Balance is a myth. Living an integrated life instead creates focus, authenticity and self confidence.

Living an Integrated Life – Transcribed

Let’s talk about living an integrated life. It’s a concept Bill George brings out in his book True North. I use this tool among others when I work with the LeaderSync Group, my organization as we coach and help develop leaders, leadership teams and groups. One of the sections in there is this idea of bringing all the components of your life together and holistic functioning way. George says, “Don’t get this confused with balance that’s this is not a code word for balance, balance I believe is a myth that a misnomer.” But it is about focus an integration of the key areas like relationships, work-life, personal growth as a leader, leadership challenges, skill development etc. So George focuses on that, we do as we work with and coach leaders. He quotes John Donahoe who is the CEO of Ebay seceded May, Meg Whitman. Donahoe says, “The struggle is constant as the trade-offs and choices don’t get any easier as you get older. George says living an integrated life is a challenging thing to do and allows you to live a life that when the highs are high you don’t get cocky and when you hit the low moments now you don’t get depressed and go into despair because your integrating a number of components together so you have more of a whole life as a leader.

I focus on three areas when I do my leadership development work; story, soul and strategy. Story is mining things like you’re defining moments as a leader; you’re driving values, and some of the primary strengths that you have that got you where you are. Let’s mine those, let’s find out where they came from, you know, how they work, how they contribute to your leadership growth so we work a bit in story.

Then we look at soul which is code for inner life. It’s not necessarily a religious word though, people of faith that I work with like to delve into that a little more. But it’s the idea of, what is my emotional health like? What’s my relational capacity right now? What are the core practices I can engage in to help me create and a solid core inner life? So the character formation takes place in the present, in the now.

Story of course about past. Soul is sort of like where am I now internally and how am I addressing my world? And then the third area of strategy is more like helping people create a vision framework and look at what I call a focus map. Where do I put my energy and resources as I go forward? What are the potential resources I can mine? What can I do to take next steps in person personal growth and development and in my own leadership effectiveness?

So I look at story, soul and strategy as I … my organization LeaderSync work with leaders and teams.

So you might want to reflect on that today.

What about those three areas of your life do you need to invest more time and energy in to create this sense of integration so you can meet the leadership challenges that you need to meet in your world today?

We would like to encourage your feedback as it helps us to identify the issues that are important to you. It also helps others who are searching to develop new creative ways of leading. Thank you in advance for your comments.

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