I’ve just been watching a great video on the subject of work life balance by a guy called Nigel Marsh.  The video was actually a podcast of Nigel’s talk at the TED conference  where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. With a background in the world of corporate branding. Nigel, the author of 3 books on work and life balance ideas has some good stuff to say. You’ll love his fantasy ideal day…

I’ve included the video here and would recommend anyone interested in achieving a better work and life balance spends a few minutes watching it. It’s entertaining and informative and full of phrases that I wish I’d written myself !

To be honest there is nothing new here – these are the kind of home truths that new economy companies like The Six Figure Mentors are attempting to address. They do this by giving individuals an alternative work and life balance to the ones that traditional organisations will design for you if you let them. I love Nigel’s description of “bad” commercial organisations as “The abattoirs of the human soul”.

Fancy Someone Else’s Idea Of Your Perfect Work and Life Balance?

Whilst world renowned authors and speakers like Nigel are not particularly recommending any specific type of alternate lifestyle – such as starting a digital business, Its refreshing to hear them so brilliantly argue that we absolutely should be taking control of our work and life balance. I would argue that starting a digital business is the ideal way to do so given the times we are living in.

I could happily quote from Nigel’s speech all day long but that would be naff. I can’t let this one go though. When talking about some of the “blue sky” solutions that corporations introduce to make working better: Flexi time, crèches, and dress down Fridays, he said:

“Thousands and thousands of people are leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation. Working long hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like. Going to work on a Friday in jeans and a tee shirt doesn’t really get at the nub of the issue”.

This actually defines one of the biggest target markets for the “work from home” or “make money online” industries. It’s just a shame that desperation often makes people make the wrong choices. Unfortunately this is particularly true of the online home business industry.

Achieving Better Work and Life Balance in The Digital Economy

People who are desperate to find a better  work and life balance are all too often tempted by the “magic button” solutions that Googling “make money online”, brings up. This is why genuine, sustainable online companies like SFM don’t go fishing in that particular murky pond.

I spent some time yesterday researching some of the ways people who are taking control of their own work and life balance and quality of life in general. I found loads of blogs, websites and forums on the subject and an extremely common thread in most of what I found is that leveraging the Internet has allowed many of them to achieve this goal. Not through joining some sort of programme and sitting on the beach all day, but by learning and applying some relevant skills.

As Nigel says, governments and corporations won’t do this for you anytime soon. They are designed to get as much from you as they can get away with and the option of turning up in jeans one day a week is frankly a cynical and insulting concession to this.

To learn what the Six Figure mentors offer as a way of achieving a better work and life balance sign up on the link below and get their complimentary video series delivered to your inbox.