Work-Life Balance

Today is one of those moments where I'm so glad I have work-life balance.  When the two intersect and blend harmoniously, life is so much better.  Of course, I only know this to be true after years of emphasizing (OK, over-emphasizing) the "work" part of the equation.  It's only taken me close to 15 years in the workforce before I found a better balance.  Along with one heck of a company that I've called home for 6.5 years now. I was responsible for helping manage a big news announcement from our company this morning.  Normally, this would mean putting my life on hold (possibly for up to a week in advance) to plan and obsess over every detail myself, along with executing and following up.  Fortunately, I have a great group of teammates and have finally taken to heart that my job is no longer to "do" as much as it is to help plan, manage and motivate.  (That's a hard lesson to learn for a competitive guy like me.)  As a result, I was still able to squeeze two quality workouts in -- one before work at 6 a.m. in the pool, and another at 6 p.m. in the gym with the weights.  In between, my team and I worked hard to stay on top of the news cycle.

The pool workout was pretty grueling.  We had a series of sprints between 50 and 100 yards to establish our T-pace for the workout.  Then, we added a few seconds to it and tried to hit a specific time with little rest over the duration of the sets.  It pretty much rocked me.  At the end of the day, I blasted through five sets of three different exercises, with two sets of 15 reps for each.  I was pretty spent after the lifting and about 10-15 minutes of abs work.

In the end, as I sit here with my head spinning after an exciting and exhausting day, I'm thrilled about how everything turned out.  The announcement was a big success, with a potentially delicate situation that I believe we turned into a positive with our fans and the press.  But I'm just as elated about being able to fit in my training without feeling stressed out about either my work or athletic performance.  Neither suffered.  If I can continue to maintain this kind of mental and physical balance over the long haul, I think it can only enhance my overall quality of life.

Which is good, considering Stephanie insists on me living as long as she plans to!

I'm trying, honey.  I'm trying!

176 days and counting.