Work/Life Balance and Sunshine Above the Clouds By Lewis J. Walker, CFP(R)

It’s a cold, gray, rainy day with frustratingly miserable traffic on the way to the airport. After a delay due to TSA congestion and weather problems, your plane finally roars down a wet runway for liftoff. For awhile, the ride is bumpy and unsettling as the plane climbs through stormy skies. Then, all at once, you break out of murky clouds into bright sunlight and smooth air. At night, you may be greeted by a bright moon or a sky full of stars. If you look out of a window, you may perceive beauty and calm above the storm below. There always is sunshine, or starlight, above the clouds!

Down deep we seek sunshine, peace, confidence. We like feeling good about ourselves, our loved ones and others we care about, and our surroundings. We want to feel good about our finances, work, and progress toward goals.

When you don’t feel good, often it’s because you are dogged by uncertainty. You are not working within a comprehensive plan. You merely react to whatever comes up. The pilot in command of your plane has a plan to penetrate the clouds, avoid precarious conditions, and arrive safely, otherwise he or she never would have left the ground. If there is something that you find unsettling, do you have a plan to deal with it?

Consider a SWOT Analysis, a technique for understanding your strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities open to you, and the threats you face. Modern aircraft are incredibly strong, designed to handle extreme stress from atmospheric conditions or mechanical failure. You, too, can operate from strength. Read StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Tom Rath and take the on-line assessment to learn your top 5 strengths and how to apply them to find greater success in all life situations. Gallup research showed that when asked, “Do you like what you do each day?,” only 20% could answer “yes.” For the 80%, they’re flying in a perpetual rainstorm!

George Bernard Shaw proclaimed, “Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” Australian palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware in her book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing (Hay House, Ind., 2012), recounted stories told by dying patients at the end of life. The #1 regret, “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life expected of me.” Too often, family members, bosses, well-meaning friends and influencers, will push you in directions based on their strengths, likes, and opinions, not yours. What does your “strength analysis” tell you about the roles and paths that will bring the most meaning?

The second most expressed regret? “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” Running intensely midst the daily grind, they missed their children’s growing up, the companionship of their spouse, often neglecting vacations, health, and the spiritual side of life. Are there times during the work day when you can put down the phone, cease checking e-mails, and walk outside into the sunshine and move around? Take time to sit in the chapel of your spiritual home? Take that vacation? Be present?

More and more, at corporate events and conventions, a hot topic is “wellness.” Fiscal and physical fitness, health and true wealth, go together. Younger workers, the next generations, are big on work/life balance, perhaps having been raised by distracted and driven boomers.

If you had all of the money you needed, if financial security was not a concern, what would you do? Based on your answer, what should you be doing now? What’s your plan to actualize that premise? In any plan, there are challenges. Holistic strategizing seeks the best alternative to deal with any challenge, the resources to power the best alternative to meet the challenge, along with clearly defined expectations, articulating the results you want. A true financial and life transitions plan goes beyond money, seeking the richness of life well lived.

On the day you go to meet your maker, will you be at peace with what is to come? What do you want said about you at your “celebration of life” service? Think about that, and as motivator and author Steven Covey suggested, “Begin [planning] with the end in mind.” (Insert mine—LJW)

Lewis Walker is President of Walker Capital Management, LLC. Securities and advisory services offered through The Strategic Financial Alliance, Inc. (SFA). Lewis Walker is a registered representative and investment adviser representative of SFA which is otherwise unaffiliated with Walker Capital Management, LLC.

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