Over the last week I have been putting thought to what exactly a good "work-life balance" is.  The internet is full of peoples opinions and definitions but I think the crux of the issue is why.  Why strive to make changes to achieve a balance? What is the ultimate goal of this, and any wellness initiative really?  Is it to have better control over your time, to be able to focus more thoroughly on each task in work or life, to be more confident in your ability to achieve your goals in work and in life? Yes, yes, yes but is this the goal if we dig down.

To create the mindset and mind-body to achieve all these things and more there is one true goal and reason for seeking a work-life balance, for choosing to stay well, happiness and enjoyment.

Enjoying each stretch of the voyage is fundamental to being able to achieve and those two things, achievement and enjoyment, are the real goals for working towards a work-life balance. The rewards are many and varied when you begin to live your living instead of working for it.

I am very excited to have the opportunity to work with groups and organizations to give them tools to personally define and achieve this balance using 5 basic categories for action:

1. Set and visualize goals

2. Address and manage your pains

3. Breathe

4. Digest good food, don't just eat

5. Make dis-tress and eu-stress balance a fundamental part of your day

Paint a picture of your ship and what you think you need on it to enjoy a smooth sailing voyage and make time to learn and explore new ways to take personal control over your health, wellness and work-life balance, Choose to Say Well! 

I have been asked of late to speak at a few wellness/education events, in particular on the subject of 'work-life balance', a topic I hold dear but a term I am trying to more functionally redefine.

Interestingly enough, I sat down last week with a member of my business team and discussed the idea of keeping a corporate Choose to Stay Well blog and a separate personal, Scott Tate blog and in the same 24 hours met with a client who encouraged me to bridge the gap and give people access to the 'whole story' in an almost autobiographical sense.  What is this balance then between personal and professional?

First, it is problematic that we seek a work-life balance and even a mind-body balance, they are both integral and essentially one and the same.  That said, there is no doubt that a balance must be struck in life and that our evaluation and definition of work and life, like mind and body, needs to be restructured and made actionable.

Second, our culture to date has not created a strong backbone to value our human health as essential and fundamental to our societal and cultural success and happiness.  That said it comes to each of us to individually reconnect with this mind:body as one entity and experiment with ways to turn it on.

Life is work.  Life is stress.  The choices we make however with the way we choose to use this mind:body by thinking, eating, drinking, moving and exposing it to different environments is how we can find a more functional balance.

Choosing to stay well is truly choosing to step back, find a trustworthy team and find an internal balance first to right your ship then take a good honest look at the course you are on and find ways to avoid the troubled waters and enjoy the voyage on a smooth sailing vessel with you confidently at the helm.

There is no professional without personal so take pride in you. There is no work-life balance without a balanced mind:body.

Choose to take control.  Choose to stay well. 

In the networking culture there is a key component to 'success', the elevator pitch.

The theory goes that you have 7 seconds of someone's undivided attention followed another 23ish seconds of moderate attention before the next ding of their floor to get in some key words about how you can help them or people they know win with your help.  I use that word, win, because I think that is what it all comes down to and in the final analysis that means living.

This is where I go astray in my elevator pitch.  I believe that our culture has lost touch with it's human body, lost faith in ourselves as healers for it and we have put less value into it as something to help us win.

I ensure people win the big game by helping them build and maintain personal healthstyles designed to optimize their workstyles and create the potential to actually thrive and live the lifestyle they dream of.

This takes discipline, commitment and an appreciation for what a healthy body will do for your mind, your work and your performance overall.

I want to use important words like Sex, Food, Shelter and Clothing as the keys to survival and discuss how to use these tools to promote health and wellness.

I want to say that you might not need to have that monster breakfast you fear you need to eat at 8 am to be healthy and lose weight.

I want to say that our science has been and will be proven wrong or bettered again and again so build a team and adapt it for you.

I want to say that a good corporate wellness program will yield a 5-800% return on investment and they only care about dollars and cents... what can your program provide?

I want to ask people what their health is worth. I want to ask them how they are investing in it to ensure they can keep investing in their personal pension plans because if you're not fit to work in North America, there is no substantial hand-out waiting for you.

I want to guide people away from these types of negative thoughts however and build in them a confidence, in their practices and health teams too to ensure that they are only focused on their dreams, not the hiccups on the way.

As I look for common threads and easy teachables in the health and wellness literature I come back to this point.  Ensure that all of your community, internally and externally, is on board so you can create a complete sub-culture designed to promote your health.  AND JUST DO IT.

There is a growing number of people living to help you become healthier and perform better for two reasons I think.  One, because we are concerned for our neighbour's health and how that affects our national economy and health care system and two, because we are committed to finding an ideal health ourselves and the best way to learn is to teach.

 Help me help you.

Just Choose Well. 

            I was recently in a movie theater and would like to replay a moment in time foryou to put the title of this article into context for you.

Imagine yourself watching thetypical commercials that run before a film in the theatre.  A car commercial selling you the lifeyou would live if you had the car that fit you perfectly. An ad for the tastypopcorn you should remember to come early to buy next time and then a Coca-Colaad.

As the black and white scene ofpanic unfolds for the hero of the ad while he searches for the answer to hiscraving a man starts vocally sighing in exasperation somewhere behind you.

Then, as everyone, yourselfincluded, begins to see the crux of the campaign, that this hero is clearlyaddicted to Coca-Cola, seeing it in every shadow and shape around him, thesighs turn into vocal signs of dismay: 

“Are you kidding me?”

“This is terrible!”

“This guy might as well be seeingsyringes!” 

I was that guy.  I turned to my friends to utter mydismay over this twisted ad at the peak of the hero’s addictive fit.  Sweat dripping from his brow, almostrunning into cars and pedestrians he finally finds a store with a shining,full-colour coke bottle in the cooler. He has his hit and sighs with relief.

            Myfriends nod that it was an effective ad but do not see what I see.  We are subconsciously accepting that weare addicted to our food just like drugs. We can identify this craving, with this situation.

Addiction has become a rallyingcry, a uniting factor that we can all identify with.  Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

Although it is not goodbye, it is a bit of a "see you when I see you".

 I am going to be leaving Guelph as my full-time home base in May of 2010 to be with my person as she embarks on her journey towards becoming a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine.  As such it is my Mission to leave my mark on the Guelph Community before I depart.

As such here is my proposal, my mission, my manifesto, my experiment:

With a written commitment from you to me and me to you I want to take a maximum of 6 of you to a place of incredible change and empowerment.

I want to be a (minimum) twice per week presence in your culture to provide guidance and help you take control of your health and accelerate you on your journey to your goals.

For this group that is ready to invest in their health I will provide my services on a strictly by donation basis as you assess the value of our interactions.

Finally for this group we will track your changes via as many metrics as we can produce based on your assessments and seek to produce the 500% ROI that most corporate wellness programs can produce.

Whether you are a small business owner, a stay at home parent or a member of someone else's workforce, at the end of the day it is your health that will impact your success and advancement.

 Help me help you and for the next 6 months help me leave a lasting impact on the health, wellness and vitality of Guelph so that when I make my return visits I know I have left the community in healthier hands!

 In the health I dream of for us all,

Scott Tate 

Dear fellow concerned individuals,

I am writing this to give you an increasingly realistic picture of myself, my goals and dreams and how I feel the present and on-going Codex push can help us all achieve our goals.

It is my mission to make a cultural shift in our understanding of and focus on health and wellness as a core cultural component, over war, over politics to create a cultural pride in longevity, vitality and the human ability to perform and overcome.

Our collective definition of primary care has to include meal and movement planning with amble application of functional exercises and functional foods (to combat stress and strain and promote health).  Our culture has to include access to good, clean, organic foods, spices, herbs and all the bounty mother nature naturally provides.

We need to take back control and ensure that our pervasive lack of education does not lead us to cede more of ourselves, mother nature and our human potential to a selfish greed and fear machine.

We are loosing this war of gradualism, aided by a (potentially) unwitting media.  They flock to the next big story and fear-factor event and when a story about a European Court Ruling from 2005 that  "Strictly prohibit(s) information about disease being treatable by nutrients and (includes a) call for future supplement dosage restrictions" happens with no major uproar, those in control know they can push the envelope a little further.  Bills like C-51, 52 and recently C-6 in Canada are evidence of such potent gradualism.

What is needed is a top-down and bottom-up media message to make this gradual affront to our health and wellness big news again.  Climate change and global warming has been sold to us as the focal point for our efforts to change as a global community but I put it to you that our efforts towards securing our healthful food goes beyond any control we might have over the weather. We need to rally our efforts and forces and look at the way our culture is valuing and choosing food, or how it is being valued and chosen for us.

I have a growing number of people interested in supporting our efforts to educate and disseminate information and I am excited to take the next step with you.

In health and happiness,

Scott Tate