Wenying (Wendy) Hu writes: "TL has made a significant impact in my life. I no longer treat work, life and family as separate and conflicting circles. They're overlapped and can positively affect each other.  As a result of one TL experiment, my productivity improved both at school and work. I advocated for a flexible working schedule and location based on business needs, using technology better. Because the time saved from peak-time driving, I was able to talk to more customers in the East Coast in the early morning at home. The result is $20K~ increased revenue and $10K~ in new license sales. With my flexible schedule, I was also able to help family when needed so that I could focus more on work; I became more efficient." 

Chris Martin writes that as part of his TL experiment on a new series of lunch meetings at work at Yahoo!, he was led to the realization that "we were inappropriately charging a partner far too little in reimbursable operational expenses. The discovery led to some investigation. After my assumptions were confirmed, the results ended up with over $1.5 million in non-reimbursed expenses for the two previous quarters. This 'found' cash will drop directly to Yahoo!'s bottom line. While it's possible that this issue would have been found (much) later on, I am certain the timing of the discovery was directly related to my TL experiment." 

Ronnie Allan writes: "I had an experiment to make sure I ate dinner with friends and family, rather than at work.  I started eating dinner with my best friend Arianne, which led to us getting together. And now almost one year later we're engaged.  I'm not going to say that my TL experiment made it all happen but it definitely played a key role as a catalyst."

Jay Bhatti writes: "I remember a session where Prof. Friedman asked us to chart what is most important to us and then to chart how much time we spend actually doing it.  In 2006, I realized what would make me most happy was something I was not doing, which was building something of my own. I quit my high profile job at Microsoft, moved to Silicon Valley, and lived in my friend's pool house for 3 months while trying to raise capital.  A year later we had over $10 million in funding and 35 employees. Many of the principles of Prof. Friedman's classes were applied daily by me while managing 35 high-caliber employees.  Even during the downturn in 2008, when I had to lay off employees and enact pay cuts, the way we handled it prompted one of our employees to come into my office and say 'I'm proud to work here. You handled a very tough decision honestly and openly with everyone.  A lot of the guys are happy to know they have a boss who is willing to take a brunt of the cuts on personally so that his employees don't lose as much.' In 2009, I sold my start-up and now am excited to do it all over again. Without the skills I learned in TL, I don't think I could have gotten my first company off the ground."

Neeti Nundy writes:"I have found myself successfully enjoying all four domains in my life.  I find my career both challenging and rewarding. I was recently featured in Forbes about my career in global health after working on Wall Street and it gave me the opportunity to reflect on how much has changed since those days on the trading floor.  In the community domain, I volunteer on Monday nights at Seattle Children's Hospital, visiting patients' rooms and offering them a break from the trauma a hospital environment brings.  In the personal domain, I have been learning Hindi and taking yoga lessons and find it really allows me to slow down my life for a few hours.  And in the family and friend domains, I have been actively improving my relationship with my parents and have started to make some really close friends here in Seattle. I have found the framework you provided in the TL class to influence how I think about my life and how I structure it so that I can find happiness."

Fusun Sevgen writes: "TL principles have helped me very much in maintaining balance in my life so that my time with my six-year old daughter remains active and fulfilling. We go swimming, biking, and gymming (I found a gym that has a jungle gym for kids, while parents workout) together, and we have completed many charity walks. We have developed a network of friends, single mothers or young women with kids in my community to share some of these activities. 

"TL principles help even more on the work front. I have been doing a global role for a few years that requires travel and ability to interact with other time zones. I have been able to build flexibility and use of technology into my daily and weekly schedule to juggle these demands. Sometimes that means doing 6 AM teleconferences at home before getting my daughter ready for school; sometimes it means being able to take 3 weeks to visit family in Turkey and relying on my Blackberry to avoid 'the world falling apart'; and sometimes it's dragging a colleague to the on-site gym to get our daily fitness in while we talk business  J The team around me definitely has a culture that it's not about being in the office 9-to-5, it's about doing what we need to do to get the job done."

Want a free signed copy of Total Leadership, the book?  We're giving away five to our community on Facebook.  Here's how to enter the contest: 

Join/Like our Facebook page and comment there with a best practice tip for how to improve performance at work, at home, in the community, and for yourself (mind, body, spirit).  We will choose five winners at random and notify them by Facebook mail. 

We support the work that NAMI (The National Alliance on Mental Illness)  does to help improve the lives of people who suffer from mental illness and their families.