What You Do Outside The Office Makes You Better At What You Do Inside The Office

We have a friend named Peter who is a wildly successful consultant. His work is splashed across various public platforms ranging from television to books to high-profile lectures. All his activities are extremely impressive and high-leverage.

Besides being a brilliant businessman, Peter is an adventurous eccentric who isn’t afraid to try new things. While in his fifties, he decided to join a community college lacrosse team. Why? Just because he wanted to learn a new sport—never mind that he was competing against men thirty years his junior. He joined anyway and had a blast.

After mastering lacrosse, Peter decided to give figure skating a whirl. Most recently, he’s been engaging in cross-country motorcycle trips.

We always drop our jaws when Peter tells us what he’s doing next. Nothing seems to intimidate him. As he continues to move and grow in his personal pursuits, his financial and professional endeavors grow as well. In fact, they’re extraordinarily successful.

Many would think that investing so much time and energy into hobbies would detract from building a demanding public career, but in Peter’s case, the opposite seems to be true. He even finds time to take a nap every afternoon!

So how does he do it? What’s Peter’s secret?

Balance. He renews his energy and focus daily by balancing his life domains. He makes time for work, rest, and play, which enables him to pursue his goals with a speed and finesse that many can only marvel at.

Most important, Peter isn’t just focused on building a successful career; he’s invested in building a successful life. This is how the true master builds his or her career. Your professional endeavors aren’t isolated domains in your life. They need the whole of your life experience to support them. A robust career requires a robust, active life outside of it.

Bottom line: if you don’t invest in you, you will never have enough stamina and energy to support the massively booming business or career you want to bring to fruition. Professional success requires life success.
 

This article is an excerpt from the book “The Whiteboard: Go from Blank Canvas to a Productive, Leveraged, & Highly-Profitable Business” by Chris Haddon and Jason Balin. Please click here to see more.