Chris Collins Unleashed: Episode 7 - What is the Ideal Work / Life Balance?

Welcome to Chris Collins Unleashed. All you have to do is listen.

Welcome everybody to Chris Collins Unleashed. Today we are going to talk about work life balance, the lack of or the accomplishment of. How you doing, Jimin?

I'm doing well. Got plenty of work life balance. I'm feeling very balanced today. You are? Yes. Tons of work life balance.

You're gonna tell everybody how to do it?

Tell them how to do it. Yeah.

Do you have like five steps to work life balance? That's right, the recipe.

Step one, work harder. No. Step two, work more. Nobody answered here. Back.

Step three, work from home.

20X.

That's right.

Well, first let's start off with our new segment that we have.

Our new segment. Okay, I'm ready. Hold on, let me get my notes out of the way. Ah.

The follow.

You know what we love. I'm the greatest gift giver ever.

That's right.

You're bourbon. You love your bourbon.

Still the reigning champ.

And so what's that stuff called?

Yellow rose. Crafted in Texas. Outlaw bourbon.

So for Gary's birthday, I bought him a bourbon of the month club. So every month he gets one.

Yep.

They don't last that long around here.

They don't.

People are very willing to help you out. Now I'm gonna guess what that bourbon tastes like. You can guess and I'll be 100% right.

Okay. Tastes.

Tastes like the ass of oak barrel.

I do not get.

Oh, this one's pot stilled.

I was. I was hanging out with my buddy Larry Winget yesterday. Yeah. And you know what he told me?

Huh?

That in Mexico there is such a thing as a tequila salmon.

Oh, really?

Yeah. I showed you a picture of his. His own. What would you call that tequila collection? I don't know. Yeah, but he has scotch.

Bourbon. Bourbon. It looked like mostly bourbon.

And Scott and him, they get along good.

Yeah.

And then there was a little bit of tequila in the back. And that's where we went.

I like his little sign. Is it a brown. Was it brown?

Larry's brown cabinet or something like that.

It's like brown liquor, you know, brown liquor and cigars is what it's called. Larry's brown liquor.

Larry Winget knows how to do it right. He's the man. And he has a bulldog.

So. Last one I got from Texas was a little rough. That's all I'm gonna say. I'm not really sure. I'm not down in Texas, but saying.

That things are rough.

I'm a California boy.

Like the cowboys in the playoffs.

Let's see, like Tony Ro.

You're running back some. Suspended for a while. I know.

He's appealing, my man. He's appealing.

Only means that they don't miss the playoffs.

Tastes like ass of an oak barrel, right? Can I try it?

Sample?

Is it going to be anything different than the ass of an oak barrel? You say like, oh, there's, there's hints of cherry.

No, it just lights my nose on fire. That one's hot.

It's terrible.

Okay.

Well, it's so black.

It wraps up our first edition of Stuff I Love. We're going to change the name of that to Stuff Gary loves.

That was an exciting edition of Stuff I Love.

So.

Delicious.

When it comes to work life balance, I got a lot to say about this.

I know.

Pour yourself a drink.

You just want to get started. I'm going to sit over here.

Yeah. Work life balance.

I had to print out notes so I could keep track of what's going on with this.

Okay, so let's frame. Let's frame this and have a basic starting point for everybody listening about where we need to start. So the starting point for this is how poor were you born? Like, if you're born with money, work life balance is a little easier to achieve.

Yeah.

We weren't born with money, so that's.

Out the window right away.

Yeah. And so it's like, where, where did you start? Right. Because if you, if you were born into money, then it's. It's a lot easier. And then the second part is, what did you want to achieve? So how high do you want to go? Because work life balance definitely.

Changes as your ambitions change. So if you were born poor and you say you want to be a billionaire.

Good luck.

If you were born poor and you want to work at the post office, you can achieve work life balance. And so it's in direct correlation between your ambition and what you want to accomplish. So that's the first part.

So you have to be willing to pay the price. That's the thing.

We hang out with people with a lot of money.

Yep.

And the topic of conversation is never work life balance.

No.

You know who talks about work life balance?

Middle managers.

Middle managers or people that, that aren't, you know, that aren't really that focused on being successful.

Right.

Because people who want to be successful, the conversation work life balance number comes up. In fact, I was at that mastermind that we're in. We were at an event and Tony Robbins came to speak. Right. And this is one of the funniest things is somebody went up to the microphone and asked him a question, and he laughed at him because they asked the work life balance question. People don't think about that. If you have. So part of the key to being successful is clarity. And if you have clarity on what you want to do. So if you have a very clear goal of what you want to accomplish, what do you want to contribute to the world, whatever it is. And I'll tell you, I was watching this isn't a political thing, but there's a documentary on HBO that was recorded, was released back in 2009, and it's about Obama before he decided to run for president. But it goes all the way through his election. But he's starting off in Iowa or whatever, and he's a senator, then he's deciding if he's gonna run or not.

There's no work life balance for him. No, he worked like, it made me want to work harder when I watched that, because one minute he's on the phones raising money, the next minute he's giving a speech, then he's writing a speech for the next thing while he's back on the phones, while he's kissing babies and on a plane back to Washington to vote on something. Like, it never stops. And he, you know, he had a bigger cause. And so that's the thing, like I, I, I say is, like, it depends on how big your goal is, how much you care about work life balance. Because if you have clarity of what your goal is, then you have an ability then to enlist your family and everybody else. And so the, the guy that has the wife that's going, honey, you're never home. Honey, you're, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He doesn't have clarity because his wife isn't bought into what they're doing. And they're not a couple. They're definitely not a power couple. But when you watch that documentary, Michelle Obama was working just as hard as Obama was. Like, they weren't, they weren't arguing about, you're, honey, you're never home. They, they had a bigger mission. And so if your mission is to contribute something back to the world or accomplish a certain goal and it's big enough and contagious enough that your wife or family or everybody are going to buy into it, then it transcends. And the conversation of work, like, balance doesn't come in. You get obsessed, right? And you go for it.

Could you imagine Michelle Obama going, you're never home. You know, he's like, yeah, I'm trying to become president of the United States. What's Wrong with you?

No, I always.

It just doesn't even compute. Like, it just. It wouldn't happen? It just wouldn't happen? No, it's too big, and it's too big.

Can you imagine? Just Giselle. Is that how you say it? Tom Brady and the playoffs? Honey, you need to come home and play with the kids. They haven't seen you in a couple days. You're at practice too much. They're always working. No, he wants to win a Super bowl. And the talk is about a Super bowl. And they get on the phone and they're like, daddy, how is practice? Are you going to win the Super Bowl? Like, and so the problem with family not buying in and your spouse not buying in and work life balances, your goal isn't clear enough. And you're not, you know, everybody isn't on board with it. And so I think if you're, if you're a couple, husband and wife, and you have a big goal, that that conversation happens between the couple. Not alone. That isn't a goal you go after alone. And so when, when somebody comes to us and they, they're like, oh, well, you know, I'm having problem with my spouse. They say I work too much and this and that. It's like, well, was it their goal or your goal? Because if it's not your goal as a team and you guys aren't a power couple going after the school, it's not going to work. So they, they have to agree. And then when they, when your spouse agrees, you have to have the conversation about what the price is going to be to pay, because you're not going to go from one income level to another income level without there being a price.

Yeah, for sure.

It doesn't. Nobody hands it to you. And so I think the rest of the world thinks like, oh, I'm going to get lucky, and there's all these levers and magic pills that I can take, and I'm. I mean, there are things that you can do to relieve the stress and manage things better, but for the most part, when you're starting off, when you're trying to accomplish something and you start with nothing, their work life balance isn't the focus.

Yeah. You have to invest the time. And I think, too, if you're a middle, you know, you're a middle manager and you're. You're working, you know, in a job, and you're, you're not really building equity for yourself. You're, you know, you're building equity for somebody else, and that changes the way you feel about it too. And people like that want work life balance because they're investing their time. Yeah. They're getting a reward, but at the same time they're not building their own thing. Right. So if you're building your own business and you're, you know, you're work, like you said before, you're working towards something much bigger, you know, for yourself and for your family, then the work life balance conversation kind of just goes out the window because you do what you got to do to get there. Yeah.

Now, like I, I remember very distinctly the. When I was consulting, like when you're consulting and going. So on a commission basis, I would go into businesses and turn them around and I, I had no more days to sell. Like I was stuck. Like I couldn't. There were 26 days in the month that I could work and that was it. Like. And so I'd fly over the country and I was doing that and I wanted to get out of that and create some sort of, you know.

Info product. And so I want to write a book. And so what am I going to write the book when I'm doing that?

Yeah. On a plane.

Weekends.

Yeah, weekends. Nights. Yeah.

On vacation. So I take a vacation to write a book, right. And so that's how it is. And then I write the book and it isn't any good. And then I write it again.

Right.

And it took me three years to finish that first book. Nobody was going to do it for me.

Like I heard Tony Robbins say one time, he said, you know, everybody always asks him, you know, where, when am I going to find the time? I've got no time. I can't, you know, I just don't have enough time to get, get it done and follow my dream and do what I want to do. And he says, he goes, okay, you know, say you work a job and you work 9 to 5. He goes, what about the hours from 7 to 2? What are you doing then? Yeah, like, I don't know, do something there. You got the weekends. It's the only way there are hours available. And it, and it might not feel convenient and it might hurt a little, you know, if you pay the price like you were what you wanted to pay the price so you can get it done and have this, you know, product sell, have the book written. You got to do it.

Yeah. So I think work life balance is the wrong question. You can easily achieve work life balance if, if you're okay with where you're at. It's easy. Just do things A little smarter where you're at. But if. If you're looking to go up another step and grow and, you know, do more or contribute more, you're going to pay a price because you have to learn. It's not going to be easy. And it isn't like, just because you commit, it's going to be handed to you. You have to work and things are going to go wrong. You know, I wrote that book, that first one, it was terrible. And then, you know, and it's hard to scrap something that you spend a year on and then you got to start fresh and then you go again and, you know, literally was the third one that finally I got the idea. And it's. It's not easy. Everybody wants to tell you it's easy and there's a magic pill and there's nothing. What makes it easy is if you're that committed to that thing that you want to accomplish. Like when you watch that documentary with Obama, he was that committed to. Was a bigger thing. It was bigger than him.

Yeah, he was gonna back down just because, you know, he. Because he needed to, I don't know, sleep on the couch or something and watch the latest rerun of whatever TV show. Like, that just wasn't gonna happen. You know, he just. That balances and doesn't exist.

And I think, like, even when you look at Trump, like, it was the same thing for him. The thing he said is he didn't.

He.

He didn't understand how hard it was going to be. Like, same thing for him. He was hitting five cities. He was doing it different than Obama that he had. He had bigger leverage because he had money so he could fly on his jet and park in a, you know, in a hangar and have an event and fly to another. But he was flying to five cities in a day there towards the end, giving speeches and everything. It wasn't. He still was working harder than he'd ever worked.

Right.

But he wanted that thing. Right. So whatever it is you want to accomplish, I don't know that work life, balance is the right question. It's, are you obsessed with what you want? Is that goal that you want that big?

I think, like Tone, what Tony was saying was he believed in work, life, integration. And so I think, you know, that's probably an easier term for people to get their head wrapped around. Whereas, you know, like, he was saying, I'm try. He's traveling to all these foreign countries and. But he's bringing his kids along with him. He's bringing his life along with him on the trip and his kids are, you know, they were homeschooled or he brought the, you know, the, the teacher, nanny or whatever with them so they could, you know, they could continue their education. They're not missing out on anything. But then they also get to go to these, you know, these crazy cool destinations and be around their father. So he's not, he's not missing that time, he's not losing that time with them, but he's integrating that with his life and his traveling, you know.

Yeah. And I, I think that's kind of another point too is like when you're, when you're doing that, you can afford a jet, you can afford other things. Right. And so it makes certain things like that easier, but the conversation still isn't work, life balance.

Right.

Like everybody in his family knows dad's got to go do a, you know, a two day seminar and he's going to be on stage for 12 hours and lose his voice and he's going to come home exhausted and he's not coming home and his wife's going, honey, will you do the homework with the kids?

Right, yeah.

He's going right to bed and he's got to get up the next morning and do it again. Right?

Yeah, exactly.

But on the days off, like he, you know, he's, he's part of the family and it gives him that, that freedom. But when, when it's game time, the family is behind him in, in that goal and they're supporting him and there aren't expectations that he needs to do homework with the kids or, you know, do honeydews around the house. It just isn't the thing.

And so that was the, you know, you're like, you were saying, like, we hang out with, with people with a lot of money. And one thing I found interesting is that they start to eliminate things from their life that they don't want to do. And so you, you know, you gain more time by, you know, getting rid of those things that just aren't, they're not your favorite things to do, like, you know, like mowing the lawn. No. Driving.

I don't know if, if he would want us to say his name, but we know somebody. And he said, I haven't driven a car in 12 years. Yeah. And I'm like, what? He goes, yeah, I just decided one day I get road rage. I hate traffic. And so he lives in Toronto, Canada and Chicago.

Yeah.

He said, I haven't, I haven't driven a car in 12 years. I have a service. They Come pick me up. That's it.

Well, then cooking was a big one. Like, there's hardly anybody in.

That was the only one in that room that. So in the room, in the mastermind, they said, how many people here have a private chef? And I think I was the only one that didn't raise my hand.

But that's, you know, thing like you're thinking about, how am I going to eat? Where am I going to find food? Like, you know, I got to cook, I got to eat. And if you get that out of the way, then you free up a lot of time. Not just time making or preparing your meals, but also time just thinking about it or going to the grocery store for that matter.

Can you imagine if a private chef came into my place? Because anybody who doesn't know my fiance, Missy, that's her. Like, if I. If she could be upstairs, around the corner in the bathroom, and I could go in the kitchen and open a cupboard, and she'd go, what do you need?

Right. Yeah.

What do you need? Like, don't mess with my kitchen. And so can you imagine a private chef in there?

Oh, yeah.

She would stab them.

It'd be a smackdown.

Yeah.

This wouldn't happen. Yeah, well, that's the thing. So when we started doing the lunch boxes where they'd bring us lunch, Kati got all offended.

Yeah.

So Kati, my wife, was like, well, I was making lunches for you, and I'm all, yeah, but this is easier. It's always there and this and that. You don't have to get up. And she's like, no, no, no, that's my job.

So funny. Yeah, that's work life, balance.

But there. Yeah, I think. I mean, you know, that's another part of it, too. So, you know, for us both, I don't think, you know, our spouses don't really work, and, you know, they're.

But that's. That's on purpose.

Yeah. And it's intentional.

And like, I. I told Missy right up front, I'm like, I. I need somebody who wants to be a wife.

Yeah.

And it's okay if, like, you know, there's a career is okay. I. I get it. But for me, like, the thing that I need is I, you know, I'm going to be doing this and I'll take care of you, but it has to be. You have to be okay with taking care of me the other way.

Yeah. So that's another example of, like, work life integration that, you know, we're building something and working hard, and there's certain things that take time, you know, that are at home, that require somebody to be there doing that. And so, you know, you share those. Those roles. And that's a choice that you're making in order to get to where you want to go. And to go back to your point from the very beginning was if you're unified in your goal and you're both looking at the same thing, then that conversation is way easier. Right. You're not asking them to give up anything. We're both going towards. Towards the same thing. And so you're just. We're just going to support each other in different ways. But, you know, again, you're. You're integrating that.

Yeah, it's funny, too, when. When I'm at home and there's people in the office gossiping or not working, and. And Missy's like, are we focused on our goal or not? Because they're a waste. All these. They're sitting around talking, why don't they work? And then it has the reverse effect.

Right? That's right.

When are they going to get to work? Why aren't they working? So funny. She's like, they want to stop me and talk about the thing and the thing, but I know they should be working.

There are days when I catch myself talking to her like an employee, which I always have to correct pretty fast. Oh, yeah.

What did she ask for the other day? Oh, you know that statue from Top Dog?

Oh, yeah.

She wanted to mail it, and she, she. They were getting bubble wrap for it or something, and she asked them to send her what they ordered on Amazon and they wouldn't send it to her.

Oh, really?

And they said, oh, there's a business account separate from the personal. I'm like, what's the difference?

Right?

I cleared that up. I'm like, she can see anything she wants. But why wouldn't. What's. What's a business Amazon account? What does that mean? How is it not the same to her?

Yeah, exactly.

Like she just wants to know what the bubble wrap is.

But it's just interesting. They make the separation between the two. Right. Whereas you don't see it that way. It's like they're all one in the same work life. This, that, personal business, it's all the same thing. Yeah.

It's funny that, you know, that's a funny thing, but it's cute. Anything else you want to say about work life Bounce? What about all those papers you have?

I told you to need that.

I haven't.

So they did a little research for Gary, they gave him research and he hasn't read it. Read the reads. Just read the top of that. What does it say?

It says. It says, the main idea is what does achievement look like to different people? It's up to you. What do you want to achieve? And if you have lofty goals, then you're either obsessed or you're not. Oh, well, that's pretty good, huh?

That's kind of what we said.

What's the next one?

6 tips for better Work Life Balance.

No, this is another one under Ariana Huffington. Sleep Revolution versus Arnold Schwarzenegger. They're talking about sleep. How do you stay healthy while achieving your goals? What price are you willing to pay to get to where you are?

You're going to put on 30 pounds, you're gonna smoke a lot of cigars and drink, and you're gonna be stressed all the time.

That's right. It's fine. I see nothing wrong with that.

If you get whiskey in the month, you're sweet.

That's us. We're here to. To tell you the truth and contradict all the lies out there about work life balance.

That's right.

You can have as much work life balance as you want. Just. It's relational to your ambition.

Yeah, yeah, that's it exactly.

And if you. If you have big ambitions, get. Get your family and everybody on board and have them want it too. Otherwise it's not going to work.

Go after. You can't go after it alone. Go after it like your life depends on it.

Like a honey badger.

That's it. If you're gonna do that. What either was it? Where's the balance? Like, I'll stop breathing for five minutes while I balance my life out. No, if you're going to feel like your life.

That's a funny. It makes me think about being in high school and then I decided I was going to be a famous drummer, right? So I just practice drums all the time. I was like obsessed. I remember you said, well, the drums are cute. That's good, you know, but you need a backup plan. I'm like, there's no backup plan.

I don't know. There's no backup plan. I've always lived that way. Like, you're all in, like, backup plan. So now I'm gonna spend 50% of my time on a backup plan.

Right?

Like pick a side.

Yeah.

Burn your ships.

Exactly. And dip a toe in. Yeah.

It's good. Well, thanks everybody for listening. I hope you have a great week. Please share this with your friends and tell everybody about it. And we will see you again very soon.

Yeah. Don't forget to subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Thanks.