Healthy Denial

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"No cancer, your pathology was negative" I have a gift...  When my surgeon told me he believed the polyp on my vocal chord was 99.9% likely to be non-cancerous, I believed him. I received an email from Bari (in San Diego) on the morning of my doctor appointment asking if I had heard anything from the doctor about the pathology.  That was the first clue.  Bari hadn't forgotton that there was a slim but real chance that the pathology would come back with an announcement of bad news - even while I had gone about my daily routine being completely oblivious to the impending news.  I jotted a quick email reminding her that the appointment was that morning and promising to be in touch as soon as I left the doctor's office.  When the doctor arrived in my examination room, he acknowledged that I might have been worrying about the news by delivering it even before a polite greeting "No cancer, your pathology was negative".

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Pie of Life

I had a great career at Accenture.  I worked on very large projects - all of them for high profile clients and all of them were successful - multi-year engagements, on time, on budget, happy clients.  My career was humming and in my annual review, I was told that I was on track for an early promotion to Partner - perhaps in 1-2 years. And I was assigned to another multi-year project that - as long as I didn't screw up - virtually assured me of success.

With the partnership in sight, I realized I ought to decide if this was the future that I was seeking.  So I set up a number of conversations with partners I'd worked with to ask them about their lives - to help me determine if i would want this life for myself and for the family Bari and I were hoping to build.  The feedback I heard was difficult. Some of the partners told me about their failed marriages that broke down because they were unable to strike a balance between work and personal responsibilities. And with others, I heard about a constant struggle between the demands of their work and their desire to be present and engaged with their spouse and family.  One partner who felt he struck the right balance proudly told me that he never missed any of his childrens' sports events. While this partner felt successful in striking a balance, I knew that I wanted more than what he had found - and decided soon after to find a different career that would allow greater space to prioritize my family.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this decision formed the basis for my Pie of Life framework for designing a life with clear priorities and balance.  The framework is simple and has just a few rules:

  • Name your slices - mine are Family, Work, Community, Me.  But you should name yours in whatever way you feel is meaningful

  • Assign priorities to each slice with a number that represents the size of the slice in the pie.

    • Slice sizes should add to 100% - the nice thing about a pie is that we can't rationalize that we have superpowers that allow us to be effective beyond 100%

    • Slices cannot be equal - if this were true, it would imply that you would be willing to make prioritization decisions by flipping a coin ... not a good idea if you're trying to live your life with greater intentionality

  • Revisit your pie regularly - maybe yearly:

    • Are you living the life you've designed?  Are you making decisions based on the priorities you've established?

    • Are you happy with the priorities?  Have things in your life changed that require a realignment of your priorities?