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Synopsis

Dr. Misner’s secret to creating balance in your life is this: “Forget about balance. You’ll never have it.”

The good news is that harmony in your life is possible. “Balance” assumes equal time on everything that’s important. Harmony is not balanced, but it’s complete as a whole.

Here are some keys to a life that’s in harmony.

• Be Here Now
• Set time aside for the things that really matter.
• Find ways to integrate different parts of your life
• When you’re 70 years old, you’re not going to wish you spent more time at the office

Harmony is created where harmony is sought. What do you do to create harmony in your life? Leave a comment and let us know.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 136 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables.

I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from the beautiful Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I’m doing great, Priscilla. I’ve got a fun topic today.

Priscilla:
What’s that?

Ivan:
The Secret to Balance.

Priscilla:
Great.

Ivan:
I think this is a great topic for the beginning of a new year. People – the year is starting up, and they’re thinking about their lives, and so I thought this would be a really good topic to cover. Because personal and professional balance in our lives seems to be the ever elusive dream for many business people in trying to balance home, work, health, spirituality, free time seems almost impossible, something that business people have told me for years.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
Well, I’m really pleased to tell you that I think I’ve found the answer to creating balance in your life. Are you ready for this, Priscilla?

Priscilla:
Yes, please.

Ivan:
Write this down; here it is. Forget about balance; you’ll never have it!

Priscilla:
Okay.

Ivan:
I spoke at a conference once, and they were asking me about balance, and I said that publicly. And I heard this woman from the front row go, “Oh, no!” She was so upset, “No balance, that can’t be; it’s not right.” But there is good news. Although I don’t think balance is possible, I do believe you can create harmony in your life, and this differentiation is more than just semantics. It’s really a critical approach to looking at life that can free you up to see the world in a different way.

Balance assumes that we spend an equal amount of time in all or most areas of our life. It’s like the image of the scales where everything is completely in balance and equal, and it assumes that we have to have a certain portion of each week devoted in some equal measure to every item that’s important in our life. Well, the problem with that is that almost no one can really achieve that, especially entrepreneurs and professionals and sales people. We tend to live such hectic, busy lives that it’s incredibly difficult to fit it all in.

So what do we do about it? For me, it’s about creating harmony. Just look at the image that represents harmony. It’s a swirling circle, and it seems – by its very nature, it looks like it’s out of balance if you’re just looking at one-half of it or the other half of it. Even its image is lopsided when you look at one aspect at a time. But the whole feels complete, and this is the way to look at the issue. At least it’s the way that I’ve looked at it that’s really worked for me.

Sometimes I work crazy, long hours for days in a row or I may be on the road traveling for business for many days at a time. On the other hand, I’m also a husband and a father, and I need and I want to be there for my family as well as have time for myself. And long ago, I figured out that the daily balance is almost impossible, and I found that, however, I create harmony using a few core principles. So I thought I’d share in the remaining time some of those principles with everyone, and I think this is really important because we’re trying to spend time networking and doing all of our other business activities and have a family life, and some kind of harmony is really important. And there’s three things that I want to share with the BNI members on what works for me personally.

Priscilla:
Okay.

Ivan:
First, three simple words that make a huge difference for me: Be here now. Be here now. Wherever you are, be there. If you’re at work, don’t think about the time you didn’t spend with the family the night before or what you should be doing with your significant other right now. When you’re at home, don’t think about the work you have to do at the office. Wherever you are, be there fully and completely. It’s a simple technique that is really effective. It takes practice, but if you can focus on being wherever it is that you are at, rather than be thinking about someplace else that you should be at and other things you should be doing, it really helps.

Second, make sure you set time aside to do all the things that are truly, truly important in your life. Now, I know, everybody says that. But here’s my twist. You have to be creative about how you manage this. For example, when I wrote my first book, I didn’t want to be holed up in my office writing in the evening and not be available to my family, so I found a creative way to find the time that was in harmony with my family. A few evenings a month, I’d up with the family, I’d pray everyone to bed, and then I’d go into my office and I’d start writing at 11:00 or 12:00 at night. I’d work almost all night long on my manuscript. I’d catch a few hours of sleep, and I’d get into the office maybe a little late to start my day, but I’m, believe it or not, a late-night person, which is crazy for a guy who started BNI. Now, this may not work for everyone, but it worked really well for me, and what was really exciting was nothing pleased me more when I showed my kids the book that I had just published and they said to me, “When did you write that?” They had no idea I was up working late at night several times a month, and that was a way to create harmony, finding time that wouldn’t pull away from family time.

Here’s a third idea. Find ways to integrate various elements of you life. For many years, I spent weeks at a time up at my lake home in the mountains, and I’ve talked about that in previous podcasts. Each year I spend a week or two working from the lake house remotely. I bring up staff. I bring up my management team for short retreats or holidays. I bring them up for BNI meetings. Later this week I’m taking everybody up there from the BNI management team, and we’re going to spend several days doing some strategic vision making for the organization. It’s a great way to combine my work life into a leisure environment. And then, of course, when I do this over the summer, I take the last week or so completely off and spend time just with family. And it’s one way that I’m able to integrate my two worlds and create a sense of harmony.

Now, these ideas don’t necessarily – they’re not going to work for everybody; they don’t work necessarily for everyone, but if you can find concepts that work for you to be creative on how you spend your time and how you can create harmony in your life, you’re going to feel more balanced or more in harmony with your work.

One last thing. When you’re 70 years old, you’re not going to wish you spent more time at the office, and you don’t have to be a workaholic to be successful. I am not a workaholic. I work long hours, but I also focus on creating harmony in my life. You can do it. Be creative. Don’t try to do things that I do or that someone else does. Find ideas that work for you and the life you live. Make the time to do the things that are important to you in being innovative. Harmony is created where harmony is sought. Okay, maybe that’s a little bit New Age-y, but it’s really true.

And I’d love to hear from BNI members on what they think about this approach and what they do to create harmony in their lives. So leave a comment on this podcast and let me and others who are reading or listening to this podcast know what has worked for you, because I am a firm believer that you can have a successful business and not be a workaholic. And networking is a key element of that, but you have to spend your time doing other things as well.

That’s it for this week, Priscilla. Thank you.

Priscilla:
That was great. I especially like the “Be here now” concept. It’s so important, and I love hearing about it.

Ivan:
Yeah, and it’s not an easy one. Sometimes you sit there and you’re thinking, “Gee, I should be doing this” or “I didn’t do that last night,” and you just have to remind yourself, “Be here now; wherever I am, I’ve got to be here and focus on this so that when I do get home tonight, I’m focused on spending time with my family.” Or when you go home, don’t be thinking about the work projects that you’ve got to do. Be at home. If you have projects that need to be done, find some creative time to work on it, like I do, from home. Sometimes later in the evening when everybody’s in bed, then I’ll start to work on some stuff.

Be here now. Great concept. That one, I think, can work for everybody.

Priscilla:
Yeah, I think so, too. Not everybody has a beautiful house in Big Bear.

Ivan:
No, but, you know, I didn’t have a beautiful house in Big Bear when I started doing this. It would be maybe I would rent a place in the summer for a week and that would be it. Or I would just take time at home, so that’s why I say, “Don’t do what I do; take the concept and apply it to where you’re at.” Because I used these techniques long before I had a lake house. I would find ways to be creative in the environment that I had at my fingertips. And so take these ideas and apply them to you. That’s what I did, and it’s helped me to evolve over time to be more successful.

Priscilla:
Great! Well, thank you. Okay, I guess that’s it, huh, Dr. Misner?

Ivan:
Yep. Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
You’re welcome.

I just want to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.