Podcast episode (Freedom through Passive Income, Ep. 109) hosted by Flip and Danielle Robison of Freedom Real Estate Group exploring whether "work–life balance" is a myth. The hosts share contrasting personal rhythms for managing work and rest (Flip prefers multi-week stretches of intense work followed by several days off; Danielle prefers shorter intense periods and more frequent breaks), discuss how balance changes with life stage, mention a Cancun mastermind and Danielle's target "freedom day" (July 31, 2023), and close with calls-to-action to subscribe and visit FreedomCapitalInvestments.com.
Hey, everybody. Flip and Danny here, founders of the Freedom Real Estate Group family of companies, and welcome to another episode of our podcast, which is called Freedom through Passive Income. Thank you very much.
You are very welcome.
This episode is called Is Work Life Balance a Myth?
I like this one because I recently posted on Facebook about doing a mastermind in Cancun.
Right, yeah, been there.
I asked about. I asked about, what type of topics would you like to talk about? And I want to say two or three people mentioned work, life, balance. I thought that's interesting. I feel like everybody says that a lot, right? Really wanting to have a little bit more life than work, because as entrepreneurs and just overachievers, a players, we all just. We drive, we drive, we drive, and then we go, oh, man, I'm burnout. And then we forget to actually take time for ourselves. And, you know, so everybody wants that. I don't want. Yeah, I don't want to get burnout. I actually want to have nice balance so that I get some rest time, and I'm really that much more productive and effective at work or, you know, at whatever it is that you're doing. So I thought it was a really good thing to do an episode about, because something that we probably have struggled with. I know I have. I get burnout. I go as hard as I can until I get burnout, and then I go, flip. I can't do it. I just need, like, a day or two days of nothing, and I have to crash. Right. You've literally left me on the couch for a couple days on a weekend.
Just not like, yeah, don't touch her. No one talk to Dani. Just give her the dogs. There you go.
But it's what was needed for me to jump back in on Monday, Right. Because I had pushed myself too long and too far working through weekends and nights and everything else. So I think this is a really interesting topic. And I saw somebody posted about an idea about this balance being a myth. So do you want to kind of speak to what we talked about before we started recording in terms of what do you mean by isn't a myth? And it's kind of because the scales are not balanced, right?
Well, that's true. They are not balanced. And it depends on who you talk to, too, because there's some people that will say, I only get four hours of sleep every night. I haven't had a day off in 10 years. So you've got those knuckleheads. I don't know. Well, I do know other words I could call them, but we're just going to call them knuckleheads for today. And then you've got the other full other end of the spectrum then. And then you've got the. The four day work week.
Yeah.
Which is, you know, we've implemented that here at the office a time or two. Yep. But it's. It depends on, you know, like I said, it depends on who you talk to. But a lot of people, they struggle with this, so it's so hard, you know, And I like what you had written here. The few weeks of relentless focus on a single project, you know, that can get. Can produce a great amount of results, but a few weeks of relentless focus on teaching something to your kids might produce a meltdown, you know, so it depends on your work life balance and on exactly, you know, what you need. Because everybody's different.
Yeah.
What I need is different than what you need. You're a sports car that puts in the gas and goes down the highway at 120 miles an hour until you crash into something. Yes, I take the side roads.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's just do a live example. So I'll say if my uneven balance of what I would call a work life balance would be heavy work, meaning going for. I could probably do two weeks steady and feel really good about it. And I would make so much progress and drive so much momentum in that five days plus the week. In five days I might go three weeks.
Right.
So it just depends. Right. But I could, I could do that and then I could just stop and give me two days of just rest or fun or get out. Maybe even three to four days. But a very small. It's not. It's. If it's gonna be three weeks, let's just say it's three because that sounds more like me. A week, a weekend, a week, a week in and a week and I gain momentum and it's just awesome. And then I take, let's just say four days. That would probably feel really good. By the time I'm done with four days, I'm itching to get back to it.
Yeah. Usually middle of the fourth day, you're like, can I have my iPad? Can I have a computer?
That's right.
I need to do something.
Yes. So that's uneven. Right. But it's perfectly balanced to me to have that long run because it's what I love. And then have the short break because now it's given me enough rest for me to dive back in and be excited about it. So what is it for you?
Oh, I'm definitely not three weeks. You're three days pushing. No, I mean, honestly, I mean, I don't know if three weeks. I would probably be toast by the end of week two. I need to have the breaks. I know that. And I won't. My limit, as I'm going, as I'm filling up the meter to know when I need to take a break, mine goes a lot faster than yours does Mine. I don't even get up to your level. I get up to here, and I'm like, I need a break. You know? But I guess that's. That's also a good thing, I guess, you know, so that way I don't get to the burnout stage. Occasionally I've gotten to the burnout stages. Like, whoa, we need to take a break.
If I'm at the burnout stage.
Yeah. And typically, you know, the weekend, usually I'll go. I'll. I'll work one weekend, and then the next weekend I'll take those two days off, and then I'll work the next weekend. I'll take the next. You know, that's typically my schedule.
Yeah. So. But it's not perfect balance, right?
No, no, no, it's not.
It's still heavier work than life.
It's definitely heavier work.
Yeah. So would you like to change it?
Oh, yeah. We're. We're. We're. We're. We are changing that as we are going right now. It's. It's a little. Little baby steps. We're changing this and this and this to change that.
Now it comes back to your freedom Day, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Somebody said that I could have retired already, which I'm still. I've got my legal team working on this to find out what the. What the truth in that is. But, you know, we talked about my freedom day, which is. Gosh, I should have checked my thing. It's like 15 months or something. So many days. But it's July 31st of 2023 now. It's not going to be my freedom. I'm not going to just like, all of a sudden, just on August 1st, be on the couch all day. That sounds fun, but, I mean, it's just. It's actually gonna do something different.
Yeah.
I'm not gonna stop doing anything. I'm not gonna stop working, and I'll still do stuff.
Sure.
So. But. But it's. That's more on life than on work.
Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like balance depends on the time of your life and what your focus is as to what balance looks like, but there is a way to create a balance that isn't necessarily, you know, something that's even. I think of what are those scales called? Isn't it like Lady Justice? And she's carrying these scales.
The scale of justice.
Yeah. When people say balance, I think of them being even. But when you talk about this, it's really not even right. It's just what's the refreshing part of it. So I'm gonna be heavy work and I'm gonna be light on here, but it's a balance for me. And I think for you, it's a little bit maybe right here. And those of you not watching the video, you're not even get to see my little scales moving up and down. But, I mean, you get the idea.
Yeah, absolutely. And plus age, like you said age.
Yeah.
I mean, like, look at those kids getting out of college and working on Wall street like 80, 90 hours a week. You know, I mean, it's plus. I'm not saying that we worked that many hours, but I mean, when we worked on cruise ships, those were ridiculous hours.
Yeah.
You know, and so it's. I couldn't do that today.
Yeah, I agree. This is a good. This is a good fun topic because I hear about. People talk about work life balance all the time. So I thought it was fun to talk about it.
And before we end this, though, did anyone else pick up on the irony that we would fly to Cancun to a resort to have a mastermind about work, life balance? So what are we going to talk about, work or life in those meetings? That's brilliant. I love it. I'm in. Don't get me wrong, I'm in.
Tax write off, man.
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