Live First, Work Second

This was the subject of one of the four educational sessions I sat in on at the CoreNet Global Fall Summit this week. Part of my job for the three days was to attend these sessions, take notes, and then write up brief reports on them for the website. The others that I attended were on the hyper-connected workplace, sustainability practices, and future-proofing the workplace. For those in corporate real estate, these three were very timely, and were actually very interesting to me.

However, the session on Live First, Work Second struck a chord with me. While the gist of the session was on looking at the Millennial Generation (those folks now in their 20s who are coming into the workplace in droves) and how they look at life and work, there was one thing that Rebecca Ryan, the speaker, said that stuck with me.

She said that we come into the workplace carrying five balls, one rubber ball and four glass balls. The rubber ball is our work (or job). The four glass balls are our family, our friends, our health, and our integrity. We juggle all of these balls as we live and work. If we should drop the rubber ball, our work, it will bounce back. If we drop any of the other balls, they will shatter. As she spoke of the Millennial Generation, she said that these “kids” understand this and openly declare that they have both a life and a career, and they realize the resilience of the rubber ball.

All of this made me think about my own life and work. I love my job, but I also value my personal life and my private time. There have been times when I thought I didn’t take my work seriously enough, which was why I didn’t climb the professional ladder as some of my peers had done. As I think of these five balls, I now understand that maybe I made the right choices along the way, and sometimes let the rubber ball drop while I held tightly to the glass balls.

Some call this work/life balance. The Millennials turn it around and call it life/work balance. I like Rebecca’s title: Live First, Work Second.