Who once said on his deathbed “I wish I had spent more time at the office”. Yes you are right – no one.

Research on this topic reveals that most regrets expressed at this time are about key relationships. Therefore ultimate success is not about how high we go in an organisation or how much wealth we accumulate. Instead it requires us achieving a balance between our work and our home lives.

As Father’s Day has just passed I thought it would be appropriate to include an article on Work Life Balance which might inspire all parent’s to spend more quality time with your loved ones and avoid the regrets of so many people in the past.

We are also including a free book summary of “The Heart of Success – Making it in Life Without Losing in Business” by Rob Parsons a book that explores this topic in detail.

See you next month
Mick

In this month’s Newsletter I would like to motivate all parents to spend more quality time with their children and I have a few suggestions as to how this may be achieved.

It’s very important to remember that if we don’t spend time with our children when they are young they probably won’t spend time with us when they are teenagers. If we are easy on ourselves we could say that we have until a child reaches 18 to build a strong relationship. That’s 6,570 days. If you have a child like I do who is 10 years old that number of days is now less than 3,000.

My main influence for this article was a book I discovered on this topic that had a big impact on me when I first read it. It is “The 60 Minute Father” by Rob Parsons. Its’ title is based on the fact that the book is relatively small and can be read in 60 minutes. I am not the quickest reader so I should probably call the book the “180 Minute Father” but that’s not quite as catchy. There is also a mother’s version called (believe it or not) “The 60 Minute Mother”.

As we all know each day can pass very quickly. In fact how often have you heard someone say “Where did that year go”. We need to recognise that every day is a real opportunity to make an impact on your child’s life.

Making the right choices with the time you have
There is an old Eastern Proverb which says “If you do this you can’t do that”. I don’t know the person who first said this but he wasn’t a rocket scientist. The fact is there are only so many hours in any one day and so we are constantly faced with choices as to how to spend this time. Very often our children end up getting what is left over at the end of the day.

So look at how you spend each day and decide is every activity you undertake more important than spending more time with your children. If you are someone who says “Yes” to the whole world then you often end up saying “No” to those who are closest to you. For example every hour you spend working on a committee you have little interest in but were bullied onto, is an hour taken away from your children.

“It is easy to say no when there is a deeper yes burning inside”.
Stephen Covey

Make it Quality Time
The quality of the time spent with your children is even more important. Of course I am not an expert but here are just a few suggestions for more quality time based on my own experiences.

• Important Dates. Put dates in your diary that are important to your children e.g. birthdays / school concerts and plan to be there at all costs. These are the times kids really appreciate having you around.
• Talk to your children. I mean have real conversations with them. An experiment completed with a group of dads (using hidden mikes) revealed that Dads talked to their kids from between 40 seconds to 3 minutes a day – whereas kids watch TV an average of 3 hours per day. This is one of the reasons why most teenagers connect more with Simon Cowell than with their Dad.
• Family nights. One of the most successful thing we ever did as a family was to introduce a family night once a week. On these nights I will leave work early and ignore any housework / ironing required around the house (sounds good so far). Then we have dinner together and play some board games, have a disco and watch a movie (or whatever the agenda is that night). Our kids love them but to be honest so do we. When is the last time you had a chance to get on the dance floor and let yourself go – while sober.
• Read them bed-time stories. For me bed-time stories really remind you that the window of childhood is so short. You might find it difficult to fit in a bed-time story when your child asks for one but you will find it even more difficult when they stop asking – without any advance warning.
• Give them a piece of your childhood. We are so determined to give our children what we never had ourselves that we often don’t give them what we did have. Kids will often remember the day you brought them to for a day out at a park whereas they will soon forget the day you bought them their 3rd mobile phone ….. even if it did cost you €250. The book “Dublin for Kids” is filled with activities and places to go that cost very little or nothing at all. Check to see if there is an equivalent book for the area you live in.

Finally ….
My 3 key messages to parents are
• Take every opportunity you get each day to make an impact on your kid’s lives
• You do have choices as to how to spend your time – choose wisely
• And even when your time is limited, aim to spend quality time with your kids.

BOOK SUMMARY 

This month we have a new book summary “The Heart of Success” by Rob Parsons. The author explains the 7 laws required to “make it in business without losing in life” in the form of a series of conversations between a retired college professor and a young MBA student.

It is a fresh and interesting way to explore a very important and often underrated topic. There are also 2 other book summaries currently available on our site. These are are “Think and Grow Rich” by Napolean Hill and “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracey. To access these book summaries click here. This page is password protected and is available to all subscribers to our free monthly newsletters. Our password is shown in the email version of the newsletter.

We sincerely hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter. If you have any questions please send me a mail. I would also be delighted to deliver a talk or seminar on this topic to any interested groups and organisations.

See you next month

Mick Rock
Act Now