Ewan's Corner

Recently Derivco hosted the first GIBS Leadership Forum event in Durban. Keynote speaker was Brand Pretorius, chairman and chief executive of McCarthy Motor Holdings.

At the end of his speech one of the things he was asked was how he managed a work/life balance and his answer has been rattling around in my head for days. He said that if he could do it all over again he would spend more time with the ones he loved, and that by the grace of God his wife and sons still loved him.

I seem to daily face the tug-of-war between my desire to provide financially for my family (now and in the future) and my desire to spend precious family time with them – the two usually being mutually exclusive. I love my family dearly, and don’t want to miss out on time with my wonderful wife and amazing little boys as they grow up – I am privileged to come from a wonderful family with parents who sacrificed a lot to spend quality time with my brothers and I (my parents are about to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary – rare indeed) and I believe it made a huge positive difference to all of us.

On the other hand I want my family to be financially secure and happy, now and in the future – and I need to work hard to achieve this. I know money can’t buy happiness, but ever since my little boys were born (and we made the decision for my wife to be a stay-at-home-mom if possible) I feel an even greater need to achieve at work – to provide. Money freaks me out sometimes. If you add the fact that I love what I do and where I work, and I always have far more ideas and plans than I ever have time to implement or follow through, it becomes even more difficult to maintain a balance.

Happily I think I do a pretty good job maintaining a good balance (my wife will disagree at times :-) and I believe it benefits me, my family and my work. I force myself to remember that although there will always be someone at work who can and will put in more hours than I do, I can still do a great job focusing on working smarter and harder rather than simply working longer hours.

It helps every now and again to listen to someone I respect and look up to in a business / leadership sense like Brand Pretorius, who has been there and done that. It also helps to talk to others in the same boat – I am definitely not alone.