TED Tuesday: Nigel Marsh— How to make work-life balance work

"Feel like your work-life balance is off? 

This talk is for you."

Good Morning Folks,

Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. At TEDxSydney, Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity — and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.

This TED talk works for me on a number of levels:

• The content really spoke to me. As someone who had previously made the idle boast that “work life balance is for people who don’t like their jobs”, this talk made me realize that there was something to be gained from cultivating interests, activities and relationships that did not revolve around work. And that it would take work to do that. Not just that, that society is such that making work life balance work is an individual responsibility.

• Nigel has got a great presentational style. It’s very conversational, pretty funny and candid. You get a real sense that this is the “real” Nigel. He embodies something that our presentation skill training aims to do, namely “Be yourself. More. With skill.” His timing is superb and he absolutely nails the “Strong start” with the smart use of quotes. Yes, he’s funny but the humour is from the absolute conviction of his delivery and the hard hitting truth of what he’s saying. There isn’t a “joke” in sight…

• There is a very strong call to action:  This talk entirely pivots in the last paragraph which I set out below in full. From the very specific details of one man’s quest to find work life balance he actually calls for a revolution in the work place.  It’s very profound and yet it’s delivered with economy and precision. It’s a strong ending for the talk and just as strong an ending for this blog post.  

• “Now my point is the small things matter. Being more balanced doesn’t mean dramatic upheaval in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life. Moreover, I think, it can transform society. Because if enough people do it, we can change society’s definition of success away from the moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well lived looks like. And that, I think, is an idea worth spreading.”

Have a look:

Nigel Marsh is the author of “Fat, Forty and Fired” and “Overworked and Underlaid.” He’s the Regional Group CEO of Young and Rubicam Brands for Australia & New Zealand. In 2005 he came second last in the Bondi to Bronte ocean race.

Thanks to Creative Shift UK for inspiring me today with this recommendation and to you, for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

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