The Well-Balanced Life: Need help getting your life into shape?

The Leadership Challenge, by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. Now in its third edition, this guidebook details how ordinary people become great leaders.

On Becoming a Leader, by Warren Bennis. The management guru's classic text on how to make leadership a personal trait stresses the importance of learning from failure.

Stress and Burnout

Counselors help you find strategies to reduce stress (which sabotages peak performance and leads to health problems) and "let go" so you can cope with the rigors of running a company, as well as enjoy life outside the office.

Steven Berglas

Los Angeles 310-305-3257;
Dr.B@berglas.com

The clinical psychiatrist and professor (he teaches at USC-Marshall after logging 25 years at Harvard Med's psychiatry department) helps businesses ensure employees aren't on the burnout or white-collar-crime track and helps execs overcome self-defeating behavior and burnout.

Fees: Varies depending on nature and duration of work

Mark Gorkin
Stress Doc Enterprises

Washington, D.C. 202-232-8662; www.stressdoc.com

"Psychohumorist" Gorkin helps you tackle stress, anger, difficult people, and organizational change. Most of his clients are corporations, associations, and government agencies or nonprofits.

Fees: $1,500-3,500 for presentations and workshops

Professionals in Crisis Program
The Menninger Clinic

Houston 713-275-5000 or 800-351-9058;
www.menningerclinic.com/general.htm

An in-patient program for high-functioning professionals with severe depression; anxiety, addictive, personality, and other behavioral and psychiatric disorders; and anger, burnout, or career issues. Treatments are tailored to each patient's goals, background, diagnosis, and needs. Length of stay varies, and includes group sessions with other professionals and preparation for re-entering the career world.

Fees: $775/day

Susie Mantell
Relax...Intuit LLC

Chappaqua, N.Y. 888-NOW RELAX;
info@relaxintuit.com

Mantell's relaxation CD, Your Present: A Half-Hour of Peace, helps listeners conquer stress, sleeplessness, pain, depression, and exhaustion; Mantell herself helps clients work through health-related, work-related, chronic, and traumatic stress.

Fees: $120/hour for individual phone consultation

Resources

The companion website to University of Pennsylvania psychology guru Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness book includes tests to assess stress and happiness levels. www.authentichappiness.org

This site features tips and articles on time and stress management. www.mindtools.com

The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, by Martha Davis, Elizabeth Robbins Eshelman, and Matthew McKay. This book packs diagrams with advice on alleviating stress through meditation and breathing exercises.

The Truth About Burnout, by Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter. Two respected academics argue that organizations are at fault for employees' burnout levels.

Stephanie Clifford is a freelance writer based in New York City.

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The Well-Balanced Life

The Turnaround

How a life plan charted the course of one company and its owner. By Donna Fenn.

Not sure how to devise your own life plan?

Use this worksheet to help get you on your way to developing a life plan that benefits you personally and benefits your business.

Got Game?

When life makes you want to call a time-out, perhaps it's time to call in a coach. By Jess McCuan.

Need help getting your life into shape?

Resources to help you get your life into shape. By Stephanie Clifford

Paid Time Off

Avocations become side businesses for entrepreneurs mixing work and pleasure. By Stephanie Clifford.