Toward a More Integrated Life
At SCNA in 2009, Ken Auer talked to us about his desire to live an integrated life. Our modern life, according to Ken, tends toward compartmentalization rather than integration. Children go learn in a school, while parents go work in an office. Prayer is saved for churches. Adult learning is saved for continuing education. Family is for after hours. Business is for business hours. Exercise is for sports. Hard work is for pay. Let’s keep things clean and separate, with nice, clear boundaries.
As a father of three awesome children, and a husband to someone I love spending time with, the idea of an integrated life is appealing. But listening to Ken talk, and hearing how far he’s taken his integration, I was intimidated. Ken’s kids are home-schooled. Ken’s software studio is in the lower-level of his house. Ken’s team prays together before their daily standup meetings. Ken has extra space in his house for his kids’ grandparents. At first it was easy for me to think in all-or-nothing terms, and make excuses. Home-schooling isn’t an option for my family. Chicago housing costs make it incredibly expensive to consider multi-generational living arrangements. The work I want to do is in downtown Chicago, but my family is planted firmly in the suburbs. Everything in my life seemed to persistently nudge me toward the compartmentalization that Ken was talking about. I felt pretty helpless to resist it.
Since Ken’s introduction to an integrated life, though, I’ve been noticing more opportunities. So I’ve taken small, baby steps toward integration, and as a result, have experienced a higher quality of life. One of the first tensions between integration and compartmentalization I recognized was phone calls. If my wife, kids, non-work friends, brother, sister or parents called between 9am-5pm, I would often feel guilty and rushed answering the call or giving them much time. Similarly, if I got a call from a client or co-worker between 5pm-9am, I’d feel the exact same way. I decided to try integrating. I told myself, “If I can take business calls at home, then I can take personal calls at work.” I do the same with email. All of my email addresses forward to a single, unified inbox. I can use any of my email addresses to send from that inbox. It works great and helps me remain extremely responsive when important emails come, regardless of who it comes from.
I do hold certain hours of the day aside for specific activities. The hours between 6pm and 10pm are mostly focused on my wife and children. A friend of mine said it well: “There are 24 hours in a day. If I need to put in some extra hours on a project, I’m up for it, but it will happen during the other 20 hours of the day.” I’ve stuck to this pattern over my entire career, which has always been, and will always be, a challenge. It’s no fun to be the guy who’s walking out the door “early” while so many others stay later. It’s worth it, though, and to toot my own horn a little, I’ve been successful. Successful despite these boundaries? No, these boundaries are a contributor to my success. They help ensure I’m working at a sustainable pace and with a lot of energy.
As I said before, I like spending time with my family. So I’ve been on the lookout for ways of integrating them into typical “business hours”. With Staci, the easiest way to spend time with her while I work is to bring her with me to conferences. With my children, I occasionally bring them with me to the office, but it’s pretty rare since they’re all in school. But when I took my Journeyman Tour this year, I pulled each of my two older kids out of school for a week at a time, and brought them with me.[1] We had some seriously memorable times together. This, of course, made my youngest son jealous. So we’ve been looking for a way for him to come with me on a trip. At the end of the negotiations for Groupon’s Obtiva acquisition, I was visiting my extended family in Seattle. When it was time for us to fly back to Chicago, I suddenly needed to meet with Groupon’s senior engineering leadership in Palo Alto. The family was set to fly back without me when Charlie (the youngest) asked to come with me. I loved the idea, and so we flew to California together.
Having Charlie with me during this extremely important conversation with some Groupon VPs wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. He got antsy, and needed to sit on my lap for a bit. That was challenging. Same deal with having my wife with me at conferences. I’m balancing my time between her and the conference happenings. Same deal on the Journeyman Tour. The kids limited the time I spent out late with people, and I had to think about how to occupy their time. All of this stuff is nerve-wracking. But, across the board, everyone was extremely accepting of involving my family more in these professional situations. Moment-to-moment, adopting a more integrated life is difficult, and yet I find that these integrations give me energy, which then helps me power through these difficulties.
I believe it’s possible to follow your passion, enjoy your job, provide for your family, and be a good spouse and parent. There are far, far too many people who choose not pursue these possibilities. They have a tough, demotivating job. Or a career that doesn’t pay enough. Or a job that pays great, fulfills them, but requires too much time away. My only advice: don’t give up. Having success in business and career does not require failure in marriage and parenthood. Nor vice versa. I’ve never been satisfied until I could have my cake and eat it too. I want it all, and too many of us settle for success in one or the other “compartment” rather than experiencing an integrated, overall success.
One of the subtle but powerful ways that compartmentalization seeps into our thinking is via language such as “work/life balance” or “live to work vs. work to live”. Bullshit. Juxtaposing work vs. life is a horrifying way to think. It implies that work is a form of death. Do you understand how much of your life you spending working? Work is a huge part of your life so don’t settle for a sort of everyday dying. Don’t work to live. Don’t live to work. Deliberately walk a path that leads you toward a more integrated existence, which gives you the energy to do good work, which in turn opens up more opportunities for integration.
[1] Ken actually suggested I bring my whole family for the entire trip. Instead, I chopped up the trip with my two older kids, but did have my whole family come out for a weekend together in the middle of it. Thanks for the ideas and inspiration, Ken!
