 - Image by sowri via Flickr
“Just tell me what I should do!” My 15-year old was filling out an application for an international student exchange program. One of the questions was “What are your goals in life?” She’d of course asked this same question a week before, when she felt all her friends already knew what they wanted to do in life. As I couldn’t think of any excuse, I had to embark on a discussion with her.
“Think about what you like doing. What you truly enjoy. And what you think you are good at.” In her case, we figured she enjoyed drawing & painting, playing sports and working with young kids – and she was really good at all three. Ah yes, she enjoyed traveling too.”
The discussion set me thinking about a conversation my dad and I had many years ago. I can’t recall what triggered the conversation, but distinctly recall my father telling me “You are a Hanuman!”
For those not up on Hindu mythology, Hanuman is the monkey demi-god who is cited as the ideal devotee for his major-domo role to the eponymous hero of the Hindu epic, Ramayana.
I didn’t reckon that my dad was alluding to my physical appearance when he said I was like the monkey [even if a] God. Nothing I had done thus far, could allow me to be termed a devotee of anything other than good food. My perplexed expression must have given me away, when he continued “Like Hanuman, you don’t know your own strength!”
While knowing one’s strengths is good in general – it is a particularly critical skill for entrepreneurs. Most successful entrepreneurs, when observed from arms length, may come across as manic- depressive. Maniacal in pursuing what they believe is the right path and optimistic to a fault and then when that critical deal doesn’t happen or funding falls through or a key employee leaves, lost in the dumps – even if only for a short time.
Knowing your strengths may not do away with the ups and downs but certainly will help dampen the amplitude and help you make decisions with greater confidence. Knowing your strengths is just as much about recognizing stuff that you are not good at and surrounding yourself with folks who’s strengths complement your own.
Unlike my daughter who’s just fifteen as of this writing, I was on the wrong side of thirty when my father made his comparison to Hanuman. So don’t wait – get to know your strengths today. Ask your colleagues, your ex-boss, your staff and if your bold enough, your spouse or significant other. And once a year take stock to understand what new strengths you have acquired and what has atropied and been lost.
Be a self-aware Hanuman!
Seth Godin recently wrote a post titled “Is this noise inside my head bothering you? ” about the many voices that operate inside our head. Seth characterized the voices in roles varying from an artist to a zombie. Terri Lonier, author of the Working Solo newsletter, added a time component of the past, present and the future in her response “Who’s inside your head?”
This naturally lead me to think, “Who else is inside our heads?” Here are a few characters you are likely to encounter daily, mostly from your past.
Your parents A great deal of how we think about things, has been formulated at the parental knee, the family dinner table through all those years you spent at home. So when you find yourself agonizing over “I’ll never be able to get it done” or “I’m just going to have to hold firm, if I am to get what I want” this may be the voice of your parents (or teachers). As with all humans, they were likely right, about as often as they were wrong. So recognizing when you are playing a parental script versus when you are consciously thinking things through is important.
Your managers Most of us have had the good fortune of having worked for one or more great managers. And all of us at one time had that manager from hell – maybe not pointy-haired – but close enough. So when we deal with people particularly and problems that arise with the powers-that-be, its likely our managers turn up in our heads.
Your hereos We’ve all been faced with tough choices. Be it walking away from an ethically challenging situation or having to make a hard choice between work and personal life or letting go of a co-founder. The more honest among us ask out loud “What would ____ do?” fill in with your favorite hero – Jack, Steve, Gandhi or Jesus.
As entrepreneurs we’d like to believe we are smart, motivated go-getters and we likely are. But knowing that many a times we come up with an answer, it’s worth reflecting who’s voice it is we are hearing.
 Image by SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent) via Flickr
Is work-life balance an oxymoron for startups?
Many people would suggest – Jack Welch comes to mind – that you are either successful or have work-life balance – and he wasn’t even talking about a startup!. So does this mean as a cash-strapped, competitor-chasing, crew-challenged startup you have no option but to give up your life till you reach some major milestone? To make matters worse, said milestone may each quarter either appear to change or move further away.
Yet others – such as the crew at 37signals and FogCreek software – strongly advocate fewer working hours and working smart. For many of us struggling in the trenches this may sound like Warren Buffett telling us “Money doesn’t buy you happiness.” Yeah right! We’ll believe it once we’ve have made some money!
An equally important question to ask is can you afford to not have work-life balance?
So can startups and entrepreneurs achieve work-life balance? And if so how do they do it?
My own experience is that it depends. It depends on what we mean by work-life balance and the choices we make. The extremes are easy to identify and agree upon.
- You haven’t let your office for four nights, can’t remember when you last had a non-pizza meal and can’t recall the name of your first born, or if single, when you last called your girlfriend | mom ][pick your loved one]. And this is when there isn’t a crisis at work. You probably have only work (and likely no girlfriend).
- If you clock in by 10AM (you have “flex” hours) – are out each evening by 455PM, take your lunch diligently between 12PM-1PM, and turn off your phones on Friday at 6PM, you are in the wrong place, working in a startup or even in a job!
But reality each day rarely appears in one of these two extremes, but in a whole slew of gray areas.
In a startup context, to me, work-life balance can be achieved by moving the goal posts to a realistic settings with two simple steps. I can hear some of you saying that’s cheating, but aren’t all successful startups about changing rules and sometimes definitions themselves?
- 15-day to 30-day cycles Measuring and working towards a semblance of balance over a longer period such as a month or week (depends on whether you have kids, girlfriends or other commitments). Simply put, be they chores such as doing your laundry or paying your bills, even filing your expense reports (all stuff I continue to have problems with) or having a life such as calling Mom or going on a date (one that’s prepared to be flexible) set a frequency – I will do this once a month or twice a month. So rather than beat yourself up, that you haven’t called your mom (which you can never do enough of, according to her) or paid your bills, because you are so busy you know that at any time you are unlikely to be more than a month/week/fortnight behind.
- Emergencies - make the right call in emergencies – that means family/friend/life comes first in an emergency. As a startup you intuitively rush to a client, when they have a line down (or these days cloud down) situation, spend the four days/nights to get the application/system/production line back up or ship two guys to a small village in Japan. Similarly when the “done” deal seems to be slipping away at the last minute you spare no effort to get it back – regardless of the debasement required. Use the same judgement or gut call, when your spouse calls to say the kids running 102, or your best friend’s in a bad car accident or your dad’s having chest pains. Don’t Blackberry, multitask or manage – drop the other stuff and get over there. Your startup will manage, your employees/partners would better appreciate you and your actions will speak louder than any number of TXT messages or emails to your family/friend/life!
Now quit reading this blog and get back to busting your rear – you are in a startup Joe!
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