Be the change you want to see in yourself

I am the current president of BMW Women's Inter-Active Network (WIN). We hold meetings 6 times a year and were fortunate to have our first guest speaker to kick off our third year.

BMW WIN had Kathy Caprino deliver a work life balance workshop on January 17th. I held a follow up meeting on January 28th. I went over the presentation and asked everyone to determine what work life balance means to them for our next meeting on February 28th where we will begin to create goals to create our vision.

What I hear is, management needs to .......

What I am teaching is that we create what we live. That we,the people who make up the corporation, have the power to design our work environment. And I am using my small team as the PROOF that it can be done. I am spear heading tele working, flex time. And I am trying so hard to LIVE the change I want to see, yesterday I left work at 2 PM. My team needs to see that, I need to do it. And when someone on my team said he is out of the office on Friday and Monday, I said good, you need that and please don't go online.

Why's am I sharing this? Because I just read this from Jan's book, see below, and it underscores for me that this message, this teaching, this living example I am trying to get across ~ EACH ONE OF US MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY! Don't sit around waiting for your manager to give you the ok. Poke your manager with the ideas, with your vision and keep poking, gently, until he or she wakes up, becomes courageous enough to support you. It can be done.

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from Jan Phillip's book, No Ordinary Time;
My chiropractor's office was filled with worker's comp cases today."I don't understand why they are doing this to themselves", he confided to me. "they are over working, over stressing, taxing themselves beyond reason. It's like they are on some treadmill and don't know how to get off. They are waiting for someone to tell them to 'slow down', but corporate America is never going to say that to their workers. We have to start saying it to ourselves".
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Waiting for someone else is like holding our breath! Our life belongs to us. It is our responsibility to create the life we want. Finding out what we want is the hardest part. Kathy Caprino's book Breakdown, Breakthrough and her free career assessment are good starting points to find out what you want.
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