes part of the balance. Working like a demon at a job that makes you miserable as well as leaving time for little else is a kind of hell.
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I think it is a form of hell too. In the end work is such a small part of life. What we do should not be who we are.
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I really don’t think it’s possible. I think at some point a person may have to make a choice and decide what ultra-successful means to them personally.
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The ultra-successful people I know are willing to sacrifice everything to get what they want and reach their goals. It doesn’t leave room for much else.
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Thats very true!
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I suppose it depends on the vision or lack of vision. Charles Bukowski said, ‘Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain from you your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.” I think he’s speaking of poetry, which for most poets demands a lifetime of semi-poverty and anonymous fame. Bukowski reward is joining a literary discourse that transcends time.
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I imagine for Bukowski, poetry was his life based off his quote. “let it kill you…” doesn’t sound like balance which is my point. If you want to be more than average, if you want to be amazing at anything, you must give yourself to it completely. There is no balance in my opinion.
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None.
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