101 Ways to have a Business and a Life
– Tips for creating balance, harmony and fulfilment in your business life
By Andrew Griffiths. Published by Allen & Unwin, NSW, 2007. 245 pages (paperback). RRP $24.95. ISBN: 978 1 74114 787 2.
Studies and surveys increasingly show that Australians are working faster, harder and suffering stress in the workplace like never before. If you are running a marketing or PR agency, you face the additional pressures of keeping the business afloat, generating revenue and making payroll each month. Life becomes a pressure cooker and soon your professional and personal lives are out of balance.
Life as a business owner can easily get distorted when a 24/7/365 commitment to business becomes the new reality. Like the agency exec I met some years ago. She used to boast that she could take client calls on her mobile phone and run her three-year-old daughter’s birthday party at the same time. Poor client … poor kid!
So if you are in a similar situation, Andrew Griffiths’ book, 101 Ways to have a Business and a Life, may be just the reality check you need.
His 245-page book is an easy read and is based on the premise that to succeed in business you must also succeed in life. That means nurturing your mind, body and personal relationships as well as chasing your commercial concerns.
The book is divided into 12 sections, making it easy to zoom in on the parts applicable to you. Each deals with a particular lifestyle or business subject and concludes with a call to action – the things you can do today to correct the bad habits that are entrapping you.
The sections include:
- An audit that shows the state of your work/life balance right now.
- Understanding how to break old habits and stay on track with new, positive ones.
- The power that comes from abandoning negative language.
- Introducing fun into business life.
- Avoiding things that sap your energy and learning to master the art of saying ‘no’.
- Building successful work and personal relationships.
- Looking after your self mentally and spiritually and by eating right and regularly exercising.
- Building boundaries between business and family life.
There is also a section on balancing tips, especially for men. Guys, don’t let your business success define your value as a man. And for women … ladies, accept there are limits on what you can do as a mother, partner and business owner.
When I started reading I thought 101 Ways was just another of those self-help books that increasingly populate our book stores these days. But Griffiths has written a book with conviction that delivers a mountain of common sense. It is about the things you instinctively know are right but may have forgotten along the way.
If your business and personal lives are becoming depressingly entangled, invest in yourself and buy this book.
Reviewed by Bob Crawshaw AMAMI
0 thoughts on “Book Review – Australian Marketing Institute”