Reward Yourself

by Russell Tibbits

It is now just past 3:30PM on Friday, June 13th. For the past few hours, I been in my office on the 16th floor overlooking the amazing intersection at 6th and Congress. On a typical Friday afternoon, traffic increases by the hour and the sounds of the approaching weekend fill the streets with life. However, today is not an ordinary Friday. Today, the Republic of Texas bike rally stops in Austin. The thunderous roar and rumble of Harley Davidson motorcycles cruising toward Congress Avenue drown out the standard Friday commuters. The shouts and yells from bike to bike make inaudible the usual foot traffic created by pedestrians.

What occurs to me as I write this blog is the idea of balancing our work with our personal life. At Spring Hill College, my colleagues and I performed several case studies on Harley Davidson. The one fact that I always found fascinating is the profile of the typical Harley Davidson customer entering the 21st century- lawyers, doctors, engineers, chief executive officers. These aren’t all rebellious kids or young adults as we so often picture. These are professionals with a large amount of tasks and projects. They receive emails and voicemails. They have supervisors and team members, filing systems and paper inboxes. They have spouses and children, pets to feed, bills to pay, and lawns to mow.

Yet every year, masses of motorcycle enthusiasts escape their day-to-day responsibilities. They arrive in Austin, exchanging, for a few days, their professional passions for their personal. Despite the professional responsibilities, they are able to make time for themselves, putting at the forefront the all too often forgotten responsibility of occasionally putting ourselves first.

When was the last time you put yourself first? Reward yourself for a job well done. Like me, you may be amazed at how easily you are then able to reengage in your professional responsibilities after you've had a chance to let your motor roar for a little while.