Keep Your Life In Balance

Life Balance…..and it might start with your eating!


Now that the holidays are over, and it’s a time for New Year resolutions, it’s not uncommon for one to hear another say, “I’m going to lose 10 lbs this year”. In fact, many of us often actually try to make some changes in how we eat, and this usually lasts until we go out for a nice “night out” that includes dinner from one of our better restaurants. In reality, our good intentions to eat well often extend to other aspects of our business and life, so resolutions may not be all that bad.

In fact, with the typical busy schedules of realtors, an orderly life that is balanced between work, family, recreation, and especially good and healthy eating is a daily challenge. Many of us will “grab a fast food meal” as we go to appointments, and might even eat it in the car. Or we will miss a meal completely and get a “coke” or “Pepsi” to hold us over. Then, when we get home, which may vary from 6 to 9 PM, we leisurely eat a full meal and then “plop down” and watch Miami CSI or the latest version of an evening soap. So much for exercise and balance this day, you might think but never say. And so it goes.

As agents progress through the various stages of success they are then reminded by other successful agents that the secret to their success is the “buzz term” these days, life balance. Not long ago I attended a seminar on this subject, and sure enough, it made sense, for over the many years that I have been in business, I had given little thought or time to putting my life both in balance, and in perspective. I often thought “the busier I am the more successful I am”, and many others that I knew and associated with felt the same way. The harder you work the more successful you will be, and on and on….kind of the key to the road to success.

In January 2004, my thinking started to change, when I was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 64. Shocked? Yes. Depressed? No. Challenged? Yes. Within days I started receiving well wishes from both close friends and others that were barely acquaintances, and with many of the thoughts, concerns, and prayers came suggestions for eating and even a lifestyle change. All of a sudden life balance started to make more sense. I started thinking more about the time I spent with my family; time I spent away from my loved ones “working”; and time, or lack of time, that I spent doing things that merely made me busy but had little real effect on my life as a whole. And, I started thinking about my whole body, what I put into it, and what I could do to start the process to either slow down the cancer or get rid of it as soon as possible. In preparation for surgery, I started one of the most disciplined eating patterns that I had ever followed. I started a daily workout that exceeded previous attempts to get “in shape” even though I had always been quite active in sports and physical conditioning activities. I started following the advice of others that had gone through similar trials, and I came home in the evenings and “relaxed” and actually forgot about the business of that day. And, I noticed quite a difference, for as the surgery drew nearer I actually felt better physically than I had for years.

Now, after a successful surgery, a serious toxic reaction to preventative chemo that put me back into intensive care, and a year of total recovery, I am back “in the saddle”, so to speak, but one major change, life balance. And I start my “balance program” with a very nutritious heavy protein breakfast, carefully watch my low calorie diet during the day, and enjoy the dinner meal that usually includes fish, and other low calorie and “healthy foods”, and I have never felt better with a lot of energy keeping me going my typical 17 hour day. And, I think constantly about all of my daily life, not just what I eat, and ask “is it in balance?” Eating right, along with all of life balance, starts with commitment, which each of us can make, and maybe today is the right time for you to make this commitment to yourself….for 2006 may be a year for you to say, “the best is yet to come”. I hope it will be for you, for it will be for me.