EXCERPT
Why Overworkers and Those Who Love Them Will Want to Read This Book Millions of North Americans are caught in a subtle and dangerous trap called Overwork. Its invisible, its insidious, its seductive, and it cuts off your freedom to pursue a full and rich life. Escape your Overwork Trap and youll have the freedom to move to a deeper level of living where you can find permanent fulfillment, meaning, joy and peace. This is what I call a Balanced Life.
Reading this book and implementing its principles and exercises will help you: * understand the subtle and dangerous power of your Overwork Trap * learn three Power Tools to Escape from Overwork to a Balanced Life * remove obstacles that have foiled your past attempts to Escape * marshal internal and external forces for your Balanced Life mission * design and implement your personalized Escape to a Balanced Life strategy
My Credentials for Writing This Book As a young corporate attorney I first observed the phenomenon of Overwork in my colleagues. At the corporation where I was in-house counsel, outside law firms provided legal services which I supervised. These attorneys commonly worked twelve and fourteen-hour days for six and even seven days a week. One legal advisor I remember vividly was a father with small children. He was advising us on a public equity financing that had dragged on so long that we were still negotiating the day before Christmas. He recounted how on Christmas Eve morning his kids had waved goodbye at 5:00 a.m. asking, But Daddy, when are we going to get the Christmas tree?
During twenty-five years in corporate America I have observed and been fascinated with this Overwork syndrome in many industries and professions, at all organizational levels, in both males and females, and among all age groups.
The closest I ever came to experiencing Overworking myself, was when I was responsible for legal work on two simultaneous nine-figure bank lines of credit transactions. The workload was fearsome, involving six and a half days a week for about five months. But, I was learning volumes each day, interacting with senior executives, and doing it all without benefit of out-house counsela heady experience for any young attorney.
We signed all the closing documents for both deals on a mid-summer Friday. The following day was the first Saturday in months I did not have to work, but I went to the office anyway just to tie up the loose ends. As I sat at my desk, I felt disoriented, even a little light-headed. It felt so amazingly strange and uncomfortable not to be under the pressure anymore. After an hour, I left the office and took a drive in the country to re-adjust to normal living. This powerful memory fills me with compassion for Overworkers to this day.
To write this book I read every book and article I could find about Overwork. I also interviewed over 100 Overworker executives and professionals throughout the United StatesUnited States and Canada (including one Canadian working in Singapore) to discover their reasons for working long hours and how Overworking affects their lives overall.
For the Escape from Overwork sections, I drew on fifteen years of personal growth studies as well as materials I use in my personal coaching practice with my recovering Overworker clients.
My most significant credential for writing this book, however, is my own life. By applying the principles described here, Ive created the most delightful, glorious and fulfilled life I can imagine. Im healthy and happy. I enjoy a deep and meaningful relationship with my sweetheart, John. I live in a beautiful, serene, sun-filled home in southern California with two adorable cats who make me laugh every day. I have work that challenges and fulfills me. I am the poster child for a Balanced Life! Why I Wrote This Book Each of us has encountered, at some point in life, a quotation that has struck a chord. For me it was, Society teaches survival, not fulfillment. My pettest peeve is any kind of wastewasted time, wasted effort, wasted opportunity. For me, possibly the most tragic human experience is the deathbed regret of those who merely survived throughout their lives.
In 2000, Richard Leider wrote in Fast Company that when he asked 128 senior citizens to review their lives, he learned that they wished they had:
* been more reflective * taken more risks * been more courageous in relationships * perceived the precious nature of time * realized that aliveness comes from learning, growing, stretching, exploring * understood what gave them fulfillment
By objective measures like money and status, Overworkers are successful. Your life can be so much more than merely successful. It can be exceptional! You can choose to be the exception to adages that declare: "Life is hard. Settle for being content. Relationships mean struggle. Net worth is what its all about. Those statements represent a paradigm that does not work when fulfillment rather than mere survival (or even success) is the goal. I wrote this book to help Overworkers reclaim their lives by remembering who they really are and to live that fully. The Rewards of Escaping the Overwork Trap and Creating Your Balanced Life I believe that the purpose of life is to figure out how to be happy, and then to do that. This book will help you see whether youre caught in an Overwork Trap. Youll understand how you became trapped. Youll learn three Power Tools to use in your escape. Youll devise your escape strategy. Youll marshal all your forces and make sure your coast is clear. And finally, youll go for it and create your Balanced Life. In so doing, youll figure out how to be happy. As the opening quotation promises, youll make of your lifetime an extraordinary statement and a breathtaking experience of the most glorious idea that you have ever had about yourself. Youll create that wondrous dream which your life was intended to be.
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