I TEACH LEADERSHIP CLASSES at Amazon for our most senior executives. I also speak to interns. Across the spectrum I get the question about work-life balance all the time. I don’t even like the phrase “work-life balance.” I think it’s misleading. I like the phrase “work-life harmony.” I know if I am energized at work, happy at work, feeling like I’m adding value, part of a team, whatever energizes you, that makes me better at home. It makes me a better husband, a better father. Likewise, if I’m happy at home, it makes me a better employee, a better boss. There may be crunch periods when it’s about the number of hours in a week. But that’s not the real thing. Usually it’s about whether you have energy. Is your work depriving you of energy, or is your work generating energy for you?

Everybody knows people who fall into one of two camps. You’re in a meeting, and the person comes in the room. Some people come into the meeting and add energy to the meeting. Other people come into the meeting, and the whole meeting just deflates. Those people drain energy from the meeting. And you have to decide which of those kinds of people you are going to be. It’s the same thing at home.

It’s a flywheel, a circle, not a balance. That’s why that metaphor is so dangerous, because it implies there’s a strict trade-off. You could be out of work, have all the time in the world for your family, but be really depressed and demoralized about your work situation, and your family wouldn’t want to be anywhere near you. They would wish you would take a vacation from them. It’s not about the number of hours, not primarily. I suppose if you went crazy with one hundred hours a week or something, maybe there are limits, but I’ve never had a problem, and I suppose it’s because both sides of my life give me energy. That’s what I recommend to both interns and executives.