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The Surprising Thing Others Expect from You

Written on July 24, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Balance

Bigg success is life on your own terms. When we talk with people about their biggest challenge in living their lives on their own terms, one of the most common responses involves work – life balance in one way, shape or form.

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The tug-of-war

For many of us, it’s a perpetual tug-of-war. We love our family. We thoroughly enjoy our time with friends. We relish time to ourselves.

But we also love the work we do. We take pride in our accomplishments. Rightly so.

But we’re only human. We can’t be two places at once.

The result? We’re not as happy as we should be. We’re not completely fulfilled.

It may cause feelings of guilt. Depending on where the knot is in the tug-of-war we’re playing – which side is getting more attention – we may feel guilty about not giving enough attention to the other side.

When we’re at work, there are times when we may feel guilty about not being home. When we’re home, we may feel guilty at times about not working. It seems like a no-win situation!

The sacrifice

Research shows in our effort to have it all we’re sacrificing something that’s very important to our well-being: sleep.

So we end up dragging at work. Or we’re spent before we get home. By the time we get there, have dinner and do some household chores, we only have enough energy to crash on the couch.

But we keep pushing. Day after day, we push to the point of exhaustion until, finally, something inside of us says, “Enough!”

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The surprising thing

Stewart Friedman is a Professor at Wharton and the author of a fantastic book on leadership. It’s called Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life.

In his research, he has uncovered an answer to this work – life balance problem. It has to do with a surprising thing others expect from you. They expect … drum roll please …

Less!

Dr. Friedman’s research shows that other people expect a lot less of us than we think they do. In many cases, they’re not the ones putting the pressure on us. We’re putting undue pressure on ourselves!

You are the entrepreneur of a very important enterprise – your life. Just like any entrepreneur, communication with your key stakeholders is crucial.

Talk about expectations. Great entrepreneurs have these conversations with their employees. They talk about expectations with their investors. Follow that example – have a conversation about expectations with the key stakeholders in your life.

Discuss options. Ask for their help in discovering options so you meet their expectations.

Reach an agreement about respective participation in each other’s lives. Think of it as a service level agreement.

You’ll come away with a clear understanding of the expectations the most important people in your life have of you. Then you can focus on scheduling your days to meet those expectations. Or better yet, exceed them. After all, this is the community for bigg goal-getters!

Thanks so much for the gift of your time today.

We’ve heard over and over again that money can’t buy happiness. Please join us next time when we ask, “Can happiness buy money?”

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Related posts

Flipping Work Life Balance

Taking Time Off to Get More Done

Why Work Life Balance Doesn’t Work

(Image in today's post by KevinKLuu)

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How to Start a Business

Written on April 30, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Business, Entrepreneurship

A lot of people have an idea for a business, but they don’t know how to turn that idea into a money-making enterprise. Bigg success is life on your own terms. If that means owning your own business, we encourage you to get started – even if it’s just part-time.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss today's topic on The Bigg Success Show! To listen while you read, click the purple player: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Talk with potential customers to find out if your idea might make money. Tell them about your product or service.

Ask questions. What do they think about it? Do they like it? What would they change? Is it priced correctly?

The difference between “would” and “will”

Imagine yourself being asked these two questions: Would you buy this product? Will you buy this product?

There really isn’t a consequence if you say “yes” to the first question. However, your pocketbook will take a hit if you respond affirmatively to the second one.

As you talk with potential customers, keep in mind that you’re getting hypothetical answers. It’s play money. Once you launch, you’re looking for real money.

Research is great, but it’s important to understand its limitations.

We have a friend who was a very successful business person before he retired. He had a great solution to the question, “How do I get started in business?” He said:

“Find a customer.”

If you have a customer, you’re in business! What do you do next? Get another customer!

You don’t want to depend on just one to support your business. When you have two customers, get a third.

His advice didn’t end there. Would you like to know when to hire an employee? When you’re too busy to do all the work yourself!

We love it! He had reduced this complex subject down to its core.

So do you want to start a business? Find a customer.

However, there’s something you must find before you try to find a customer:

Find an unmet need

We’ll discuss three ways you might go about doing that:

Do you need something?
This is one of the best ways to find unmet needs. If there’s a product or service that you could really use, you might have discovered an opportunity!

You may have purchased a similar product or service, but it’s not quite right. You’ll deliver a product that completely meets the need that you’ve noticed.

Does someone you know need something?
It’s the same idea as the first one. The trick here is to listen closely to what people around you are saying.

You may hear them register a complaint or show dissatisfaction with a product or service. Your two ears may help you find your business!

Does your area need something?
When you travel to other regions of the country or even to other countries, are there products or services there that aren’t offered in your area? There are a lot of examples of people who have done this successfully.

We caution you to be careful – there are differences in tastes and preferences between regions and countries. However, the world is getting smaller all the time!

So do you want to start a business? Find an unmet need. Then find a customer.

Getting your bigg start really doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that!