Leading With Emotional Courage

CHAPTER 11DON'T LOSE YOURSELF IN PURSUIT OF BECOMING YOURSELF: TAKE YOUR LIFE BACK

The waiter was halfway through taking my family's order when his manager called him away.

“Where did the waiter go?” Sophia, our then-seven-year-old, asked.

My son Daniel, five years old at the time, looked at me and then answered, “I think he had to take a conference call.”

Even before hearing Daniel's analysis of the waiter's momentary inattention, I knew I had a problem: I work all the time.

I moved from an outside office to a home office because I wanted to spend more time with my family. But now I'm always in my home office. I briefly emerge for moments like dinner and telling bedtime stories, but quickly return “just to finish up a couple of things.” I love my work, but it's out of hand.

I desperately need to relax, read fiction, and hang out with people I enjoy. Real confidence comes, in part, from being a balanced human being. But the undertow draws me back to my ocean of tasks, with promises of crossing things off lists and falsely bolstering my self-worth, my self-confidence, with proof of productivity.

Unfortunately our psychological weaknesses are fed by our unmitigated access to the work stream. It's an old story now: We thought our technologies – laptops, smartphones, e-mail – would free us from being stuck to the office but it's backfired: The office is now stuck to us.

We have lost our boundaries. Space used to be a natural demarcation: When you left your office you left your ...