How your family relationships can lead to a successful career
| 06 October 2009
Many people have had their theories about what attributes are required to have a successful and rewarding career. Some say you need to have a high IQ. Others say that great communication and leadership skills are the keys while others think that coming from a wealthy family gives you a significant advantage in the business world. However a study that followed 268 Harvard students over a 70 year showed that the most significant factor to positively influence your career actually had little to do with what you did at work...
The strongest predictor for an effective and rewarding career was found to be having and maintaining close relationships, especially with your family.
These factors were found to dramatically improve your chance of future career success:
How to have as much energy as a five year-old
| 28 July 2009
When you are busy running a couple of businesses and you also are married with three energetic children under eight years of age it is easy for us to become dependent on caffeine or just collapse on the sofa when you get home. Being a health expert over the last 17 years I am continually amazed by the onerous and out-dated health recommendations decreed by out of touch but well-meaning health professionals.
Let’s list just a few...
To maintain our health, energy and vitality we are meant to:
- Sleep for a minimum of eight hours every day (they obviously don't have kids!)
- Have nine serves of fresh, organic, vine-ripened fruits and vegetables every day. (Do french fries count as potato?)
- Do thirty minutes of exercise every day
- Put some time aside for relaxation and reflection every day. (If only there was the time)
- You have to drink at least eight glasses of water a day (eight must be physicians favourite number)
- Some people say you need to eliminate all fats from your diet. Others say no you must get rid of sugars and carbs. Aren't you meant to have high carbs and low protein? Or is it high protein and low carbs? High fat or fat free? Seriously, apart from sex and money, nutrition and diets must be the most lied about subject in the world!
- Now you can't use your mobile phone (it causes cancer), you can't drink out of plastic bottles (cancer as well), you can't spend too much time in the sun (you guessed it...cancer again)
With such an endless list of to-do's, maintaining your health and vitality can be exhausting and not to mention confusing. As a health professional, I choose only to listen from experts in the health field that practice what they preach. If they are stronger, fitter, healthier than me I will readily get advice from them.
For this reason I chose to pick the brain of one of the most energetic people I know... my son Daniel. I remember when Daniel was five years old, Daniel and I spent the weekend in Brisbane staying with his grandparents where we had a 'Daniel Day'. The rules of this day were simple...we do whatever Daniel wants to do.
Improve your work-life balance by improving your work-wife balance
| 13 July 2009
“When is this darn pain going to go away,” pleaded Lisa.
“According to the test results, the treatment seems to be going to plan. Let’s look at what lifestyle factors could be slowing your progress.” The furrowed brow and look of fatigue and despair on Lisa’s face gave me some clues as to what may be really going on.
Lisa seemed to know that I knew (or I was going to find out really soon). Before I began to ask her about her stress situation Lisa looked up trying to blink away the tears that were welling in her bloodshot eyes.
"What’s been going on at home?" I asked.
The floodgates of emotions opened up as she painted the bleak picture that many a stay-at-home Mom has been going through.
"I’m stuck at home with three young children and I hardly ever to get to see my husband. He’s working 14 hours a day 6-7 days a week. When he is home I get angry with him because he’s too worn out to help out with anything. But I’m worn out too. What about me? When do I get a chance to do something for me?"
Why motherhood is the toughest job in the world
| 01 July 2009
Sometime it is better for us to laugh rather than get all worked up about a topic.
If any people out there were of the delusion that motherhood was not the toughest job in the world, then have a look at this very clever song on you tube. You may have seen it before. She has taken all a Mum says in 24 hours and condensed it into a song.
Mothers should stop putting their family first
| 01 July 2009
Why is it that most mothers only give themselves permission to relax on Mother's day? They appear happier and less stressed on this day and have a lot more energy.
Does it really take breakfast in bed, some flowers and some arts and crafts made by the kids to make mothers happy and relaxed? (I can hear many mothers crying out, "That would make a great start!") Children and partners around the world would love to have a more energetic and relaxed mother in the house. Is this idea that a mother has to sacrifice herself for the sake of her family actually the definition of what really being a mother is all about? Or is it a remnant of parental peer group pressure from yesteryear that has no place in today's world.
Over the years I have counselled many a burnt out and exhausted mother. They may be a working Mum or a stay at home Mum. One mum that springs to mind is Carmel who raised three children and helped out in the family business. Although in her early forties, Carmel looked 10 -15 years older. Every time Carmel came to my practice her body was aching everywhere and she was just plain exhausted.
"Carmel, all these injuries will heal if you give your body the opportunity to rest. You need to stop putting your family and your job first and start putting yourself first, “I pleaded.
"If I don't look after my kids, who is going to look after them. It's easy for you to say 'put yourself first'. You don't know what it feels like to when your child cries out for you whenever you try to leave them with someone else."
Look I have three young children and like most parents I would gladly give up my life to save my family from life threatening danger. What I am saying is that mothers don't have to give up their life to raise their family. And my observation is that many mothers are unnecessarily putting their health in grave danger by ignoring their own needs and wants for the sake of the family.
Are you that kind of "Martyr Mother"?