Five years ago, I was in a leadership training session with a woman who had over 25 years of HR experience, managing giants with over 5,000 employees across Vietnam and Europe. Looking at the mountain of work she faced daily, I couldn’t help but notice something strange: she had this uncanny sense of “chill.” An effortless ease that I, at that time, desperately lacked.
Curiosity got the best of me. During lunch, I asked her straight out: “How on earth do you balance this insane pressure with such a liberated, peaceful lifestyle?”
She answered instantly, like it was a reflex from being asked the same thing a thousand times: “To be honest with you, ‘work-life balance’ is a myth. It’s impossible.”
Her answer hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the total opposite of what I wanted to hear. But what struck me most was her state of mind—she looked completely comfortable, almost energized saying it.
She continued, “When a crisis hits, you have to be ready to pull an all-nighter to kill the problem at its root. When things are ‘normal,’ you work twice as hard to keep them that way so you don’t have to stay up late later. Even right now, once this training ends, I’ll be fighting through gridlock traffic just to get home, and I’ll definitely miss dinner with my family. Where’s the balance in that?”
I was speechless. But then she dropped the golden nugget: “It’s all about ACCEPTANCE. You have to understand the game and play it full-out. If you want balance, define it on your own terms. Make a plan, and chase that plan with everything you’ve got. I believe you’ll find your own version of ‘balance’ somewhere down the road.”
Today, after years of sharpening my mind and taming my ego, I’ve finally found that balance.
What about you? Has Ahaalife.com given you the right ingredients to design a life truly worth living?
