“Next to love, balance is the most important thing.”
— Coach John Wooden

Anyone who has known me throughout my professional career would back my claim that balance in life has been modus operandi. It is in my DNA. As I came into Silicon Valley aspiring to achieve success and to support our family, I was constantly battling equilibrium between my work, family, and personal life. I can’t exactly explain the drive; it has been my calling.

This balance mantra first crystalized to me in a Golden Gate University classroom in Los Angeles one night in 1990. It was an epiphany that stuck. I was in a master’s degree program (Telecommunications Management) to further my education at Siemens’ expense (Siemens purchased ROLM in 1989). Sipping a frothy hot chocolate to try and wake up after a long day in the office, I was contemplating what this class might entail when the instructor walked in. He immediately started the first day of class by handing out what I thought to be a class syllabus. Upon inspection, I noticed that it was titled the Circle of Life.

I put my hot chocolate down. He had my full attention.

He opened with a statement about life beyond telecommunications. He wanted us to review our direction in life and consider whether that was where we wanted to go. What? I looked back over the handout to make sure I had not walked into the wrong class. It was after all the first day of class. I can remember him saying that “If we don’t change the direction we are going, we are likely to end up where we are headed.” I could see that he was quite serious about this topic. He made perfect sense in what he was saying and clearly wanted to deliver his message before we got distracted by the class materials. He finished with “If you can keep your life in balance, you will inevitably be a much happier and healthier person.”

His words were simple, yet I knew they were true! The Circle of Life document included a self-analysis quiz to help us understand how our life was going today. He wanted to help us improve our lives at work, at home (family life), and attend to our personal needs (self). After we completed the quiz, he stressed the importance of setting goals for improvement. 

“A man without goals has been compared to a ship without a rudder. Both are subject to the winds of fate.”

At once I realized that I was sailing on that ship! I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but could see there was no way to balance those desires against the other vital areas of my life. I was excited to put my rudder into the water. It was brilliant!

I want to say that my life changed that very moment in class as I reviewed the results of my Circle of Life quiz. Not so. While it prompted me about the areas I wanted to achieve better balance, it was a busy time with a new job at work, night school, and my desire to stay in shape. His handout went into my class binder along with the rest of my materials. I did not retrieve it for several years. In fact, a marriage, two kids, and two jobs later.

Ironman Hawaii

I was working for Sun Microsystems in 1999 when the Circle of Life resurfaced. My telecommunications degree paid off as I landed a Marketing Manager position with Sun’s new and emerging “Netra” division. Sun was riding high on the dot-com bubble which was brought about by the explosive growth of internet-related companies’ in Silicon Valley. The Sun Netra division was selling servers like In-N-Out sells burgers. There was a constant line of customers waiting. We couldn’t build them fast enough!

Sun CEO Scott McNealy had extended a $1 billion credit line to Senior VP Neil Knox to build a family of telecommunications-grade servers for large telecom providers worldwide. The Netra server family was just coming out of development and Neil needed an accomplished go-to-market team to to get the word out to the telecom providers worldwide. It was as if we were pouring fresh cement for the foundation to the internet! As McNealy himself liked to say when he would periodically address us at our regular beer bashes, it was all about kicking butt and having fun.

Amid the chaos, Marla was learning to manage our home with two active toddlers as I was jet-setting around the world to get our Sun sales teams onboard about the opportunity with Netra servers.  All appeared to be going according to plan when a letter arrived with the opening line of, “Congratulations!”

I won the lottery.

Well, kind of. The highly coveted letter from the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii had arrived, announcing they had picked my name to compete in the 1999 event.

Holy cow! 

It was a fairy tale come true for me. Dad lived in Kona right on the Ironman course, and we had watched the race with him several times on our many visits to Kona. For years I had dreamed about going by him while competing in the race. And yet, my first thought upon seeing the letter was how I could possibly find time to do all the necessary training without losing my job, family, or both! A 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and 26.2-mile marathon in Kona heat was not going to happen purely by desire. Pulling this off would require a Ph.D. in balance.

Fast-forward four months later, and things seemed to be falling into place. I was feeling good. I learned how to sneak in my runs and rides on business trips and made up the swimming in my time back home. It did wonders for the jet lag and helped me sleep when my clock was off in another time zone.

Then Marla said something which changed my paradigm. We were discussing making family time a priority on weekends when she blurted out:

“If you put as much time into your family as you do into training for this triathlon, we would have no issues!”

Gulp. It stuck, as I knew it was true. I was speechless.

Circle of Life

My life had been revolving around my job and triathlon training. There was no time for much else besides the necessary sleeping and eating to keep it all going. The family had taken a back seat. I immediately rummaged through my Golden Gate University class binder and pulled out the Circle of Life. As I mapped it out, it was clear as the light of day. I had been in a cloud of denial and had lost perspective in all I had been accomplishing.

Thank God Marla brought me to my senses. Here are a couple of questions in the Circle of Life quiz which convicted me:

– Do you spend “quality” time with your family and children each week? 
– Do you make time for regular “date nights” to have quality time with your spouse/partner/children?
– Do you eat dinner as a family at the dinner table 3 times a week?
– How often do you check email after hours and on weekends without taking the corresponding time off work? 

This discussion was much larger than a triathlon for me, but it helps make the point. Like the three events (swim, bike, run), I needed to find equilibrium in my time and energy for each area of my life (work, family, self). It was as if I was planning to have a stellar swim and bike time while ignoring preparation for the run. My overall performance (my life) would suffer as a result. Or worse, I might not finish the race! I have seen that happen more than once in the triathlon circles, especially in the ironman distance race. Just like a job, the training can be all-consuming, discarding family members along the way.

Keeping my family a priority would be vital for the rest of my life, and something I would model for my children going forward. I had to (and did) make changes.

If things go well with the family, life is worth living; when the family falters, life falls apart. This is truer today than ever before and underscored for me the importance of maintaining balance.

Here is the “Circle of Life” quiz (pdf file): https://surfingforbalance.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/circle-of-life-quiz-v5-4.pdf

Give it a try!

A balanced life not only feels good, but my experience is that it helps those around you too. As that instructor reminded us that opening day of class:

“If you can keep your life in balance, you will inevitably be a much happier and healthier person.”