Sprinkler Age A Publication of the American Fire Sprinkler Association
This “Uncle Russ” is titled “Overcommitted, Stressed Out, Stretched Too Thin.” We hear it from our co-workers, suppliers, family members, the young and the old, just about everyone with whom we interact. It has been going on for a while. I read a Harvard Business Review essay over a decade ago that addressed these same issues. It is a simple reality that in today’s age of constant communication and economic pressure, everyone struggles to find balance between their work lives, community involvement, and home. In fact, some of us have given up on the idea of having balance at all.
There is no doubt that the tools we have today allow us to communicate easier and faster, but they have also taken a toll on our personal lives. Everyone wants instant access to anything or anyone at any time. As a result, finding balance in our lives is incredibly difficult. Why? Because we assume that we must make tradeoffs among the principle aspects of our lives, which include our work, home, family, friends, neighbors, and ourselves.
However, a more realistic and gratifying goal might be to simply work towards a better integration of our work and the other parts of our lives. Take a moment to consider that there are three things that might help us find balance in our lives.
These include being real, being whole, and being innovative. I am sure there are other things that can be done, but hopefully we can gain some insights by considering these three ideas.
Regarding being real, we in the fire protection world should feel lucky that we work in an industry that makes a difference. An example of integrating our work with our families and others is to talk with them about the positive impacts our work provides—the fact is, we DO save lives and property. Share with others stories of how the systems we have installed or maintained worked successfully. This can help our families and friends take pride in what we do and develop a better understanding of why we devote so much energy and time to our work. This also applies in our workplace. Do we give enough attention to what our business actually does, or do we focus only on the tasks at hand? As we think about and share with those with whom we work what we are actually accomplishing through our efforts, it allows our work associates, along with our families and friends, to share in the passion we have for the business of fire and life safety.
Being whole can be found in helping others. Do we take our work skills and talents and use them in the other parts of our lives? One way to do this is to create a list of all the skills we have developed and think about how each one can be used to achieve success in other areas of our lives. Another thing we can do is to reflect on something that makes us feel good, such as our achievements at work, and then consider another area of our lives where we would like to improve. Think about ways to use the skills we used to achieve the former to help us in the latter.
Finally, we need to be innovative with our approach to finding balance. One way to be more innovative is to seek input from others on what we might do. For example, gather together a group of friends, co-workers, or family and describe a problem you are facing. Ask for ideas for possible solutions and record what they tell you. Select what might be best and try to make it happen. Stay in touch with those gave you input regularly, and then after a month or so, review your progress with them. Honestly take stock and if your approach did not work, tweak it or if you need to, try another idea altogether.
I know—it sounds like a lot of work, but leading the life we want is a craft and requires work to develop. As we did with music, dance, or athletics, we get better by practicing. So, if we go to work on making our lives more balanced while at the same time, having some fun, we can change our lives, and rather than trying to just find balance, we can perhaps lead a life where all of its facets are made into one great whole. It is worth a try.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Russell B. Leavitt, CFPS, SET, is Executive Chairman & Board Member of Telgian Holdings, Inc. Russell Leavitt’s Telgian roots can be traced to the genesis of the company. In 1990, he co-founded Fire Design Group, which merged with Tomes, Van Rickley and Associates (TVA) in 1991. He subsequently served in numerous executive positions including TVA Fire and Life Safety President, Managing Member of Fire Materials Group, LLC, and CEO of Telgian. Today, Leavitt serves as the Executive Chairman for Telgian Holdings, Inc., as well as the Chairman of Telgian Fire Safety and Telgian Engineering & Consulting.
Leavitt is active in numerous trade and professional associations and holds several leadership positions. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors as Immediate Past Chair of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), he has served as the Chair of the NFPA 13 Technical Committee for Fire Sprinkler System Discharge Criteria and continues to serve as a Principal Member. He is also a Principal Member of the NFPA Technical Committee for Installation and a Principal Member of NFPA 3 and NFPA 4. Leavitt also represents NFPA 13 on the Technical Committee for NFPA 909 (Code for the Protection of Cultural Resource Properties) and 914 (Code for the Protection of Historic Structures).
Throughout his career, he has authored numerous articles and training guides, including the American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA) Beginning Inspector Training Program and the AFSA Online Hydraulics Training Program. In addition, he is a major contributor to several NFPA Handbooks and served as the subject matter expert for numerous NFPA live and online training programs.
Leavitt shares his more than 40 years of experience in the fire protection industry by conducting training presentations for many professional and industry organizations including the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), NFPA, and AFSA.
In 2013, he received the AFSA Henry S. Parmelee Award for dedication to the professional advancement of the fire sprinkler industry and improvement of fire safety through automatic sprinklers. He is also the recipient of the NFPA Standards Council Special Achievement Award in 2018 for his leadership of the task group which completely reorganized NFPA 13 for the 2019 edition.
Leavitt is a Level IV NICET certified technician and Certified Fire Protection Specialist who holds fire protection contracting licenses in multiple states. He is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.