This article will appeal to readers who think I got the heading wrong, that the equation should read work minus leisure equal wealth. In other words, the harder and longer you work, the more money you make and the more successful you become. After all, life has long been based around work, with success being all about the bottom line, the dollar. The 19th century Industrial Revolution entrenched that belief, seeing leisure as a frivolous waste of good working time, even a competitor.
Doesn't it all sound familiar even today? Times have dramatically changed in the last 30 years but traditions die hard, especially with much of the world's businesses still run by older baby boomers. See what reaction you get today from your boss and sometimes your workmates when you suggest you want time off during the week to play golf, let alone pick up the kids from school. Baby boomers grew up to believe that work was a badge of honour, the prime means to progress and success. It's one of the reasons why baby boomer managers and X and Y generation employees have trouble seeing eye to eye.
The image of leisure and recreation needs updating too. Leisure still equates to idleness, and recreation to physical activity. It amazes many people to learn that more people visit museums, art galleries and libraries than attend sporting events. Any intrinsically enjoyable experience is, first and foremost, an experience of the mind. The true meaning becomes apparent by dropping the first two letters of recreation to form 'creation', creatively expressing the inner person. These experiences can be physical, intellectual, social, manual, environmental, or spiritual.
So what is it about leisure that puts it side by side with work as the means to wealth and success? The answer lies in the ripple effect.
When you lose yourself in an interest you love, paid or unpaid, you discover the person you love to be. You unlock your sense of passion, releasing strong feelings of enthusiasm, optimism and creativity. It triggers an ability to think outside the square. You feel good about yourself, raising your self esteem, self belief, self confidence and self awareness.
Such mind-expanding experiences bring other benefits including:
* Sourcing natural, limitless supplies of personal energy. The effect goes beyond simply surviving a pressure cooker lifestyle, positively engendering a sense of excitement to embrace new challenges
* Providing the most natural form of stress management. An interest so absorbing that you lose track of time brings back the fight and flight rhythm that modern society needs to reduce the impacts and costs of stress on health and wellbeing, individual and corporate
* A more positive outlook on life in general, and
* Greater enjoyment of life.
What manager wouldn't love to be able to bottle that sort of corporate energy?
The effects don't stop there. They trigger a ripple effect that spreads across every aspect of life at work, home and play, including improved work productivity and life satisfaction.
Think of the intellectual property loss a business suffers when a long term employee leaves. The loss goes far beyond the skills and qualifications set down in the job specification. Much of the lost ability was sourced from interests outside of the workplace.
The key ingredient in all of this is what I call the enjoyment factor. Enjoyment is essential to personal growth. Educators know enjoyment plays a key role in any teaching process. Not everybody enjoys their job. But everyone can and usually does create unique leisure and recreational experiences that are first, last and foremost intrinsically enjoyable. It's ripple effect creates a life-expanding experience, generating the drive that thrives in striving for success in life, including work.
Then there's the employer's perspective. He or she seeks to maximize all of the skills, abilities, talents and potential of staff. A work-based staff development program would never fully achieve this, especially now that work and personal demands are intertwined, 24/7. People want to get the work and life mix right so their natural potential can blossom.
Employees are increasingly seeing themselves as self-employed. They choose a job, sometimes multiple jobs, best suiting their personal aspirations. There is now a commonality in the issues and pressures facing employee and employer alike.
We are therefore experiencing a growing equality of relationship between:
* employer and employee
* work time/demands and personal time/demands
* work goals and personal goals
* work and leisure.
The potential of leisure and recreational interests to give individuals some sense of control over their lives and dreams is being increasingly appreciated and pursued. Business is, however, somewhat slower to recognize how much those interests can help to improve work productivity, commitment and profits.
Every individual is embroiled in a constant battle between
* expressing their personal desire to assert their individuality, and
* responding to the whims of an unpredictable society that imposes an increasingly rapid rate of change, over most of which the individual has little control.
People are now working to live, rather than living for work. Money is a means not an end. True wealth today is more about investing in one's own skills, abilities and talents, maximizing personal potential, connecting with others and seeking a sense of fulfillment and life satisfaction. Becoming lost in a freely-chosen personal interest for the sheer joy of the experience is becoming a key means towards achieving these goals.
Work + Leisure = Wealth - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Nicholls's Website.
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