Do you think you can separate your personal life persona from your work life persona? You may try to do so, but in reality you are who you are everywhere you go!
Consider your values. Can you really have two sets? If you are responsible in one area of your life, if you have a formal relationship with time, chances are, you have the same behavior everywhere.
Think of these two areas of your life as you would looking through Alice’s “looking glass”. As you stand on one side you will see great clues to how you behave. A client once shared that he always seemed to get into the wrong business relationship. Things looked exciting at first and then realities changed his experience. He was miserable. He happened to be single, so I asked him how his personal relationships developed. Here is his description: “An attractive woman comes up to me in a bar and I am flattered that she is interested in me. Before I know it, we are living together. After about 6 months I realize that I am totally in the wrong place and then it takes me another year to extricate myself from the relationship.” At that point, his expression changed and he slapped his forehead and said “OMG! That’s exactly what I do in business.”
If you are curious about what happened next, we established criteria for getting into both business and personal relationships. That simple discovery changed his life….and his business experiences.
Life and business move in parallel with each other. It is therefore important to align your business values with your personal values to establish a good fit. If you are an employee and your values don’t match that of the business you work for, chances are you will be unhappy and unmotivated. You are you are everywhere you go.