CCEOC Blog

Everything is Business

“Life is like business. It's 20 percent what happens to you, and 80 percent how you respond." – – Adam Rifkin

In my last entry of “From the Desktop of John Trakselis,” I focused on the idea that “Everything is Personal,” and I believe this to be true. In this edition, I want to put forward the flip side of this notion.

In my view, the idea that “Everything is Business” means you can and should conduct your life in a businesslike fashion. Most people, including our public servants in government, grow up in a business or professional environment that teaches us how to be businesslike. It’s unfortunate, but many adults don’t take what they learn from the workplace and apply it to their personal lives. If they did, what would that look like?

When I think of business and functioning in a businesslike manner, the following attributes come to mind:

It is my experience in working with CEOs and other executives that professional people and leaders establish goals they seek to achieve in business, and they derive satisfaction from achieving results. I think anyone can experience more satisfaction in life if he or she is goal oriented and can create an environment that fosters many of the descriptors listed above.

While goal setting is not the purpose of this blog entry, the idea of conducting yourself as if you were a business is highly essential. You don't have to possess the formal title of CEO to apply the concept that you are the CEO of your life. Whether you are an executive, a school teacher or a manual laborer, you are more likely to direct the circumstances and many of the outcomes in your life. When I reference directing your life, I am not suggesting you can control anything or anyone but yourself. Self-control involves choice. You can control your choices by your intention to achieve something or by behaving a certain way. For executives, goal setting is important but so is the development of guiding values and principles. Values and principles are the guard rails that keep us on the road to success.

The consumers and providers in your life are those with whom you interact. You are persuading (i.e. selling) others. You want others to buy what you are offering – ideas, principles, lifestyle, conversation, connection and more. Ideally, you want to be with others who offer you something that you can value. Maybe it is friendship, maybe it is a lasting or a temporary intimate relationship, maybe it is your role as a parent, a volunteer, and a church or synagogue participant, a citizen and so on.

I am struck by the pervasiveness of persuasion in all aspects of our interactions with other human beings. That may be one of the reasons why Daniel Pink wrote TO SELL IS HUMAN (a very good book).

Emotional intelligence proves this assertion. Over the last 20 years, the concept of emotional intelligence has received a good deal of attention as part of leadership training. The foundation of emotional intelligence is awareness of self and of other. With this in mind, we can begin to see the idea that everything is business may be about denial—denial of our very humanness.

I realize that you are not only a business. You are a human being. I maintain that your satisfaction as a human being will be enhanced if you approach life in a businesslike fashion. Pick any facet of your life and look at it as a work in process. What are your dreams regarding this area of your life? What goals do you want to achieve? What is the vision, the mission and the values you wish to express (i.e. market) to the world? How do you want “your brand” to be recognized, understood and interpreted?? How are you going to feel when you achieve your goal even though it may not have an immediate result but offers a way of being? The basic fact is that we have many roles we take on in our lives. What if you treated all of your roles in a businesslike fashion? Could you get more done? Would you be more satisfied? Some of our roles seem to be pure business and others appear purely personal. Notice I said appear because we know from my first blog entry that everything in life is indeed personal. The categorization as purely business or purely personal sets up an either/or proposition, and I want to encourage you to think about both/and.

Business overlaps the personal realm and vice versa. But it makes sense to consider each of your life roles as if it was a separate business and then find areas of development and growth so that you are more effective and get more done. After all, the marketing department does not operate in a vacuum nor is it separate from sales and operations. Each functional area has different roles and responsibilities but each needs to operate as part of a whole in order to achieve key business objectives. So it should be when it comes to you and your various roles in life. Each role makes up “Team You” which often looks like a business operation. Running all aspects of your personal life with intention makes you more effective and businesslike in all areas. Bottom line? Everything is personal. And everything is business. To be a whole, highly effective human, we need to integrate both schools of thought into our daily lives.

Copyright 2013 © John J. Trakselis, Chicago CEO Coaching

Suggested Readings:

• TO SELL IS HUMAN: THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT MOVING OTHERS, by Daniel H. Pink (Dec 31, 2012)

Join the Discussion

What’s on your mind? What’s keeping you up at night? What are the thoughts from your desktop? If you have topics you’d like John to cover in this blog, please email john.trakselis@vistage.com or call (708)443-5518.