Work Life Balance is an Ongoing Battle: Nigel Marsh at TEDxSydney

Finding the balance between work and life is an ongoing battle. In this talk, he tries to convince us that small things matter while trying to balance our lives out. And these small things will help us change the society's definition of "success".

Wasn't Bred fantastic?

I thought that was just really terrific,

but it has left me feeling slightly

technologically challenged,

because I haven't got any satellite videos.

(Laughter)

Truth to be told, I haven't got any slides either.

What I thought I would do is I would start

with a simple request.

I'd like all of you to pause for a moment,

you wretched weaklings,

and take stock of your miserable existence.

(Laughter)

That was the advice that Saint Benedict gave

his rather startled followers in the fifth century.

It was the advice that I decided to follow myself

when I turned 40.

Up until that moment,

I had been a classic corporate warrior.

I was eating too much,
I was drinking too much,

I was working too hard

and I was neglecting my family.

And I decided that I would try
and turn my life around.

In particular, I decided I would try to address

the thorny issue of work-life balance.

So, I stepped back from the workforce

and I spent a year at home with my wife

and four young children.

But all I learnt about work-life balance
from that year

was that I found it quite easy
to balance work and life

when I didn't have any work.

(Laughter)

Not a very useful skill,

especially when the money runs out.

So I went back to work and I have spent

these seven years since struggling with,

studying and writing about work-life balance.

I have four observations
I would like to share with you today.

The first is, if society
is to make any progress on this issue,

we need a honest debate.

But the trouble is so many people talk

so much rubbish about work-life balance.

All the discussions about flexi-time

or dress-down Fridays or paternity leave

only serve to mask the core issue,

which is that certain job and career choices

are fundamentally incompatible

with being meaningfully engaged

on a day-to-day basis with a young family.

The first step in solving any problem

is acknowledging the reality
of the situation you're in.

And the reality of the society that we are in

is there are thousands and thousands
of people out there

leading lives of quiet,
screaming desperation

where they work long,
hard hours at jobs they hate,

to enable them to buy things
they don't need,

to impress people they don't like.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

It is my contention that going to work
on a Friday in jeans and T-shirt

isn't really getting into the nub of the issue.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

The second observation I'd like to make

is really to face the truth

that governments and corporations

aren't going to solve this issue for us.

We should stop looking outside.

It is up to us as individuals

to take control and responsibility
for the type of lives

that we want to lead.

If you don't design your life,
someone else will design it for you,

and you may just not like
their idea of balance.

It is particularly important --

this isn't in the World Wide Web, is it?
I am about to get fired.

It is particularly important
that you never put the quality of your life

in the hands of a commercial corporation.

I am not talking here just about
the bad companies,

the 'abattoirs of the human soul' as I call them,

(Laughter)

I am talking about all companies,

because commercial companies
are inherently desgined

to get as much out of you

as they can get away with.

It's in their nature, it's in their DNA,
it's what they do

even the good,
well-intentioned companies.

On the one hand, putting childcare facilities
in the workplace

is wonderful and enlightened.

On the other hand,
it is a nightmare that just means

you spend more time at the bloody office.

We have to be responsible
for setting and enforcing

the boundaries that we want in our life.

The third observation is we have to be careful

with the time frame that we choose
upon which to judge our balance.

Before I went back to work
after my year at home,

I sat down and I wrote out

a detailed, step-by-step description

of the ideal balanced day that I aspired to.

And it went like this:

Wake up well rested
after a good night's sleep.

Have sex.

(Laughter)

Walk the dog.

Have breakfast with my wife and children.

Have sex again.

(Laughter)

Drive the kids to school
on the way to the office.

Do three hours' work.

Play sport with a friend at lunchtime.

Do another three hours' work.

Meet some mates in the pub
for an early evening drink.

Drive home for dinner with my wife and kids.

Meditate for half an hour.

Have sex.

Walk the dog.

Have sex again.

(Laughter)

Go to bed.

(Applause)

How often do you think I have that day?

(Laughter)

We need to be realistic.

You can't do it all in one day.

We need to elongate the time frame

upon which we judge the balance in our life

but we need to elongate it
without falling into the trap

of the "I'll have a life when I retire,
when my kids have left home,

when my wife has divorced me,
my health is failing,

I have got no mates or interests left."

(Laughter)

A day is too short,
"after a retire" is too long.

It has got to be a middle way.

The fourth observation:

we need to approach balance
in a balanced way.

A friend came to see me last year --

she doesn't mind me telling the story.

A friend came to see me last year and said

"Nigel, I've read your book and I have realised my life
is completely out of balance.

It is totally dominated by work.

I work 10 hours a day,
I commute 2 hours a day.

All my relationships have failed.

There is nothing in my life
apart from my work.

So I have decided to get a grip and sort it out.

So I have joined the gym."

(Laughter)

Now, I don't mean to mock

but being a fit,
ten-hour-a-day office rat

isn't more balanced, it is more fit.

(Laughter)

Lovely though physical exercise may be,
there are other parts to life.

There is the intellectual side,
there is the emotional side,

there is the spiritual side.

And to be balanced, I believe
we have to attend to all of those areas.

Not just do 50 stomach crunches.

That can be daunting,
because people say

"Bloody hell, mate,
I haven't got time to get fit

and you want me to go to church
and call my mother."

And I understand, I truly understand
how that can be daunting.

But an incident that happened
a couple of years ago

gave me a new perspective.

My wife, who is somewhere
in the audience today,

called me up at the office and said

"Nigel, you need to pick our youngest son up,
Harry, from school."

She had to be somewhere else
with the other three children for that evening.

So I left work an hour early that afternoon

and picked Harry up at the school gates.

We walked down to the local park,

messed around on the swings,
played some silly games.

I then walked him up the hill to the local café

and we shared a pizza for tea.

Then, walked down the hill to our home

and I gave him a bath and put him
in his Batman pijamas.

I then read him a chapter of Roald Dahl's
James and the Giant Peach".

I then put him to bed, tucked him in,

gave him a kiss on his forehead
and said "Goodnight, mate."

And walked out of his bedroom.

As I was walking out of his bedroom,

he said, "Dad?",
I went "Yes, mate?"

he went,
"Dad, this has been the best day of my life.

Ever."

I hadn't done anything.

I hadn't taken him to Disney World
or bought him a Playstation.

Now, my point is the small things matter.

Being more balanced doesn't mean
dramatic upheaval in your life.

With the smallest investment
in the right places

you can radically transform
the quality of your relationships

and the quality of your life.

Moreover, I think it can transform society

because if enough people do it,

we can change
society's definition of success

away from the moronically simplistic notion

that the person with the most money
when he dies wins,

to a more thoughtful
and balanced definition

of what a life well-lived looks like.

And that, I think,
is an idea worth spreading.

(Applause)