Work/Life Harmony

All right, I think we're live. Hello. Welcome, everyone. I know we're streaming to a couple different platforms, so wherever you're from, welcome, welcome. My name is Laurie Brady. I am the owner of Top Talent Professionals and also Career Coaching Now. And today or tonight, I should say I have a very special guest. Her name is Sandra Provis and she is going to talk today. She'll introduce herself a little bit further, but she's going to talk today about work life balance. I know I get asked those questions a lot from people in the workforce, and sometimes you just want to pull out your hair. But Sandra is an expert in this area and she's going to take it from there. So, Sandra, welcome. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. Laurie, I appreciate you very much and I hope I bring value and leave you all better than I found you today with hopefully some tips and tricks and kind of some different point of view. I think sometimes that sometimes just has to, you know, you have to look at it a different way. And when I talk. So my name is Sandra Provis. I'm the owner and founder of Crossroads Transformation, and I work mainly with management team members, so, of course, employees in some sort of corporate world. And I get that question a lot, too. Just like Lori, where I said, my gosh, I'm overwhelmed, I'm stressed, I'm burned out. And I work in the healthcare field in my 9 to 5, so I hear that a lot. And I'm coaching women to really find what works best for them. And so that topic comes up a lot. And so today I want to share with you a really different point of view that you may never have thought of. So we always, when we talk about work balance or work life balance, I always say it's not really balance, because when you have balance, think about a seesaw, right? Seesaw. And if you have balance, it ain't going nowhere. There's no fun. It doesn't go up, it doesn't go down. It just stands still. And so, yes, we want balance in our life, but what we really mean is we want harmony, right? Because we know sometimes we have to be more busier. If we have kids, if we have family members that we need to take care of, we have to put more effort on that bucket. And sometimes work is busy, and then we have to work a little bit more and take a little bit of our family time away. And so. So it goes. It's like a saw, right? Goes up and down. So I'm. I'm more of the harmony person. I always say, you know, sometimes it goes this way, sometimes it leans that way, but all in moderation. And last week I talked with a lady about how, you know, how it, what she does in her world. And I wanted to share this because it gave me a totally different point. So Susie is a good friend of mine that, that is also work, that's working with me. And so she said, you know, my problem is that I have, I'm connected. I'm always on. On. That's what she said. And I said, what do you mean? And so she said, she told me, she said, you know, I have always my phone, I have always my iPad, my emails from my work come to my phone, my, I'm always connected. I feel like I have to be connected to what I'm supposed to do at work. And I said, oh, very interesting. Right? Because the more that we are, have ourselves connected and the less time we truly have with our loved ones, with our families and taking that rest time that our body needs. So, you know, we're designed, I must say, we're designed to work eight hours at work. At least most of us work eight hours now. There's some that work those 12 hour shifts. But when you work and you are connected, I said, oh, well, you know, even on my day off or in the evening when I'm sitting down with my family and have dinner and, or on the weekends, like I'm checking my emails, right. I'm texting co workers that are at work that have a question even when I'm off. So I am constantly feeling collected. Although these small distractions that we say, oh, it's just an email or oh, it's a text or I'm just responding to, you know, to, to what? It's just a quick thing. It takes away from our being connected, it takes away from our rest time not thinking about work. Right. And it takes away from, you know, us creating memories. Like she said she had one of those typical samples she's expecting. And so she said, you know, I caught myself responding to a client while I was looking at the first picture of my newborn baby. You see what I'm saying?

So she's taking that precious moment.

Absolutely.

And working during that precious moment, it's gone.

And so it's. And, and, but it's not really. She said, you know, I didn't do it on purpose. It's just we are so connected through the electronics and the, the, the connectivity sometimes that is required through our job or that our boss expects from us.

Right, right, exactly.

We don't even think about it. What it's taken us away. And so I did Alba last week, I was looking at, you know, I thought this would be perfect for the talk today. And so bringing this to really people to think about that. You know, how often when you get off work, how often do you check your emails, how often do you connect your co workers, your boss, how often do you text customers? You know, if you are like all of this, we love it, right? But it is really, it has become so natural to us that we're missing the opportunity to get rest, to debrief and be disconnected from our work life and really have our home life. You know, take those moments that you have with your kids, with your loved ones, with your parents, with, with friends. If you go out, you know, like we go out to eat with friends and we sit there and we all.

On our phones like right, right, right.

Take it out. You know, we're missing the opportunity to truly enjoy the moment with them. We're truly missing the opportunity to take, take a, like I say, take a break from our work life. We want it so bad. We want that, that disconnect so bad. But we are the ones truly doing it to ourselves.

Right, exactly. And you brought up such, you don't mind me saying something real quick because you're, it's right on topic. You, you're bringing up such good points and there are actually what I've learned at least trying to do and you know, I'm not perfect is try to set boundaries. And I found that it's hard to do that because you want to get back to that work email. You want to get back to that. You, we as a society feel like everything is instant now and everybody expects instant responses. And it's my fault, you know, if I get back to an email at 11 o'clock@ night, that's my fault because I don't have to, you know, trying to just set those boundaries. You know, whether you have to do it in an email or what do you call it, you set your auto response or something, you know, to do anything to say this is where, when I work, this is, you know, and, and it's interesting because. Have you ever watched the Social Dilemma, Sandra?

Yes, I have. Yes.

Because what you're talking about is so close to what they're talking about. So it's, it's very, very interesting. And you, you're bringing up some real really good points. Sorry, I didn't mean to. I just wanted about know.

Anytime. But, but, and you're so Right. You know, I think it is, it, it is just part of our culture. It is part how we. How, how, how society works these days. And yes, there is probably some, you know, some bosses that expect certain things, but it is just like if you are in the workplace and you have a deadline to meet and you already know that there is no way for you to meet that deadline without you not having to work either in the evenings, late hours or on the weekend. Right? So why not ask for an extension? Why not say, hey, I know the deadline is on Monday, 6pm But I know for a fact I need to, I can get it to you by Tuesday afternoon, ask for that extension. And I think bring in set like you said, setting those boundaries and setting. Look, if you email me, I will get your email, but I will not respond between 7 and 8, 6 and 8 at night because this is when I have dinner with my family. This is when we get kids to bed. This is, you know, but, but we are such in the habit. And I have done this too. I said, hey, you can text me anytime.

I know, yes.

And then I'm like, my gosh, they text me 3am in the morning. Well, I, I told him to. Right? So setting those boundaries early, giving that expectation, you know, you do not have to respond back. If I text you at 3am you will know I will not respond back to you at 3am But I know when I get up I will see your message and I will respond as soon as I'm up. But, but it's, it's again, you know, we are in a, in a situation that we put ourselves in and sometimes it's hard to break a habit. It is, it definitely really takes time away from what we really want. You know, it takes time away from, from those personal moments, from our, from, from. It's almost like you have to say, okay, this weekend I'm going on vacation and I'm in an area that there's no Internet and I cannot respond to your email or text or I can't even take any phone calls. And then enjoy the moments that you have there. You know, if you go out with your husband, if you take a break, if you take your kid to, to the fun park, whatever it is, enjoy the moments and the memories that you're creating there and it will bring you so much and try it. You know, I feel like we can, we can have so much more rest and so much more calmness through those little things. It doesn't take much it just for us to change those habits that we.

Think that as far as your manager, like you were saying, kind of going back a little bit when you were saying, just be honest and say, look, I can't get this done in two days or three days, whatever. Don't you think too, that that would, that your boss is going to respect you more? Because you're being absolutely, you know, you're not.

Because I already know. I mean, if it would be one of my employees, because I have, I'm in my corporate job, I have employees that work with me. And if they, If I, you know, if I say, hey, we need to get this done, the deadline is here, and they tell me that they're not able to get it done. Like, is there possibility for an extension? Can we get an extra day or can we get an extra person to help us get it done that day? You know, I mean, sometimes there is some. But communication is everything. And, And I feel like it would be. You would be more regarded and more. More trusted and in, in your workplace because you don't want to. You don't want to not meet the deadline, but you also want to be open and honest and saying, hey, I can make this happen, but it can, it can't happen today. It's got to be tomorrow.

You know, and we're so used to having an issue saying no. And, you know, I struggle with that every day. And I'm sure, you know, people that are watching this right now, you know, are going, yes, I struggle with that. Especially as women, I feel like not saying that men won't do it.

Absolutely.

But as women, we're so used to saying, okay, okay, we'll get it done. Because we're so used to doing a hundred thousand things, being able to do a hundred thousand things. But, yeah, then your family suffers and you suffer. Honest. Quite honestly.

And I can tell you what, you know, what you just said. We are so as women, we struggle with saying no. We struggle. We. We struggle to say not no to everything.

Right?

Right. We are like, oh, and somebody says, man, you need to be in the PTO that you are so great what you do. And I'm like, you know, like, and, And I have in it now, I know, like, if, if, if it's not in my, in my values and my mission, and it does not feed the purpose that I want to get to. I'm not doing it. Like, it's hard. And I can tell you too, also, I think that as women and the women that I work with are really, from that standpoint, if you don't know where your passion and your, your, your, Your values lay and you just take, you just take a job to take a job. It's hard to be happy and fulfilled in that because you're not going to know. And so then of course, that throws another pile on the stress and overwhelm and you know what, you're trying to get work life balance, but you really don't like your job. And it's this back and forth. And as women, like I said, we want to take a job, but we want to take the job that's right for us. And we don't want to be stressed out and overwhelmed and everything does not align with our values and our mission is put stress on us. At least I have experienced, you know, and, and so between the kids and the work and everything else that we do, being a wife, being a, being a mom, a wife, a woman by itself, that's three.

Right.

There is teachers that have that on top. And then, you know, there's people that have employees under them than their boss. So we have all these different hats to wear. And people always say, how did you. How do you do it? All right. And not that everything I do is stressing me out. It's most of the time the people around it that stress me out. Yeah, I got what's going on here. Right. I, I got it under control. I know what's happening. But stress is really related a lot of times to the little different distractions that are interfering with the life that we have.

That is very, that is very, very true. And you don't think about it, you know.

No, it's not, it's not that I want to, you know, that I have, I, I can't. My kids still have to go to school. I'm still a mom. They're not going away until they grown and moved out. Right. I can't change that. I, I would love a job that I love to do that is with the right company. Right. So. So that I have a job. So then I have that I'm a husband. I have a husband. My. I'm a wife. So I attend to that. Then we have elderly parents that we currently take care of. But overall, the little distractions, the phone for me, definitely, you know, the email checking the email, the work emails check. Responding to a text message from my boss after hours, which I'm like, yeah, it's not a problem. Like, I text it back and that's it. But I had to stop what I was doing and.

Exactly. Yeah.

That my kid is in the bathtub. Right now or that my kid is. Oh, that we're playing Barbies. Right. It takes away from that.

Now, what would you suggest for anybody who, okay, they're, they're struggling, you know, with that work life balance. They're struggling, struggling, you know, things they can control immediately. Obviously you can't control your boss. You can talk to your boss, but you can't actually.

Sure.

What could people do to start small? Like, what would the first thing be that you could recommend someone that's literally going crazy with work life balance?

So I think the first thing is being aware of what's happening on a daily basis in your life. And, and it's the, it's the little things, like I said, you know, it's taking inventory. And this is what I did. Take an inventory of a day, of a normal day in your life.

Okay.

And really looking at those things that you do, the five minutes here and the five minutes there and then when you add like I, I'm, I'm adhd and so that's even worse. Right? So I'm, I get squirrel moments and I'm all over the place. And that really, that's really a struggle for me. So I, I, you like, if I have things that I have to accomplish, there's certain tasks or certain things, things I set myself time blocks. Like email is one of my super time wasters, for instance. So when I'm at work, if I open my email in the morning, I would be doing email all day long because there's, oh, there's one that I have to respond. Another thing needs something for me to send. I'm like, and they're coming in all day long, right? So, so what I had to do, I had to say, okay, my email, I'm going to check this email. When I get first thing in the morning, there's 30 minutes of email. Then I have 30 minutes of email before lunch, and then I have 30 emails at the end of the day. And between those times, I turn my, like, literally I turn my email off, I close it down because I don't like these flashing buttons that pop up that say, oh, somebody sent you an email. Yeah, Right now my email on my phone will still bing, but when I turn the volume off it, you know, it doesn't matter.

Right.

So that was one thing that really saved me from wasting. Not, I'm not necessarily wasting, but being focused and initially like focus on that particular task during that time. I do a lot of time blocking just because my brain can just handle so much.

Okay.

And there's people coming to my office. And so I have to, like, I have to really be intentional about the things that I do at work. And so for me to get things done, like the five tasks on my list every day, I'm saying, okay, for these, this hour right here, we're gonna work on this. And when that hour is up, I stop that task and I move to the next one. Because then I know after lunch I'm gonna come back to that task and finish it because it takes me about two hours, right? Then I will exactly know where I'm at and, you know, if I need to do anything else. But really taking. I think time is a big factor in being overwhelmed and getting distracted and letting time get away from you. Okay, so time management, like I said, taking those small steps, being aware where your time was, are would be one. Setting some time blocks probably to kind of say, okay, what are the important things? Also knowing the third thing. Also knowing what kind of type personality you are. You the person that is super, super focused and super proactive and super productive first thing in the morning, Are you the one that sleeps in and then gets productive at a lunch? You have to, you have to find where your productive time is, were you super focused and where you are on top 100. Because you can get so much more done in that time frame. You know, when it hits 4 o' clock by me, I'm like, it's like, is it five o' clock somewhere? Right.

You, you bring up a good point. Because, like, I'm a night owl. I hate mornings. I cannot do them. So I am more. I'm much more productive in the evening or, you know, afternoon evening. And I'll stay up till 11 o' clock at night and work. It's not a big deal. But then again, I'm not up at Crocodile.

That's right.

Right. If anybody has any questions, by the way, I know we're streaming to some different platforms, so please ask away. You know, we'd be happy to answer them in the next couple minutes, but I just wanted to let somebody, you know, let people know in case they have questions. Now, one question that I do have is the guilt. So I know, I personally feel guilty when that thing, when that email comes in. It's like my brain wants to just check it or, you know, I really, I want to check it or the phone or whatever, the text, you know, how can you get rid of that guilt? I mean, how do you, you know, what advice do you have for people? And I know everybody out there probably Feels guilty not answering it.

So how do you, it's like, it's like the, it's like the, like and I know exactly what you mean. I, you know, for the longest, I mean, there's still some dies when I'm like, oh, I need to answer this email now. Like, but it's, it's okay. Like, it's, I always think and, and I, I, I, this, I learned this with my kids. When I am working from home or I have to, I'm working on my business because I'm running a business on the side of my job, right? I, I, I set the parameter of, okay, the next hour, mommy has to work. There's no distractions, right? And so when, when my kids, they come running in here. So the first few times I had, we had to train this, right? We have to practice this. And I said, if you are not bleeding, if somebody is not throwing up or you know, something urgent happened, then I, I'm not available. It's hard, especially when you have a six year old. You know, she's kind of like, mom, it is, but, but it's, it's like we said before, you have to set those boundaries. You have to really? Because when you set boundaries, you take that, you say it's okay for me to say no, and then you're not guilty.

Right, Right. Right.

And it's practicing, it is doing it. You have to do it daily. You have to say, you know, this is, this is the boundary, this is what I need to do now. And I cannot, like, I cannot divvy from that because it's got to get done. And if there's an email popping up, you're like, I believe, you know, that's why I had to turn my email off. Like, literally, I close it out on my computer. So it will not bang tomorrow. Yes, it will not. Little window says, because especially then when you see, oh, my boss is emailing me and I was like, oh, yes, it's really urgent. Is it really urgent?

Right?

Is it really? Does somebody die? Is somebody get killed?

Like, right. Chances are.

Think about it, think about it that way. Is it an emergency? If it's not an emergency, then it can't wait. No guilt, right?

But now about being aware, starting out, just being aware that you're absolutely, you're like this, you know, and we all, I think most people struggle just being aware of it and saying, okay, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm gonna start taking my life back or taking my day back, where absolutely my hours control your time.

You know, know what I think sitting down and, and writing down what's important to you in your life, writing down what, what, what is. You know, is your, Is your job more important than your family? Is your, you know, is it important to you that. That when you get off work that you don't want to hear nothing from work, right? Then. Then you can turn some of those distractions off, like your email and all that. You can turn all that off. Right? But. But you have to set those boundaries. But before you can set them, you have to be aware that.

No, I think, I think that's a great. I mean, it's a great point. And this is, you know, what we're talking about today, what you're, you know, teaching us today is something that I hear, the struggles. I hear people just. And I'm the same way. You know, my husband's. I have adhd, and so does he. So the two of us together, it's. It's tough sometimes in the same room, you know, where I have to go focus. Put your phone down for five seconds so I can talk to you. You know, and just, you know, it's. And it gets, it gets tough sometimes, you know, where I'm like, I gotta find out what that Bing was. I gotta find out who texted or who, you know, and like you said, 99.9% of the time, it can wait. You know, it can truly wait. You know, And I think just as a society, you know, we've gotten so used to instant, Instant gratification, instant responses, and in order to have a life, you know, I used to always own.

Sometimes we have to turn off.

Yeah, I don't do that anymore. I used to work on vacation. Seriously. In one year, I went away on a cruise and I actually worked. And I said, I'm never doing this again because I was miserable. Like, I, you know, it's like, why even go away if I'm going to work? So I never did that.

I read a study. Yes. Day before yesterday. I think it was talking about parents and their kids, and it was talking about. Took their kids to a park. And one. One group of parents were instructed to check their phone and do whatever their phone, you know, as much as they could. And the other ones were instructed to do as less as they could. And so at the end, when they came out, you know, they were interviewed separately from each other, saying, okay, so what was the experience? And you know, the ones that checked their phone constantly, I was constantly on it. I said, you know, I, I felt lonely. I didn't feel connected to my kid. I think I missed an opportunity to connect with my kids. And the other ones were the total opposite. You know, they said, I'm good. I'm glad that I didn't take my phone out. I'm glad that I made that memory with my kid. I'm glad that I, she finally float down the big slide. You know, it's like, it's just very easy to see that we're missing out on, on connection with the people that we love. We're missing out on connections or making memories, you know, seeing things that happen for the first time. Right. We're missing out on life. Yeah. For, you know, for things. And, and the kicker is I think what, what, what impressed me most of what I, when, when they were talking about that, you know, they were talking about also how the employees that do that, right. They have connectivity, they are more stressed out. So then companies lose productive hours because they are more sick, they're more at home, they are more overwhelmed, they are more burned out. You know, so it is a vicious cycle and it's, it's up to everybody, it's up to all of us, you know, to say, okay, what's important to me? How would I, how do I want to be and live my life and be connected? Because it's important, you know.

Right, Absolutely. And I know we got to wrap it up soon, but do you have, I mean, could you just real quickly explain again? Because a couple more people had jumped on since just kind of what you do, like your services in case somebody would be interested.

Sure, absolutely. And I have a, I have a great tool that I can share with you that you, you know, if somebody's interested. So I do, I work mainly with women in corporate management and we talk, we talk about everything. We talk about work, life, balance. We talk about burnout and stress. We talk about really passion and finding fulfillment and happiness in the role that they're in, in their career. And I have, I'm working with, on a faith based platform, so to say. So we do a lot of, you know, we have Christians that join us, we have people that are not Christian faith join us. But faith is a big part of what I teach and how I connect and how I have women kind of find their calm spot in their life and how they can draw strength out of their faith. So I do a lot of that just by. We do like 30 day increment, 30 day resets. I call it faith reset. And we talk all about those little things that, that it kind of Throw us off and then have really, that connectivity to our higher power, you know, and so that. That really helps women sometimes to really kind of say, okay, I need to have that foundation, that faith foundation. And then that's what we build off. And then we talk about how they can figure out if the job that they have is right for them. We talk about how that, you know, how that. How their goals and dreams are kind of connected to their career. So it's really interesting having a lot of amazing ladies that I work with. And it. You know, we have a Facebook group here on Facebook as well. So if. If you want to join, I'll be happy to share that link and.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I don't know if. Are you able to post comments on.

I don't. Let me see. I do in a minute. It says join. Showing the chat.

There you go.

It's gonna do something crazy. Hang on.

That's okay. That's okay. That's all right. So while you're looking for that, so, you know, again, your company is Crossroads Trans Transformation. I almost said Transportation Transformation. Crossroads Transformation. And you're gonna post a link that everybody can come of, go on if they have any. Any interest and, you know, hopefully we can do this again. You know, maybe do this once or twice a month or so. You know, whatever. It'll fit in for both of us.

Absolutely. I will post that link in just a second if I can pull it up here. My Internet is slightly slow.

That's okay.

I'll just.

Just real quick, guys. Again, I'm Laurie with top talent professionals, and I am currently working on a full platform. It's 99.9% done for career coaching. So I have everything already set up. I just got to kind of fill in the blanks, and hopefully that platform will be live next week. So I'm hoping to be able to, you know, help people with career coaching. It's called career coaching now. So it's, you know, anybody can go on the platform. It is a fee. It's not a large fee, but it is a fee to go on the platform and be able to get everything that you need, career coaching wise, from before you start the job search until you get your first raise or promotion. So it pretty much covers a lot. So just throw that in.

Hey, Lori, I cannot post it on here.

What is your Facebook group? What's the name?

I just text. I just send you a messenger with it.

Oh, okay.

Hang on. I can. I can.

Because I can't see it from here. So go ahead. What is it called? What's the Facebook group?

Okay. It's called Crossroads Transformation.

Okay.

But if you find it on Facebook.

Okay. The Crossroads Transformation Facebook group. Okay. Yeah, I'll post it here so that.

Okay.

Anybody even looking at the rewind or the. Okay, there we go. Okay, so that's on there now. All right.

Okay.

All right, well, thank you so much. Is there anything you want to end with? Anything at all?

I just want to say, you know, it's. It was my pleasure being here. Thank you so much for having me. It was a great topic to talk about, and I hope that I, you know, have inspired and. And found some ladies that take that and maybe become less stressed, less, you know, have more work, balance and think about the things that you do currently. Be aware. I think that's the main. That's the main thing.

I love that first step is being aware, you know, and I love that. And you actually got me thinking about a couple things, so thank you and thanks everyone who joined us again. You're all. You're all in different platforms, but I appreciate you guys joining and. And I will be back next week. I'll talk to you guys soon. And thank you so much, Sandra.

You're welcome, Lori. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Bye.

Bye.

Bye. Bye.