Work/Life Flywheel

Experienced founder and CEO, Ollie Henderson, pivoted his career while raising a young family. He believes work/life balance is a myth. Rather than seeing career and personal life as two opposing forces, Ollie argues that the secret is to design an integrated approach that allows them to work in harmony. Author location: London, UK

• Table of ContentsEach chapter will include two short case studies, and end with practical exercises and a further reading list.ContentsForewordPrefaceAfter his career pivot collided with a global pandemic, Ollie Henderson spent 18 months on a mission to redesign his work/life.The insights he gained, including speaking to entrepreneurs, business leaders, and world-renowned experts on his successful careers podcast, led to him rejecting the idea of work/life balance.The result is a new approach that builds on the lessons of legendary companies to give readers the tools to navigate their own career transitions effectively.PART 1: The power of the flywheelForget work/life balance. You need a flywheel Rapid changes in the workplace mean many more now understand they need to adapt and evolve to stay ahead within companies or by ‘going it alone’.Increased digital connectivity has opened up new opportunities but can cause overwhelm as we struggle to focus on the important things.We need to align career and personal life, so they work in harmony.The Work/Life Flywheel provides the tools to create an ever-evolving process that works to your rhythms, helps you identify your intrinsic motivations, and is compassionate towards the non-linearity of your life.2. How Amazon became an unstoppable forceIntroducing Jim Collins’s flywheel framework.How businesses of different types have benefitted from the ‘flywheel effect’, whether inadvertently or by design.The importance of constantly experimenting and evolving.3. Why the flywheel will work for youInterconnected components of the flywheel feed into each other, creating complementary benefits and building momentum.Establishing the right mindset creates the right conditions for creativity and problem-solving. Building the right connections allows you to generate the feedback you need to learn, which leads to breakthroughs. The breakthroughs help validate or improve your thinking, which feeds into a positive mindset of progress and purpose.PART 2: Building your flywheel4. Mindset: Are you ready for this?Understanding what drives you and what’s motivating your desire for more autonomy.How creating more Flow in your life will increase a feeling of purpose, improve productivity and drive performance. Why establishing a positive and proactive approach to your physical, mental and financial health is critical to your career development.The role of curiosity and opening your mind to new experiences.5. Creativity: The robots are comingThe world of work is changing – you’d better get creative if you want a long, successful career. Creativity is not just art or playing music, but applies to how we design companies, create cures to disease and solve disputes.Explore where creativity contributes to flow, particularly the skills/challenge balance and working at our edge.Growth of creator and passion economy, including the 1000 True Fans and 100 True Fans models, and the power of ‘niching down’. Developing a new approach to how you manage your time that optimises for creativity.6. Experimentation: Testing, testingThinking about yourself as a scientist, testing out your ways of being creative – writing, creating videos, problem-solving, generating new business ideas – in different environments, and approaching different tasks. Get over your imposter syndrome, and don’t be afraid to fail - that’s part of the process.Too much thinking and not enough action results in no progress – use technology but most importantly, people to test out ideas and get feedback.Measure what matters – creating clear, ambitious goals is essential to validate your ideas.7. Connections: Network effectsIncreased connectivity means we don’t need to limit people we work with to those in our locale. So, how do you cultivate your global network?As we focus on our niche, how do you identify the people that can help us progress?Digitisation has led to more fractured lives, so giving is as important as receiving in building connections.Feedback through social platforms achieves quantitative scale in our testing; discussing it with someone provides qualitative feedback.Using content creation to nurture relationships. Networking for introverts and how to create teams of other like-minded, independent workers.8. Learning: Positive educationWe’re going to be living a lot longer, and you need to be prepared to keep learning and reskilling.Monetising your skills in entirely new ways is vital, as human creativity and attention become the most precious resource of the 21st century.Alternatives to formal education and taking responsibility for your own career development.Creating mastermind groups.Think about macro and micro-learning– what are the global trends that you need to be aware of; what areas of focus give you unique insights.9. Breakthroughs: Work less, achieve moreThe value of small wins to gain momentum in your flywheel.What to do when the process doesn’t go to plan and how to feed that learning into establishing the right mindset to ‘go again.’Countering burnout and the feeling that you’re on a treadmill, not a flywheel.Measuring progress and how it relates to purpose.Macro-breakthroughs vs micro breakthroughs – how to use each of them to build momentum.The importance of reflective moments to the evolution of your flywheel.PART 3: Propelling you forward10. Work-in-progressWe’ve been around the flywheel once, but this is just the start.How to iterate and evolve each stage of the process.Why a vital part of the process is adapting and sharing your experiences with your new community of co-collaborators. Trusting the process and how to get over self-doubt.AcknowledgementsIndex

Have been following Ollie’s podcast for a while now, so decided to give his new book a try and delighted I did. Many excellent tips which I’ve already started incorporating into my future career and personal goal plans.