When a male exec makes a bold, unabashed claim that he values marriage over every other measure of success in life, it gets talked about. Notwithstanding, the co-founder of Netflix making Tuesday date nights with his wife sacrosanct is something everyone could stand to learn from. Work-life disbalance can start way earlier for folks and not every sufferer of the malaise is a co-founder of anything nevermind Netflix. If left unattended, it grows worse over time. The idea is that it is up to the individual to draw the line in the sand, set boundaries that they will not have violated. For this man it was the 5pm cut-off on Tuesdays for date-night - each person can have their one thing that they fight for to keep balance and sanity. It is easy to see the power of one such inviolable thing that the person can hold on to even in the most difficult times.
It is a huge blessing if that thing can be part of making and keeping a strong marriage - but even if not there is a great value to such carve out, a hard stop and transition to personal time. I had a manager once who often reminded us to be kind to ourselves and our families by taking time for nurture. He often shared how he did what he was advocating for us to do. C was married to his high-school sweetheart for close to thirty years at the time and like the co-founder of Netflix considered the health of that marriage the most important thing in his life. He was only sharing with his team ideas that had served him well personally and professionally.
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