Summer with children at home and warm long evenings is a good time to reassess the meaning of all you do. Anyone can have a meaningful career as well as a meaningful personal life. But first, you must assess where you are now, and then begin to get some ideas about where you want to go. Think about the kind of relationship you would like with them. Think about what kind of lives you would like them to have.
Stress is almost always due to being out of balance.
Stress is so endemic to our current work environment that formerly dangerous levels of chronic stress are now considered more or less normal. Many people begin to see their children in terms of sitters, car pools, lessons, always being late, and never feeling they are doing a good job. Unless you stop and really think through these issues, and do some concerted work to figure out how to structure what you want to do, you will still be jumping through hoops with your company and your family. Properly structuring the business, grooming top managers to take over, clearly communicating expectations and setting up a payout plan for your retirement are all elements of succession planning. Designate a key person to coordinate team efforts and make sure it's someone you trust implicitly.