Work Around Your Personal Life, Not The Other Way Around | Mastering Work Life Balance

Main Discussion: Work-Life Balance

• Different Perspectives: James and Jack acknowledge that work-life balance varies depending on personal and professional stages. Jack, who loves his work, finds joy in longer hours. James, with a young family, seeks quality time and balance.
• No One-Size-Fits-All: They emphasize that there isn't a universal blueprint for work-life balance. It’s about personal priorities and aligning work around them.
• Loving What You Do: Jack believes that enjoying your job is a significant part of work-life balance. If you're passionate about your work, it doesn't feel like work.
• Cultural Norms and Long-Term Goals: They discuss cultural norms that promote long-term employment for retirement benefits versus short-term sacrifices for long-term freedom. James shares his goal of achieving financial freedom by age 40 to spend more quality time with his family.
• Clarity and Planning: They stress the importance of having a clear end goal and working backwards to create a plan. This involves setting personal priorities first and building work around them.

Practical Tips for Work-Life Balance:

• Daily Routines: Jack talks about the importance of a consistent daily routine, including morning exercise, to set the tone for the day. He advises against starting the day with social media or news.
• Avoiding Distractions: James introduces tools like the OneSec app and the K-Safe to manage phone usage and avoid distractions, helping maintain focus and presence.
• Habit Stacking: James shares strategies for integrating new habits into daily routines, such as doing physical exercises during natural breaks like bathroom visits.

Balancing Family and Work:

• Being Present: James emphasizes the importance of being fully present with family, limiting phone usage, and structuring work to allow quality family time.
• Tools and Strategies: The hosts share tools and strategies that help manage work and personal time effectively, contributing to a balanced lifestyle.
  
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Transcript

So we are back for another episode of the Elite Agent Masterclass. This time we're going to be looking at all things work-life balance. Can it happen? Does it exist? How do you get there? What's the reality behind the myth, the seemingly unicorn-esque feeling, if you like, that is work-life balance within the industry? I'm with Jack Durkin, co-founder of the Elite Agent Masterclass. How are you, Jack? Very good, James. Very good. How about yourself? Yeah, not so bad. Thank you. Not so bad. We'll dive into work-life balance in a minute. But what we tend to do when we open the pod is have a little look at the local businesses, how they're looking. How's things in sunny Sutton Coalfield? Is it sun shining and businesses flourishing? I'm not sure about sunshining, but it's been a relatively good last couple of weeks. I felt it was a little bit slower. I don't know if it's the same for yourself, James, but in the lead up to the election, a slow week or slow couple of weeks, I suppose people waiting to see what decision was made, not that it would change a huge amount. But since then, we've noticed viewing inquiries pick up, offers start to pick up as well. We've been inviting out some really, really nice properties over the last few weeks. I feel like we're we're now getting invited out for the types of properties that we really want to be marketing um so we've got some really nice new listings coming on uh we've got a good number of instructions on and as i said some sales being tied up and we've had a healthy number of exchanges i feel like in all areas of the business we talk about laser and the taps being turned on and i feel like at the moment in our local business Everything seems to be moving in that right direction and everything seems quite balanced at the moment. Yeah, as anyone knows in the state it's always a roller coaster, but I feel like we're, yeah, as level as we would like to be at the moment in time. It's a good place to be. It's a good place to be. So you've referenced Laser. We haven't actually introduced it on the pod yet. And I think we'll save that for... I think I personally feel a standalone episode. But yeah, so how's our local business looking? Do you know, I think that a lot of the consistency you're experiencing is through the consistent behaviours and habits you formed in your local business between you and Laura and the rhythm you've got. I would say personally, we're probably... Are we as balanced out as you at the minute? Probably not. No, we had a couple of sales fall through last week, which was frustrating. I don't know whether it's the current climate or whether it's just bad luck on that particular week. But seemingly some flaky buyers in the market at the minute just sort of changing their minds on quite trivial details. So, yeah, a little bit more of a... I guess an uncertain week. I think post-election, I totally agree with you, two, three weeks leading up, I think general activity levels did slow down. But post-election, all of a sudden, I think it's the uncertainty, isn't it? I think it's like any major change. I don't think the outcome was necessarily what people wanted. It was just to know that an outcome had been reached, to have that level of certainty back. Whether people agree with the outcome or not, it just presents... balance doesn't it um so yeah definitely saw inquiry levels lift we've seen ma levels uh lift as well um and a couple of really good potential listings in the pipe um and still some deals going through that should exchange before the end of the month so it should be a good healthy uh income month but yeah it's been a bit of a bit of a hit and miss week But it ties in, I guess, then, to the whole work-life balance piece. I think some of the reason why maybe there was a little bit of... of a wobble if you like with those couple of deals and what have you we took a week off on holiday with the kids i personally decided that whilst i was away i was going to completely switch off um and when i say completely switch off my version of that is picking up the odd message here and there related to work rather than being on my phone four or five hours a day um whilst i'm on holiday so it was nice and actually if the penalty i've got to pay is a deal falling over which by the way i could not have influenced even if i was here but if the penalty i've got to pay is a deal topples over to spend some absolute quality time with my family that's the price i'm prepared to pay and how are you feeling after after the break refreshed yeah do you know i went into it and i and i don't mind um being completely brutally honest on that i went into it needing it um it's the first holiday we've had this year um bearing in mind we were having it in What now? What was it? Beginning of July? Yeah. End of June, sorry. And I'm someone that will go flat out whilst I'm at work. So I think six months going flat out, I think the realization for me was when we were on the way back, Hayley was on her phone booking our next one for like 10 weeks time. And I think it's that real realization that actually every 10 to 12 weeks, I like going all in when I'm here. I'm not very good at the whole, I'll work five days, take two days off and be able to be fully, fully present. Whereas actually, work 10, 11, 12 weeks, then get a week's break. I can be fully present then when I'm away because I feel like I've achieved during that period. So yeah, come back, feeling fresh, lots of new ideas. I think it's a good week to go as well. I think it's the only week of sunshine we've had all year. Honestly, talk about luck, right? It's the only week we've had a good sunshine. Come back. And it was only a UK holiday. Come back, the kids look like they've been to Marrakesh or something. They've got a lovely town. What's your take on it then, mate? So obviously work-life balance. There are some people in the industry that poo-poo the idea that you can have work-life balance. There are others that probably take it to the other extreme and think there should be more life than work. What's your take on it? i i think it's interesting i i feel like today will be a good conversation because we're both at very different stages of our lives and so work-life balance for the two of us is probably very different at the moment in time um i think personally it again it's all dependent on where you are within your journey um and i would think what's really important is There is no correct balance. Whether you are 70% in your business, 80% in your business, 90%, no matter what it is, there is no perfect balance. But I do believe the most important thing is to work around your personal life and not work around your work life. If you can get those two things right, if you can put your personal appointments in your diary first, those are the ones that are most important, and then work features around that, I think that's the best balance you can get. And yeah, I think with, As I said, it's all down to how much work you want to put in. For me, I absolutely love the job that I do. I love the business that we've created. I love the freedom that we've got, but also it doesn't feel like work to me. So if I do work a long day, a 10 hour, 11 hour, 12 hour day, I'm doing something I really love and enjoy doing. So I actually thrive off doing it and I get excited about doing it. So I probably do work a lot more hours than then I probably should or maybe need to, but it's because I love the job and I'm really passionate about what I do. Whereas I suppose if I was in a different stage of my life, I may not. My dad always talks about chasing the golden cup. And when he was a lot younger, that was something that he constantly did, always chasing the next result. Whereas he's at a completely different stage in his life now. He doesn't want to be doing that. So I suppose as you get older, yeah, things change, priorities change. So I suppose it depends on where you are on your journey. Do you know, you've touched on, and by the way, what you've just said, shared there, I think for anyone listening in, I think was quite profound because you've probably touched on four, three, maybe four topics that I've counted that could all be standalone topics to be discussed. And I think one of the big ones you alluded to quite early on is it really does depend on where you're at in your life's journey, as well as your business journey. So I don't think that there is a one size fits all work life balance blueprint. I don't believe that exists because my circumstances are different to yours. I've got two young children. I've got a young family. I'm at a different stage in my life. So there are different priorities. But at the same time, the other topic that you've touched on is you love what you do. So to my mind, that represents work-life balance because a major piece, if you like, of that work-life balance is loving what you do. Yeah, I think a lot of people, especially if you're in an employed role, most people, especially in the UK as well, you're working towards the weekend. you're working your week and you're waiting, you're counting down the days to get to a Saturday and a Sunday where you can have some time off and spend some time with family, you spend a lot of your life working. So if you're not working within an industry or within a job that you enjoy doing and you get up every morning really excited to get ready for work and go out and meet people and speak with people or whatever it is you're doing, if you don't get excited about that, then change what you're doing. Do you know, the reason I'm looking away from screen temporarily is I saw something on, I'm sure it was Instagram the other day. I thought I'd screenshotted it, but I didn't. But it really ties into what you're saying around loving what you do, but equally that whole, what you're working towards. I think so many people, now let me try and... re-articulate the way i read it it's a shame i didn't screenshot i sure i had and i'll find it but essentially it was along the lines of so many people um find it what's the way to describe it so so many people will work this is it so many people will work an employed job for 40 years to get a pension and retire. And then that's the time in life that supposedly you can enjoy life. Quite honestly, I'm in my, what am I now? 38 in March, I'm 37 right now. And I feel like if I go beyond 40 and haven't reached the goal that I want to achieve physically, I'm going to start getting to a place where my physical capability is going to start deteriorating, right? And so many people get to like 60, 65. They can't do a lot of the things they dreamed of doing when they planned it all out, when they went into their career at 20 years of age. And so they spend 40 years unemployed to get to that point where you get a pension and whatever else. But they aren't patient enough to spend two to three years building something that could give them financial freedom for the other 37. And when I read it, I was like, it's so true. But that's a cultural thing. That's Western culture, right? That isn't anything really to do probably with the individual. It's about the confirmation biases that we create from a young age. The schooling system is a great example. When you're at school, they don't ask you, teachers don't ask you, parents don't ask you, what do you want to create when you're older? They ask you, what do you want to do? That therefore suggests you're going to go and become an employee and you're going to fit into the system. It doesn't promote the idea that you're going to be entrepreneurial and you're going to create something. You're going to change the world in some way. It doesn't get promoted at school age, does it? No, and that's why I think you go with what you know, don't you? And like you said, from a very young age, you're taught to go and work a nine to five. You're taught to go and work for a company and be employed. And you then essentially are living for the weekends, right? And retirement age is a long, long way away. So if you're constantly working week in, week out towards that long-term goal, it's so far away. Whereas, I mean, for me, I love, I don't mind working, like you said, working long hours, going all in in the business, you know, whether it's a week, two weeks, eight weeks. But as long as you've got something to look forward to at the end of that, then you're working towards a goal, an objective, and it's not a goal to retire when you're 65. It's, you know, work for the next six weeks because I've got a holiday at the end of the six weeks where I can have some time off and enjoy myself and then get straight back into it. So, yeah, the schooling system is a little bit flawed, I think, in our opinion. Yeah, I totally agree. I also think that from a, what's the, from an employment perspective, but look, let's, let's park the employee versus self-employed argument for a minute. And let's look at it slightly differently because you could be employed and still create financial freedom through other vehicles, whether it be investments or buy to let's whatever. But again, it's that question of, are you working in whatever environment you're in employed, self-employed and everything in between, are you working to pay your bills or are you working towards creating financial freedom? And as soon as you reframe your thought process around that question, I personally feel it changes everything. Because all of a sudden it goes from, am I going to earn enough money this month to pay my mortgage, to pay my bills, to, I don't know, pay for that next holiday, whatever. Or am I going to earn enough money this quarter, this year to put into my pot so that I've got financial freedom so that personally for me, as I say, I'm 38 in March. My goal is that by the time I hit 40, I want to have complete choice over how I lead my life. Now, What I mean there is I didn't say I want to retire. What I said is I want to have complete choice, complete choice when I work, how I work and who I work for. By the time I'm 40, because my kids will be of an age where they're both at school and I want to be able to, you know, one of my dreams and I talk about it a fair bit is I want to be able to get towards the summer holidays and be able to say to Hayley and the kids, why don't we go on safari for the next six weeks? Let's put everything down and let's go on safari for six weeks. Let's all be together. Like that for me is the dream. That one thing contributes towards a much bigger dream. But that one thing is such an important goal for me to achieve is to get to that position where I can have that choice. Now, if I have to sacrifice a bit of time now in order to create that two years from now, then I'm prepared to do that because I'm working towards something. Yeah. And how nice would that be to be able to do that for you, Hayley and the kids? I think we've spent a lot of time over the past three years since we launched the business, working really, really hard and putting some serious hours. And I think anyone that is setting up a business, self-employed or a complete standalone business, there is going to be some long hours. There's going to be some hard work that goes into it. But it's as long as you're working towards a goal that it's not always going to be like that. Once you can get the consistency, once you can get the wheels turning, once you can start to see some of the results, you can refine your processes and you can refine how your diary looks and how you manage your diary and your appointments. And you can start having a more balanced work life if that is what you want. I think that's really important though, isn't it? And I suppose talking about our aspirations with where we're at in the business right now is one thing, but the point to touch on there, and I think really labour and people really need to sit and think about this, no matter what world of work they're in, again, neutralising the whole self-employed versus employed, et cetera, but really sit down and think about Where am I going? What does this lead to? And as there's a fantastic book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People written by Stephen Covey. And one of the habits is to start with the end in mind. What are you working towards? What's the goal? Because the one thing that we've all got guaranteed is that we're not getting out alive. So what is it that you're working towards? Is it a legacy? Is it generational wealth? Is it making your family immensely proud of what you've achieved? Is it personal fulfillment? What is it that you're working towards? Then working backwards to understand where do you want to be? And if someone's sitting listening to this right now and they think to themselves, but I don't know how, like, I like the sound of what James is saying. By the time I hit a certain age and not retirement, but by the time I hit a certain age, I want to have the choice over when and how and who I work for. But I just don't know. I don't have that clarity. Then just take some time. I think we live such busy lives. We're all such frantic people, especially in a state agency world and property world. It's always so busy. It's always so demanding to try and carve out some time to actually sit and think and be in your own thoughts for a bit to think, what do I want? What do I truly want? And then start building a plan and work backwards from that point to say, OK, well, if that's what my long distance goal is, and that long distance goal could be two, three, four, five or 10 years, whatever. And then work backwards and put those stepping stones in place and then focus on those stepping stones daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. You can't not get there. Once you know what that is as well, there could be five or six different ways that you can get to that goal. You've just got to decide which one is the one that you want to go down. And go all in on it. But I think you touched on it just now. And I think it's something that needs to be unpacked a little bit more. And it's for those people that maybe are at the start of the journey or in a position where they're potentially looking to make changes in their life to try to create that freedom to go on that journey. What does it take at the beginning? We've talked about clarity just now. I've talked about start with the end in mind and having clarity. And I think that's probably the foundation. Where do you want to go and how do you want to get there? But then what does it take? What has the last three years looked like for you, Jack? I think to... At the very start, and I mentioned it earlier, there is going to be some hard work that goes in. There's going to be some long hours you're going to have to put in. You're going to have to do things consistently, repeatedly, until you can start seeing results, before you can then start changing things and tweaking things and making adjustments to what you're doing. When we start out, well, we're only about our agent starting out. We've got a three-month blueprint where they follow the blueprint and they can start to see what's working well for them, what they then want to take on for the next nine months, 12 months. But at the very start, I think you've got to put some hard work in. You've got to remain consistent. You've got to be willing to put yourself out there. And you've got to be disciplined around your diary and diary management. And for me personally, one thing I love doing is making sure that I get some physical exercise done in the morning. So that's one thing that stays in my diary every single morning, get my workout done or get my run done before we start work. And then I have a pretty consistent flow to how my diary looks. Most of my appointments are in the afternoon. I get a lot of my calls done or my catch-ups done earlier in the morning and throughout midday. And I've built a I built a plan around my diary that works for me. It might not work for everyone else, but it works for me. It's something I can stay consistent on. And it is also something that I can ensure that I get my personal appointments in there first and everything else kind of works around that. And I think, as I said, remaining really disciplined around your diary, I think is really, really important, especially if you're going into a new role or you're setting out business for the first time. You've got to get disciplined. Do you know, you've mentioned it a couple of times and I said the segment that you mentioned earlier where I said it was profound, there were three or four topics. One of the other ones was, and you've alluded to it again, so it's clearly very much an ingrained behavior for you. And it's setting out your personal, let's call them big rocks first. You know, health, gym, fitness for you is a personal big rock. It sets your day up. It makes you feel good. It releases those endorphins and then you're ready to take on the day. Right. I think the other way to look at that as well is if you go and have a grueling, challenging workout first thing in the morning, you've probably got the hardest thing you're going to do that day out of the way. And Stephen Bartlett talks about it, doesn't he? You know, his analogy is the table. And if you imagine that your health is the table, your well-being is the table and then your family and your work and your hobbies and everything else you enjoy is on the table. Well, without the table, all of that stuff that's on the table just crashes. Right. It can't be there. And so unless people look after themselves and make their self-care a priority. And when I say self-care, it doesn't have to be a gym routine. That seems to be like the very current mentality, you know, get up at five, be in the gym by six, ready and showered and ready for work at seven. That might not be everyone's jam. Taking the dog for a walk and getting a clear head and getting some sunlight and some vitamin D and some fresh air might be. The thing that gives the person the same impact, meditating, having an ice bath, reading a book, reading, reading a book, listen to a podcast, whatever it is that just gets your brain in the right frame of mind. Now, I would throw in that there are some things that can completely ruin a morning. In the same way as your gym routine is good for you to set your morning up the right way. I feel there's a very short list or actually, sorry, wrong way around quite a long list of things that can ruin a person's morning. Looking at their phone and scrolling through their emails and their social media and BBC News and doing that as soon as they open their eyes, there is scientific proof to say that that is really, really bad when you first wake up in the morning. Having caffeine within the first 90 minutes of waking up can fry the brain. So there's also things that people can avoid when it comes to this whole work-life balance, setting your day up right, being productive, getting into the right headspace. I think there needs to be as much weight put behind things you should avoid as there is the things that you should be doing. Yeah, I can find if I pick my phone up first thing in the morning and it's so easy to even to jump on one of the social media platforms and start scrolling through to try and wake yourself up. I find the day is so much less. Well, I just don't feel I don't feel myself. I don't feel like I am the best version of myself by doing that. So, yeah, I try as much as I can now not to touch my phone for the first half an hour when I'm up and focus on doing something that's going to make me productive and get my head into the right headspace to start the day well. Yeah, and people need to work that out for themselves, but there's a little list there of things to avoid. Caffeine within the first 90 minutes, again, scientific proof to suggest that it's not right. The brain hasn't, within the first 90 minutes of waking up, the human brain hasn't fully come out of its slumber. It's not ready to process. And so you fuel it with caffeine, all you're doing, it's a little bit like trying to put diesel in a petrol car. It isn't going to work at that time of day because you're not ready for it. Same with the social media scrolling. It sends you into a bit of a frenzy. The brain starts to try and process information quicker than it's ready to do. Watching the news, you're filling your mind. The news isn't built on positivity. It's built on negativity. So by watching the news, you're simply filling your mind with negative feelings before your day has even begun. For me, they're three things that I absolutely, I don't watch the news at all, at all. but I'm a big coffee fan. Love my coffee, but I will literally avoid it. Even if I'm like shaking with the need for coffee, which doesn't happen anymore, but it used to, I will avoid it for that first hour and a half. Absolutely. Absolutely. And same with my phone. Like if I could describe the perfect routine for me in the morning, it would be to get up, have a pint of water as soon as I get up with some electrolytes to get myself hydrated again quickly. If it's nice weather and not pouring with rain, go out in the garden for 10 minutes and just be, don't try and do, just be like... A little bit of fresh air. Have a wander around the garden. Just let the senses fill with light and air. And even if it's a bit crisp and a bit cold, good. That's good for the body. And then reading for a bit. I love reading. So like that really helps because I've got a very busy brain, right? So reading helps slow me down because I can't read as fast as my brain goes. Calm the mind. Slows me. Yeah. So for a lot of people listening, I'm sure there's going to be plenty of people out there that are in the property sector who have children. How do you find getting that balance between making sure that you are the dad that you need to be, but also the estate agent at the same time or the business owner as well? How do you wear both those hats and how do you balance that? So if you... Again, the whole point of doing the pod and doing everything that we're doing is to give completely honest feedback. It's still a work in progress. So there's little hacks that I've put in place to help me, and I can share a few of those. So... I have got an app on my phone called OneSec and all of my social media, all of my email, anything that connects to work, I've set a schedule on OneSec where I can't access any of that before nine o'clock in the morning when I first get to the office. I don't come to work before nine o'clock on a weekday. So that stops me. And there's like this connection then for me whereby, because I know I can't get into it, I stop thinking about it. And so really focusing on being ultra present with my kids is so much more important than anything. We don't work in life and death business, right? I'm not a surgeon. They don't need me at the time they call me or text me or WhatsApp me or email me. They don't need me. So I've had to recondition myself with that. And I've structured my diary. I guess I'm not, again, being completely honest. I've not historically been the most organized person in the world. I'm a doer. So if a task presents itself, I'll crack on. I'm very good at reacting to, you know, someone brings me a problem. I will always almost always have a solution for them. I'm very good at problem solving. But what I've had to do in order to be the dad that I want to be and the human being I want to be is create structure in my life around my family. And then what I'm doing is building more structure into my work because I'm not just an estate agent in my local business. We're growing the avenue. I want to be able to coach and support the partners. We're building team. So there are lots of other things going on. So I'm having to build that structure out. So we record these on a Tuesday or today. We're sorry. We're recording on a Tuesday. Ordinarily, it's a Monday. But obviously, the football was on Sunday, so we couldn't run the risk for you having a head on Monday, could we? So like, for example, today, every Tuesday, I don't get into work until half past 10 because I want to spend the morning with my kids. At the weekends, you know, I make sure now that I have an hour at the end of my Friday where that's like a decompression hour. I just want to review my week, make sure all the ideas I've got spinning around in my head are out and stored somewhere so I don't have to think about them. So I can go into my weekend and be ultra present because... Again, this might be a bit of a reality check for people listening in. You may think you've got white life balance. You may think you're spending quality time with your family, but start to pay attention as to how much time you spend on this thing when you're with your family. Because if you're on this thing whilst you're with your family and friends, you're not present. So you're there, but you're not. And that for me is the biggest, personally, the biggest measure of of how good a human, how good a partner, how good a dad I'm being is how much time this takes of me. And by the way, for those listening in, when I'm waving this around, I'm talking about my phone. Because it is the biggest distraction. The amount of notifications you get from every single app nowadays, it's hard not to pick up your phone and not have a notification on there from one platform or another. So, yeah, I know you bought a K-Safe quite a while ago, didn't you? Yeah, got it behind me in the office, yeah. Put that phone away. There's another little tip for anyone that really struggles to put their phone down. Yeah. So for the case safe, just to explain that. So for anyone that can't use an app like OneSec, OneSec, I don't know, I think it's like £10 a year. It might be £30. I can't remember. It's negligible in the grand scheme of impact. Right. OneSec, you can lock apps. You can lock your whole phone. You can schedule. You can do a number of things. OneSec, if anyone at OneSec is listening in right now and wants to sponsor the pod, fill your boots because, you know, I am a big advocate. But the secondary tool, which is even more impactful because then you can't get to your phone, is to buy yourself on Amazon. Again, about $29.99. It's called a K-Safe. Suppose watching in, that's a K-Safe. There is a phone in there just for example purposes. And you literally you can set a timer, turn it the other way up. You set a timer. So let's say you want to do some productive work in the office and you've got an hour that you want. You set the time for an hour. You can't get it unless you're going to smash that box to pieces. And if you, by the way, smash the box to pieces, you have a problem, a serious problem that you need to seek help for. I'm saying that with sincerity. If you feel you need to smash the box open to get to your phone, then you need to seek help. So unless you smash the box open, you can't get to it for that hour. Now, to start with, there's a feeling of anxiety and a feeling of something's been taken off of you. But the feeling starts to subside. And I sometimes take the K-Safe home. If I have my decompression hour on a Friday afternoon and I get to the end of that hour and I'm like, I still don't feel like I've got everything out. I take the box home. And I put the phone in the box for 24 hours. Another little one, very quick one. And this comes from the principle of habit stacking from Atomic Habits. And that is to find small replacements for something. OK, so the example with the phone for me, as I said earlier, I love reading. OK, so I now have a book with me almost all the time, especially at home or in the office or whatever else. And if I feel like I'm going to reach for my phone, I've created this habit now where I will read a page in the book instead. So I'm picking the book up instead of the phone. So all I'm doing is connecting those two dots. So actually, rather than consuming something that's not going to benefit me, I'll be consuming something that is. And so therefore, it's more beneficial. It's a good exchange. It's a great exchange. And there's a number of areas in life that you can apply it. So if somebody wants to get into habits, this was a good one I picked up from somewhere. It might have even been the Atomic Habits book. If they want to pick up habits, and this all does connect to work-life balance, right? If they want to pick up a habit around doing more exercise, I'm going through a process at the minute where I'm drinking four liters, a gallon of water a day. And so therefore I'm urinating a lot. And so another habit that you could if you wanted to build more exercise into your day to day is every time you go to use the toilet, do two squats or drop down and do two press ups in the toilet or it soon mounts up. Now, I'm not doing that right now, but I remember reading it and I was like, that's actually a good habit stack. There's only so many times you have to do it before it just becomes repeatable. And that's the point. It's just creating a perfectly repeatable process. It goes back to what we said almost right at the beginning of how do you create a work-life balance when you're at the beginning is consistency. You don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems and your processes, your habits. Again, atomic habits quote right there. So formulate the habits. And it then comes back to time. So some people will be listening and going, yeah, but it's all well and good you saying X, Y, and Z. I haven't got the time. Or I don't want to get up earlier in the morning. Or I don't want to do the thing. Okay, that's cool. Don't therefore suggest that it's a priority in your life. And it's not about not having time. Everyone's got the same 24 hours. It's about the thing isn't then therefore a priority. And if you can reframe, I put a post on LinkedIn about it a few weeks back. If you can reframe I haven't got time with it's not important, all of a sudden it changes everything. I haven't got time this morning to spend time with you, Margot and Stanley, because I've got to do X. All of a sudden, you can rephrase that. Kids, I'm really sorry, but spending time with you this morning isn't important. This thing over here is more important. Or, for example, picking up my phone and responding to that message is more important. All of a sudden, the impact, you're not going to say that out loud to your kids because the impact that will have is catastrophic. But if you say it to yourself inside, it will change the way you look at things. Yeah, definitely change your actions as well, I'm sure. Yeah. Without question of a doubt. Whenever I even feel myself saying I haven't got time to do that, okay, it's therefore not important to me. And by the way, it's okay for things not to be important. You just need to choose with the right things not to be important. And I think that's the main piece, isn't it? I think it's... no one's ever gonna have the perfect work-life balance. And as we said at the start of the pod, everyone is gonna have a different view on what an ideal work-life balance looks like for them. And I think it's understanding first and foremost, what your priorities are and keeping those, those should go into your diary first. The top priorities need to go in there and everything else is working you towards your end goal. So your day-to-day work, how much you wanna earn throughout the year, the amount of work you wanna put in, You should always have the end in mind and work towards that long-term goal. Does it feed your end goal? Does it contribute towards you achieving your end result that you're aiming for? And you've just said it, and I think it's a great way to bring the pod to an end. There is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for work-life balance. Work-life balance is determined by what it means to you. And I think... For me, it means I want to work really, really hard right now. I do still spend quality time with my family. I do still allocate time to... I've not been the best at this, but to looking after myself. I am someone that tends to prioritize everyone else before myself. And I had that realization earlier this year and was like, okay, I can't carry on like this because the table... isn't going to be there if I continue along this path. I think self-awareness is hugely important for you to be able to develop that work-life balance, because unless you're self-aware, you can't understand what that balance is going to look like. but it's not a one size fits all. What does the end result look like? Work backwards from there, build the habits, build the processes, create the systems, create the right environment. We've not even talked about environment on this, but the people you surround yourself with, the environment from which you work, the environments within which you move, create the right environments, then it can all fall into place. Agreed. Hopefully there's been some useful tips in there as well, advice. James has dropped in some great ideas and suggestions on apps and case safes and things that you could use to really help you with become a better version of yourself and manage that work-life balance. Absolutely. We will, in the show notes, we will put links to the various things that I've mentioned. As always, if there's any questions, any ulterior views, we'd love to hear them. We've got a message button underneath the pod if you're listening in on Spotify or Apple Music, so you can message us with any questions you might have or any topics that you'd like us to discuss moving forward. And also make sure you like and subscribe to the channel. We've got some fantastic guests coming up, some brilliant topics to unwrap. So, yeah, really looking forward to that happening. And we will be back very soon to share more, hopefully, gold. So speak to you soon.