How To Care For Our People With Our Work

What Your Job Is Doing to Your Life, Your Business?

Caring For Our Main People – Part 3

This is like opening the door to our closet or allowing someone outside of family to look in the trunk of our car. Saying what we do versus what we wish we were doing when it comes to our work would be a lot easier. In this web-post we’re discussing our work and how we use it to care for our people, our closest people that is. 

Regarding our work, I’ll first share what we do to care for our family then some things I wish we were doing and our plans to get there. While it is more comfortable for me to share with you what I wish we were doing to care for my people rather than what we are doing. Sharing where we are in the process of improving our people care will be more helpful. So in order to get to the place that we wish we were requires a plan of action. What’s the point of the work we do if it’s not to better our main people?

The Thought or Concept:
How do we shape how we work with these people in mind? At the end of your life the last thing on your mind will be your job. So let it be the last thing on your mind each day. Put it in its proper place. Most of us (that means it’s normal) have it misplaced because it’s common. It’s easy to follow the crowd when it comes to over valuing a job or your responsibilities outside your home. 

First I’d like to make one distinction here that normal people don’t make. There is a difference between our work and our job. Normal people when they hear the word work think job. Your work is your life’s contribution to the world around you. Your work should include your job, but at the end of the day it should all help you care for your people. Having a proper understanding of this will help to ensure you don’t misplace where your job fits into your priorities.

Our Work Is For Our Family
Here’s something I learned several years ago, actually over a decade ago, as it pertains to how we use our work to care for our people.

“You work so that you can take care of your family.” – Sharon Buczek

In other words, the purpose for your job must not be confused with any other meaning. Your job is so that you can care for your family, not the other way around. There’s no other reason for your toiling.

“There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.”
[He had money and no family to share his life.]“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
“and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—a miserable business!”
– King Solomon

Why are you working in the first place? Are you working for a job or are you working for your family?

The Right Work
You might not know this, but we have work that comes from God. There’s something you do that you’re gifted at or drawn to that no else in your family is drawn to in the same way. Work represents what we’re here on earth to do and not a job we have while we’re here. This work keeps us planted. It eliminates distractions that normally aids in destroying families. When you have work to do from God, there’s little time for affairs, drinking excessively, doing drugs, or other non-productive activities. There’s no ideal time. When you have work, you have passion for life and completing the one thing you’re here for. Finding what you’re here to do is the best way to care for your main people.

The Practice:

What we’re doing…

• We no longer give our companies more time than we have to.
  This means we have to be good at what we do and accomplish our tasks within the allotted time. Your tasks have a way of filling the time you allot for it. If you have a project that can be done in two hours and you give it two days, then instead of it taking two hours it will fill two days. We’re constantly working on how we can be more efficient with our time. This means we evaluate our tools and we’ve become better at budgeting our time.
• We don’t treat work as more of a priority than we do our family.
  Work helps us to care for our family. Therefore the jobs we have, we have because we have the goal of caring for our family. We’ve decided not to allow a job to get in the way of our biggest priority and that’s our family. 
• I take “my people” calls no matter what.
  Tell the folks you work with excuse me or I’m talking to my wife or my daughter, I’ll be with you in a moment. Set the boundaries that make your main people the priority; it’s okay to do that you know.
• When your work doesn’t align with your plans, get the work that does.
  This is your life and we’re not going to allow a job to define ours. The job or work must get in alignment with the life we’re trying to build. Side-note: we know of so many who allowed their job to move them all around the country at the expense of their family. Moms have forsaken their children. Couples have ended their best relationships. Dads have missed out on the moments in life that you could never place a price tag on.
  
  

We’ve put ourselves in positions, until we create our own, where we have the freedom to come and go as needed. We’ve established ourselves in positions that value us and our contributions. All it requires is a plan. What is it we’re doing? We’re setting the priorities in our life, our home, our business and not allowing anything else to set priorities for us. 

What we wish we could do…
One of our dreams, and as a result a goal, is to spend more of our time in recreation than on our job. 

• We plan on working, but it’s not for a job but rather our own work.
  I believe that we shouldn’t work 5 days a week on a job and off 2 days, but rather work on a job 3 days and off 4. Why not? This is your life and it’s your business. How will you run yours?
• We wish we could both work from home full-time and never again have to be confined to someone else’s office, so that our family can have an example of entrepreneurship and how to take control of the one thing that’s theirs, their life, their business. 
• We wish we could provide jobs for others (oops, we sort of do already) and give them a better workplace than any they’ve ever had. 
• We wish we could establish companies that give us the ability to have a place for family members to work and leave for our children to run. I think you get the point. 

None of what I’ve mentioned above will be possible until we develop a plan to get us there and work that plan everyday. 

Our plans to get there…
Talk is cheap. It’s time you put pen to paper just like we do. So how will we get there?

• First, we will align our jobs with our family’s mission.
  You do have a mission don’t you? You must know what you’re meant to do and get busy doing it. We have a three part mission as you know that we call our three m’s and we’re busy giving life to them. What is it you need to give life to?
• Second, we must shape our work based upon our ideal image of work.
  Remember your work isn’t your job. The job is a component of your work. How can you leverage what you do on your job to add value to the work of your life, your business? Everything Pamela and I do as employees positions us for our life’s mission.  
• Lastly, never place your job or your work above your family.
  No person’s calls should be more important than your wife’s, your son’s, your daughter’s, your parent’s, your sibling’s, etc. Let the world know your priorities and back these priorities by making yourself an exceptional employee worthy of respect. And don’t be afraid to take time off from work, you’re doing this for your family and they should get the benefit of your benefits, time off. 

How you work will directly impact how you are able to care for your people. Is your job getting in the way of that? Your first thought is there’s nothing you can do about it, but there’s always something you can do about any situation in your life.

Today is Friday!
It’s time your business that’s your life got serious about its main priority and that’s your family. Let’s stop making the excuse of letting the job take us from our family as if we’re doing it for our family. You want your work to do something for your family then make them your priority and tell the job to get inline. Your actions tell your family and your job whose priority. I hope you use this message to make sure you have the right alignment.

Question: What idea in this post left an impression on you?  Let me hear from you in the comments below.

Thanks for visiting kerryaclark.com. Until next Friday, share this message with those you know have work and family out of alignment.

The Family Plan Binder is available now!

Our team has worked very hard putting it together. We designed it to help you and your family move the needle forward in making your life your business. Find out more about the Family plan here.