At the Konica Minolta dealer meeting in February one of the keynote speakers was Robert Herjavec, from the reality show Shark Tank. He’s also the owner of a successful security company in Canada, Herjavec Group. He also races cars. But wait, there’s more, and I’ll get to the ‘more’ later.
He had an interesting presentation, some of it focused on Shark Tank, some of it focused on his background growing up in Yugoslavia, some of it focused on his business career, some of it focused on his love for car racing, ultimately all of it focused on him. He ended his presentation with 10 points, one of which was there is no such thing as work life balance if you want to be successful. I paraphrase, but that was pretty much the gist of it.
I’m sure plenty of readers would agree with that statement and I don’t doubt there’s some truth behind it. However, many of us have our own opinions on the importance of work life balance, which tells me that one size does not fit all. Plus many of us have our own definition of success. For some it’s being a successful entrepreneur and having no life outside of work, for others it’s simply having a successful career and not necessarily being on the top of the heap, for others it’s being successful in all aspects of one’s life, and for others, well everyone has their own definition.
I don’t watch Shark Tank so I wasn’t familiar with Herjavec before his keynote. Now, I’m seeing his name all over the Internet. First, was a Yahoo news item that he was going to be on Dancing with the Stars. A week later I read another Yahoo news item that he was getting divorced. Then I did a Google search and saw that he’s now in a relationship with his Dancing with the Stars dancing partner. The guy doesn’t miss an opportunity; I’ll give him that.
I don’t know the details of his personal life and to be honest, I’m not that interested. What I do know is he’s still running a successful company, he’s a regular on what seems to be a successful TV show, he does speaking engagements for receptive audiences like at the Konica Minolta event, and now he’s on Dancing with the Stars. And he’s still racing cars, and sometimes winning those races. Sounds like his plate isn’t just full, it’s overflowing.
Piecing it all together it makes me wonder whether he truly means what he says when he says there’s no such thing as work life balance, or if there’s more to that statement than meets the eye. Granted, maybe he wouldn’t have the time to do all these other things today if he had work life balance earlier in his career.
Still, I’ve met some successful people who seem to understand the concept of work life balance in the here and now and I admire them for recognizing it and sharing that concept with their employees. I’m just not crazy about generic statements that are an excellent talking point in a presentation, but aren’t a one-size fits all, and aren’t always practical when one tries to put them into practice in the real world. Personally, I enjoy what I do, but would lose it if there wasn’t work life balance in my life. That’s me, you may feel differently.
But let’s be honest, for most of us, all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie The Shining you know I mean. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy…
Here’s Johnny!
Thanks for reading.
