Marsh emphasized that a collaborative effort would be what it would take for veterinarians to reach balance and to help sustain the equine veterinary profession. | Photo Credit: American Association of Equine Practitioners

Nigel Marsh can’t stand the phrase “work-life balance.” Yet the celebrated TED talk alum is known for helping people worldwide understand how to move toward that often-elusive goal in their own careers and lives.

“It’s dangerously misleading,” he said of the phrase. “It’s ludicrously binary. It suggests there are only two parts of human existence … it suggests they’re in opposition; if you do more of one, you have to do less of the other. It implies that work is somehow a bad thing. It suggests we have to spend equal amounts of time on each. I violently disagree with all five of those notions.”

Marsh, who is based in Sydney, Australia, said he felt a bit hypocritical slugged as the keynote speaker on work-life-balance at the 2017 American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Convention, which was held Nov. 17-21 in San Antonio, Texas. After all, he said, his presentation was on a Saturday morning and on the other side of the world from his wife and kids