Entrepreneurs and business people world wide consistently seek out the secret to a balanced life. Balancing their life between work and family or work and fun or…well you get the idea. We read books, attend seminars, watch videos and seek counseling to find that magical answer of how to find balance.

Well, I have found the secret. It is nothing profoundly earth shattering and so simple that we all can do it. The secret is…drum roll…there is no secret. That’s right. There is no magical routine to follow or time allocation and management hocus pocus. We just have to decide to do it. It’s that simple. And I know you can all accomplish this. Most of you reading are entrepreneurs or fast paced business people. One thing I know about the personality of each of you who belong to these groups is this – when you set your mind to it, you can accomplish it. If you are not a business person or an entrepreneur, I still have faith that you can make up your mind for yourself if you actually want to.

Want. That is the key word here – Want. When we entrepreneurs want something, we go after it with fervor and dedication. We do not let anything stand in our way. Once we have made up our mind about wanting something or wanting to do something. Want and willpower have caused us to be able to accomplish great feats that the general population thought was impossible or had high improbabilities of failure. And yet we were not deterred. I simply can not believe that these types of people with such passion and relentless dedication can’t direct that same ferocity to not working on Saturday and attending their child’s sports event, or go on a date with a spouse and not network or think about cash flow and opportunity, or at the bare minimum…doing the unthinkable – leave the office on time!

I used to fool myself and chant that I’m doing this for my family, I’m doing this for my family, I’m doing this for my family. Then I realized, I will bring my family riches but never get to enjoy time with them. I work so much that I’m too tired to go to the movies or take off for a vacation. The best thing spent on your kids, spouse, friends and self is time. Don’t get me wrong. I want you all to be very, very, monetarily wealthy. But I also want you to enjoy the wealth of emotions your family has to offer or the wealth of health that exercise can bring to your life.

I arrived at this epiphany during the outset of my Rich Dad Coaching. My coach, Bryan Burke, was talking with me about the various ventures I was involved with. If you think the different companies listed on the disclosure page are too many, you should have seen how many irons I had in the fire at the beginning of Rich Dad Coaching. Then he told me something that was so simple and yet very powerful. He said, “Pick what is most important to you and just stop doing the others.” I do not know why I had not realized that I had the power to just stop. And I did just that. You know what? My world did not end. I did not become destitute or homeless. My home life improved and the businesses I maintained actually did better. I will credit my wife with telling me a few years back that I had too many things going on at once. I thought, “I’m the head of the household and the entrepreneur here, I know what is best.” Needless to say, I listen to my wife more often now. And she contributes to my success consistently, described in my Support Team Article.

I know that there are times when you just have to stay after hours at the office, stay up late working at home, complete business related tasks on the weekend, and miss some family events. This is inevitable in the life of an entrepreneur. And if you are a serial entrepreneur, like I am, you can exponentially increase the likelihood of these types of occurrences. But, these occurrences are not a daily happening. If they are, find another market to enter or hire someone to handle the recurring issues. Entrepreneurs are responsible for the majority of innovations and life changing breakthroughs in the world. If we, entrepreneurs, can make computers that you can carry in your pocket, design bulletproof glass and apparel, and invent lasers that can operate on the human brain, we have the capacity to leave the office at quitting time – if we Want to.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 5:13 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.