The Modern Epidemic of Work-Life Balance #564

Work-life balance is a modern epidemic that affects many people's happiness and fulfillment. The blurry boundaries between personal and professional life can lead to dissatisfaction in various areas, such as health, relationships, and career. It is important to prioritize what truly matters and establish boundaries to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Mentioned On Today's Show:
🤝 Work-life balance is crucial for happiness and fulfillment.
🤝Establishing boundaries and prioritizing personal time is essential.
🤝Starting a business can provide more control over one's schedule and finances.
🤝Comfort and security can hinder personal growth and lead to dissatisfaction.
🤝Taking responsibility for one's life and continuously seeking growth is important.

With host Lachlan Stuart

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:51

Don't let work steal your life. This is a modern epidemic and something that I have thought about a lot. I've spent the last two weeks reading a ton of articles on work-life balance, on scheduling, on life fulfillment, satisfaction, happiness, and this is what I've come to the conclusion on. I believe it is an epidemic because so many of you are not happy with your position in life, and I'm not saying necessarily always as a whole, but you may have segments of your life your health, for example, or your relationships, or even your career where you're not living up to your expectation, because the balance between your personal life and the balance between your professional life are blurry. And Stephen Covey has a really awesome quote where it is, the key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule what you want to prioritize. And when you think about life like that, it's going to really probably separate the audience on this one. There's going to be those of you who are self-employed, who have more control over your schedule and where your time goes, and those who are employed who don't have as much flexibility and freedom with their schedule. Now, I am going to dive into it from both angles today, because I believe wholeheartedly that everyone should start a business in this environment if you truly want to take responsibility for your time, for your finances, for everything. You don't really want to leave anything up to anyone else. However, I do not believe that everyone is ready for that yet. There are steps that have to come before being ready for that, because I can imagine you may be sitting there going dude. I love my job. It's safe, it's secure. It's everything that I need, and if you're in that position, awesome.

Speaker 1: 2:56

I have spoken to too many people who have had that taken away from them and have found themselves in a really challenging position, and the lens that I like to look at life through is if that were to happen, how would I be able to respond? Would that put my life in absolute disarray or would I be able to build from that? And majority of people, it would throw their life into disarray, and so, while comfort is a great thing to experience, it is only going to harm you in the long run, and I do truly believe that it's why so many men are overweight right, they're puffy, fluffy and have low energy. Their libido is low. They're not happy and comfortable taking their shirt off at the beach. Their relationships suck because in the beginning, they put all the effort in, but they expected the effort in the beginning to carry them through the next 20, 30 years of their life and their relationship or their career. They worked hard to get to where they wanted to and now, on a daily basis, they're not continuing to grow and evolve and they're at risk of losing their job or the satisfaction and fulfillment has been taken away from it. So I want you to think about it like this Everything requires continued growth, and what I truly believe and what we're pushing at the man that Can project is how can we give you the power, the belief and the understanding to take responsibility for more areas of your life, not needing to rely on other people to get you to where you want to go to and that is different to delegation by outsourcing and having help to move towards a common goal, a common goal that you're in control of.

Speaker 1: 4:38

So think about it like this have you ever thought work is stealing my life? You're watching the years fly by and life has not changed. For you, it's the same thing, day in, day out. The years have been a mix of excitement clouded by stress and burnout. One of the most common reasons why men are joining the Men that Can project whether it's our academy or getting involved in our other programs is to establish work-life balance.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Work has taken over for most people. If you're not in the office, you're now expected to answer emails and work on projects at homes, thanks to our smartphones, these little things that, if you're watching on YouTube, they're so powerful and they're so awesome, but they do come with consequences, and if we aren't aware of that, they can completely ruin all the things that we want from our life. It's eating into your personal time. Think about this how much time did you spend with your family today? How much time did you spend with your family over the last week? What about the last month? Or when was your last vacation? Do you have time for yourself daily? Now? You're either nodding your head or you're shaking it. There's no in between or, if you don't know, you're probably not in control of your time at all anyway, and if you're not in control of your time, someone will control your time.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Most people are missing living their life because of their career, and I do want to establish that if you're in a career that you love, that is rewarding and that is fulfilling, awesome, but I want you to zoom out for a little bit and look at this from a big picture. When you're 10 years down the track, do you feel that you will have missed some special moments that you could only do now if you decided to prioritize different things and to establish boundaries, in which we're going to be talking about in a moment? Because if you're thinking about, I want to keep my job, I understand that we all do. We all need our career for, whether it's purpose, whether it's community, whether it's our paycheck, we all do need that. But there's more to it than that. We all do. We all need our career for, whether it's purpose, whether it's community, whether it's our paycheck, we all do need that. But there's more to it than that, and I want to help you understand how work-life balance can give you some tools and strategies that you can implement to live a little bit more. It doesn't need to be a lot more, but a little bit more would probably make the world of difference in your life, just like an extra $500 a month would make a difference in a lot of people's lives as well. It doesn't need to be significant, but the changes will seem significant.

Speaker 1: 7:29

The big problem has become the blurred lines between your personal and your professional life. Whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're the employee, you now carry work in your pocket. As I was saying, with the smartphones, the modern work culture has these blurred lines, and the upside to that is more of you will be able to work remotely. It's one of the things that I love about what I do is being able to work remotely. I think it's such an incredible thing, but it also comes with the downsides of it's very hard to separate from work. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see right now I am set up in my kitchen.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Okay, so in order for me to truly, I guess, establish a boundary here, I have to pack up all this work here and hide it, because if it's inside, I'm like, oh, maybe I can just do a few more emails, or maybe I can check how my podcast downloads are going, or maybe I can check if there's any more applications or courses sold, and so it's very hard to establish your boundaries. It's not impossible, but it is definitely challenging. So it has led and I guess this challenge of not being able to separate for a lot of people. It's led to people working a lot longer hours, the increased stress and that lack of feeling of work-life balance. Because when you think about it, what does work-life balance mean to you and maybe post it. If you're watching on YouTube in the comments, or if you're listening on podcasts, just do it in the review part there.

Speaker 1: 8:57

But I'd love to understand for you what work-life balance looks like, because what it means to me could be very different to you. I could say to you right now on this episode, that right now, my life feels balanced. But if you were to look at how I'm spending my time, you might go Lockie, that's not balanced. I don't know what you're on about. And because it's subjective and it's not something where you give eight hours to this, eight hours to that, eight hours to that, that makes the balance. It's what you gain from the things that you're doing. So it's the intention, the attention and the outcome of where you're spending your time.

Speaker 1: 9:38

The key to really moving towards a balance that you want, after you have gone through a little bit more self-awareness, really working out who you want to become, what you want from your life and where you want to position yourself, is, you can then start establishing those things that will allow you to do that. What are those priorities and what are the personal boundaries that you need to establish to make that happen, boundaries that could allow you to prioritize your personal time. They could allow you to prioritize your family time, your happiness or your health. It may seem selfish and actually it does seem selfish. My experience is still, and you may feel like you need to continue proving yourself, but there have been numerous studies that have shown the negative impacts of lacking work-life balance on your mental health and also your physical health. And keep in mind, work-life balance is different to everyone. I want to keep reiterating that, but what works for me will be different to you, and this is where, putting the I guess, the keys in your hand, you're in control. You have to be the one to be diving deeper.

Speaker 1: 10:45

I continue to talk about building our dream life and what that looks like, and, as of when this goes live, you'll probably have access to the self-discovery program, which is a three-hour program to help you get clear on who you are, what you want from your life and where you want to position yourself. We go through so many things like creating the vision, the goals in detail, objections, excuses, limiting beliefs so many things that are going to be fundamental to you creating that life, because, as I said, I would love to see everyone take more responsibility for their life, from their health to their relationships and I put a post out yesterday actually, you can probably go back to Instagram where I said one of the biggest fears that I have in my life right now is not being able to truly provide for my family, is not being able to truly provide for my family. I've accepted the responsibility to do that. I believe, as a man, getting in a relationship, choosing to start a family, means I am accepting the responsibilities and the consequences of that, and Amy and I are very clear on the kind of life we want to live, the experiences that we want to have, what we want to be able to afford and you can always put a dollar figure on that and as the man who's accepting responsibility for that, I then need to become the kind of person and build the business to absorb that.

Speaker 1: 12:13

When I posted that yesterday, a lot of people said look, there's more to a man than that. And look, there definitely is. I agree that I talk about that all the time, but if I'm not accepting and stepping up to my responsibilities. Am I failing or not? And I personally believe I'm failing because I believe that every decision I make there is consequences and I have to step up to them. I have to grow and I have to figure out how to do that. And look, you may be listening to this and completely disagree, and that's fine.

Speaker 1: 12:45

I have worked with too many men who are not in control of their finances, are not leading their family, are not happy within themselves and, quite frankly, I don't see any other solution apart from looking at the problems that we have and stepping up to become the man that we need to be in order to do that. Now, I'm not saying harden the fuck up, and there's merit to that. However, we can do that in a better way, where we can build support crews, we can express our challenges, we can do it in a healthy way, and this has gone off a little bit on a tangent, but I believe that's important. I think, tying it back into why I believe so many. I would love to see more people take control of their life, and entrepreneurship, or side hustle, is so much more readily available to us with AI and more people having more problems than ever before and you having so much potential to solve those problems, not only for yourself but for other people, is a great position to be in.

Speaker 1: 13:47

One thing we're doing and we're evolving into with our Strongman of Value Academy members now is I understand that a lot more men want to discover more about who they are so they can feel more confident, have life's purpose and really start to influence and lead in their life, and we're doing that. Another area that we haven't focused on for a long time but we're shifting into is how we can help men like you earn an extra $500,000 a month, and that's where we've now got an affiliate program, because think about a member of ours posted in the academy the other day because, unfortunately, another person within our not in our community, but within his community took their life, and his question was how do we stop this happening? And that's a complex question. As I'm thinking about that right now, I believe that if we can have more men feeling loved, more men feeling valued, more men feeling like they have purpose and have meaning in their life purpose and have meaning in their life they will be able to navigate the challenges potentially in a better way, without putting a full stop to their story and for our members. And to my response to this, I was like, dude, whether it's the Academy or the man that Can project that, you see as the pathway, but you've got so much value from it. But if you don't see that as a pathway to invite people in your life to continue growing and to continue leveling up, finding purpose, being a part of a really supportive community, find something that you can then pass on as a tool and continue elevating and influencing your network.

Speaker 1: 15:33

And now we are starting to financially reward people for that. Why? Because I know how much an extra $500 a month would change people's lives. You get your financial stress under control. You're able to then start solving other problems in your life, and I understand that and I'm like well, that's a win-win for people because they're going to be elevating their own community and influencing them to be better, to find their purpose, etc. And they're going to be rewarded for that. And I've built this whole business, from men's circles to retreats, to workshops, to online academies, always being what's the next problem I can solve for the people that I'm spending the most time around, and that's just the natural progression that we've gone from. And so, whether you're in the academy now or you decide that in the future it's something you want to be a part of, that will be available to, and you'll get to learn how to do that when you do that.

Speaker 1: 17:27

But coming back to this whole self-employed thing, that is a potential path for you. Affiliate marketing is a very real solution for you potentially, if you need that and you need the support, you need the growth, because you will grow into a different version of yourself. You will become so much more confident, you will have purpose, you will learn sales, you will learn marketing, you will feel rewarded because you are helping people change their life. But if you find yourself in that position, it's going to be extremely important for you to set boundaries and to prioritize your self-care so that you maintain a healthy work-life balance. You got to consider things like setting specific work hours, taking breaks throughout the day, making time for personal activities and your relationships right, really living to your values, and I want to give you an example. So we'll start with setting specific work hours.

Speaker 1: 18:19

So let's use John as a self-employed lawyer, he sets his work hours from nine till five, monday to Friday. He makes sure to communicate these hours to his clients and sticks to them as much as possible. Now, if you're a lawyer, you'll probably listen to this and go no, mate, that's no chance, because a lot of the lawyers that I work with always say that. But we've also helped some become more efficient with what I'll talk about shortly around AI and delegation and leverage. The second thing with that example is taking breaks throughout the day. So John takes a 15-minute break every two hours to stretch, to rest his eyes and to recharge so you can do more focused and efficient work right. And he also takes an hour-long lunch break to eat and relax. And you've got to make that personal time. So John makes sure to schedule time for his hobbies. He makes time to schedule schedules time for his interests, such as playing guitar and running it's almost like I wrote that about myself and such as having dinner with his wife every night and going on weekend trips with his friends once a month. That's fucking amazing.

Speaker 1: 19:24

So when I first set the goal to earn a million dollars, I felt like every waking second had to be spent working. I was building something from the ground up. I had to work hard because I didn't have the leverage, I didn't have the skills, I didn't have the know-how and, as a result, my health suffered, my relationship suffered and I couldn't relate to my friends anymore. I literally stopped watching sport. People were like did you see the game on the weekend? I was like, which game was that, I don't know, and the realization from that was that there has to be some form of balance. Just like day is to night, hot is to cold. You've got to find this balance.

Speaker 1: 20:07

You know many people, and you may be listening to this dream of being self-employed and running their own business. They imagine having the freedom to set their own schedule, choose their own projects and control their income. I know I did, but being, you know, self-employed is the ultimate way to achieve work-life balance and personal fulfillment, and I truly believe that, but I do not believe everyone is ready for it. However, being self-employed also comes with its own challenges and risks. One of the biggest challenges that I've faced is a lack of boundaries between that work and personal life. Without the clear separation, as I mentioned, I would often end up working longer hours, taking more stress, neglecting my health and relationships. I call it the self-employment trap Working hard to create freedom but losing it in the process. So I want to say that again, working hard to create freedom but losing it in the process. I want to flip that on its head now. So, in contrast, being an employee may seem like a safer and an easier option. I definitely feel safer and I definitely feel like it's easier.

Speaker 1: 21:20

I tried that for a while. I had a fixed salary. I had a stable schedule and a very clear role of what I needed to do. I didn't have to worry about finding clients. I didn't have to worry about finding clients. I didn't have to worry about managing finances or dealing with the legal issues. I could clock out at the end of the day and I would enjoy my free time. However, because of that, it had its own drawbacks. I had to follow someone else's rules, deadlines and expectations. I had limited autonomy, creativity and growth potential, and because of that, I was fucking bored, I was frustrated and I was so unfulfilled. And can you imagine like, when you're living like that, your energy levels they are so low, right, your frequency in which you're excited about life are so different.

Speaker 1: 22:10

Think about this. I want you to close your eyes right now and I want you to think about something that truly excites you. Like if you could be doing anything right now. What would that be? And I want you to really focus in on that. I want you to think what would you be smelling? What would you be hearing? What would you be thinking? What would you be wearing? And would you be hearing, what would you be thinking? What would you be wearing? And start getting that feeling around that I'm getting excited by that right now, and then go to the flip side. If you're bored, frustrated and unfulfilled, you're in a very different state of mind and I personally would rather live my life in this state of mind where I'm excited, I'm fulfilled, my energy is high. So to think about this, you may be in a workplace where you have to deal with the politics and the toxic culture.

Speaker 1: 23:05

I was, I was trading my freedom for security, but what was the cost? And I want you to ask yourself that what is the cost that you have for freedom? You may be going yeah, lockie, it's easy for you or it's easy for some. The next question I would say well, if you do feel you're trading your freedom for security, where could you start to start working towards changing that over the next three to five years? You don't need to change it now and I don't believe that you should ever quit your job and go all in on something until you have replaced your income, at least. But what would that look like If we were to create a vision and we do do this in the self-discovery program if we were to create that vision and then start building some goals around who you need to become, what skills you need to learn, what you need to be setting up to create that life? Those are the next steps, and they're going to bring up a lot more questions self-reflection that you can leverage to build a better life for yourself, creating that life that gives you both freedom and stability, both challenge and ease, both passion and peace.

Speaker 1: 24:13

That was a journey that I embarked on, and not everyone is ready to start their own business. This is why I just created the self-discovery program to help you get clear on who you are, what you want and your place in the world. A lot of people don't feel like they belong, so from there, you can create a side hustle, you can grow it into a full-time gig if that's what you want, or you might just go look, dude, I'm really happy with where I'm at. It does everything for me, which, in that case, awesome, right, perfect. You'll be one of the very few.

Speaker 1: 24:47

But another key point that is hugely valuable around not letting work steal your life is perpetual availability. So it's the state of being always reachable, always responsive to work-related requests, regardless of time. Those who've worked with me, or even friends, you'll know that I always have my phone on. Do not disturb Always, because throughout the hours of the workday I don't want to be disturbed. I have tasks, I have appointments with myself or appointments with other people that I want to value and I want to give my best to.

Speaker 1: 25:25

There are certain times where I'll check my text messages, I'll check my emails, I'll check my phone calls, but because I guard my time, I'm a lot more efficient and I'm in the right frame of mind because when you are managing your time well, you probably are doing chunks of time, meaning you might be focusing on a marketing or outreach or sales or coaching or whatever you know, relate that to your own field, but you don't have to keep wearing multiple hats. Within the space of an hour, you could say right, this first two hours of today, I'm focusing on this. This is the mindset that I need to have in order to do that well, and that's what a lot of people overlook Once again, and because of this, they're not as efficient, their work runs over and they don't get things done. So my I guess belief is that you don't need to always be available to everyone. Everyone used to have access to me.

Speaker 1: 26:20

My productivity was shocking. I would always get interrupted and I understand it wasn't always done intentionally, but it showed me. It slowed me down, sorry, and I wonder why I always had more work left at the end of the day, even though I had scheduled time to complete things, when I wasn't getting things done in their allocated time. It was then taking time from my family, taking time from my hobbies, taking time from the other things that I would have loved to have been doing. I'm sure you can probably relate to that. I went to a workshop a few years ago and that's when I first was told hey, dude, lucky, you don't need to be readily available, you've got to set boundaries.

Speaker 1: 26:58

Focus time, as it's been called. I've heard it before, but it didn't make sense up until I heard it like that, so I hope it lands for you. Every time you're allowing someone to steal your focus, they're robbing you of time. In the future, it could be time, as I mentioned, exercising with your partner, hobbies, etc. Keep in mind, it just isn't the physical interruptions, but emails, texts, phone calls All of that is a disruption. I promise you that if you start guarding your time there, you will feel more productive, less overwhelmed and have more time at the end of the day.

Speaker 1: 27:34

One final thing and we're really diving more into this is implementing AI into my day to help me save time. Ai is obviously the buzzword at the moment, and a mentor of mine is helping me use it, and I'm going to share more about this over the coming weeks, because it truly is saving me time and giving me so much more focus back on other areas. But imagine having a personal assistant that can take care of all the tasks that consume your precious time and attention tasks like scheduling meetings, sorting emails, creating reports or researching information. Ai can do all of that for you. I had a catch up with Troy about six weeks ago and he's using it in his companies, and if he can do it for that, I can do it from my everyday life, and we're constantly bombarded with information, with requests, with deadlines, and it can be really really hard to keep up with it all and still have time for ourselves. So that's why I decided to explore the possibilities of it and see how it can work in my life, and I've managed to save time, as I mentioned, and become more efficient.

Speaker 1: 28:42

But one of the first ways that I started utilizing AI was to help me with my emails, was to help me with my scheduling, was to provide focused time. I really managed my calendar. I was amazed by how much I could, I guess, save time. And look, there's so many AIs. There's ChatGPT, there's all of that sort of stuff. I personally am using Microsoft system because it just all integrates with itself, which helps me with all those tasks. So it is sorting my emails by priority, suggesting responses, scheduling meetings, and the more I use it, the more it learns my priorities and my habits and adapts to my needs. So I'm reclaiming no joke. I'm getting more done in four hours than I would in a full workday. And if you're a business owner listening, I'm going to be teaching more people how I'm implementing it, especially within our academy, just so people can be more efficient.

Speaker 1: 29:36

Because I want to give you your time back. I want to give you your time back. I want to give you the tools. Sorry to give you your time back, but, to wrap it up, don't continue letting work to steal your life.

Speaker 1: 29:47

Work-life balance is a crucial aspect of our overall wellbeing. It's important to establish those personal boundaries, to prioritize our personal time and to use tools like AI or delegate with staff, et cetera, to increase your productivity. Whether you're self-employed or you're an employee, you all have access to that. Finding the right balance between work and your personal life is going to be challenging I promise you that, but it is essential for your overall happiness, your mental health and your physical health. So I want to encourage you now. If you're ready to take the next step in finding out who you truly are, what you want from your life and where you fit in, join the self-discovery program. Head over to the website themanthatcanprojectcom and you'll scroll down just a little bit and you'll see the self-discovery program there in one of the three ways that we can help you. It's under three hours and you will be able to move through, so it doesn't need to be complex. Listen to the videos, go through the worksheets and allow yourself to unpack and use the experiences of your past to tell you what you don't want, what you do want, what goals you need to set to get more of what you want in your life. Don't let work steal your life. Take control and join today.

Speaker 1: 31:01

I hope you guys have gained value from today's episode. It was a little bit longer than I expected. I went off on a few tangents, but I hope I know that it's going to be valuable. It's going to get you thinking, as always. If you got value from this episode, please leave a rating. Please leave a review. Discuss in. If you got value from this episode, please leave a rating. Please leave a review, discuss in the comments below and share it on your social media. Share this with someone that you know needs to hear this and will get value Until Monday, where we have Sam Webb, the co-founder of Livin, a mental health organization in Australia. I'll look forward to sharing that episode with you this coming Monday.