Author Profile – Julie Cohen: 7 Keys to Worklife Balance
Q: Why did you decide to write this book?
A: After about seven years as a career coach, I wanted my work to impact more people. I stepped back and evaluated what issue did I see as concerning most of my clients. On reflection, I noticed that regardless of what my clients hired me for (support with career management, leadership development, professional effectiveness, career transition) just about every client also had concerns with their work-life balance. Most were not satisfied with the mix of their work and life priorities. I wanted to give people tools to make real and lasting change and help them create a more satisfying work-life balance.
Q: Do you have any secret writing tips you’d like to share?
A: My strategy for finishing the book was to break my writing down into fairly small chunks of time, and actually schedule them in my calendar. I was surprised how much I could get done if I really focused on writing and writing alone for 30-60 minutes. If I scheduled too much time (for me, anything over 90 minutes) I would get distracted by other responsibilities and diluted my writing intensity.
Q: Tell us a quirky or funny story about you!
A: When learning how to ride (more like start) a moped, I ended up crashing it into a Mercedes. I forgot to use the hand-break and ran the moped into the car leaving a deep scratch going the entire length of the vehicle. This happened on an island in Greece while the owner of the car was watching. Fortunately, he was also the town auto-body repairman. I’ve never attempted to ride a two wheel motorized vehicle again.
Q: Have you ever battled writer’s block? How do you deal with it?
A: Fortunately, I did not have writers block during the writing of this book. The content of the book came from years of work with clients who have struggled with their work-life balance. When it came time to write the book, I had a very detailed outline that came from workshops and teleclasses I taught on the topic. I kept expanding the information so that readers could have a ‘do-it-yourself’ guide to enhancing their work-life balance.
Q: What’s your favorite quote?
A: “Always look in the direction you’re going.” My father said this to me when I was 16 years old and he was teaching me to drive a car. He meant it that I should turn my head around when I was going in reverse, and that I should always look at the road ahead of me when driving forward. Over the years, it’s come to mean to me that I should be clear on my goals if I want to accomplish them. And, also not to focus on what went wrong or what I haven’t accomplished as that only slows you down or derails progress.
