ERF 949: The Work-Life Balance Nobody Talks About

If you're someone who thinks, oh man, I work too much, if people tell you you need to relax more, have more work-life balance, or if you're someone who thinks, man, I'm not working enough, I need to be more dedicated, more disciplined, put in more hours, then this podcast is going to be for you. I'm going to go through my framework, opinion, thought process on work-life balance. I'm going to talk about what works for me, what I consider to be work-life balance, and how you might be able to take away some things to implement into your life as well, to live a more fulfilled, less stressful and anxiety and guilt-ridden life, and actually have the correct work-life balance. And by the way, if you're someone who's tuning in who mainly listens to the fitness content, I will relay this back to your fitness journey, whether it be with your workouts, whether it be with your diet. All of this can really be applicable to any area in life that you are trying to improve. And I want to make this disclaimer first and foremost: I am talking to high achievers in this podcast. I'm not talking to people who just want to skate by in life and do the bare minimum and just kind of like go through the motions. Nothing wrong with that. If that's you, Kudos to you. We all live our life in different ways, and I truly do mean that. But the things I'm gonna say in this podcast, they are not meant for people who just want to skate by. They are meant for people who are high achievers. And that doesn't mean you have to make $1 million a year, or that doesn't mean you have to grind, grind, grind. It just means if you're somebody who you continuously find yourself Maybe feeling like you're not doing enough. You're always looking for the next goal or the next thing to achieve. Even when you already achieved the goal, you're always looking for something else. That to me is a high achiever. That's pushing yourself. That's wanting more. That's wanting better for yourself. And so that's who I'm talking to in this podcast. So there's no need to leave mean reviews or comments if you don't like what I have to say, because this might not apply to you, and that is perfectly fine as well. And my thesis of work-life balance in general kind of revolves around— think about like the thermostat in your house. If you're in a place where there's seasons, maybe unlike Florida or something, but if you're in a place where there's seasons, during the winter you might have to crank the heat up more, and then during the summer you might crank the heat down and you might crank the AC up way higher during the summer. There's no one correct temperature. There's no one correct answer for work-life balance. And that's the thesis of this entire podcast that I'm about to dive into, is I have always been like this and I always will be like this. For whatever reason, people think there are standards that you have to follow that society somehow places on us. People think you have to go to college, you have to get married, you have to have kids, you have to have the white picket fence house, you have to work 40 hours a week and take the weekends off. Like, you don't have to do anything. I am a firm believer, and I've— for, again, for whatever reason, I've always been so anti this. I remember when I was 16, 17, 18 years old, it was like this burning fire in me that I was like, I'm not gonna listen. To what society thinks, or what other people think I should do with my life, which is why I've built a life for me that I love. I love what I do every single day. I love who I do it with. I love making these podcasts with you guys. If I would have listened to the people that told me, "You're working too much." That's not a real job. You should do this instead. Take the weekends off. Just chill out a little bit. If I would've listened to those people, I would've never been here right now. And so I, I, there is no one right answer when it comes to work-life balance. And I'm gonna give you permission today to throw away society's rule book or your friends or your parents or your coworkers or whoever is trying to influence what they think is correct on what your life should be. And think about that for a second. And I will, I'll say that I love my parents. They're the best parents in the world, and I would not be where I am without them. But they, they don't want my life. I want a different life than what they want. They see life as a certain way, which is fine. It's how they grew up. That's how they lived. their life, and they're like, well, Eric, you should do this. When I was growing up, like, and again, they love me, and they think— and this is the thing about all of this. People think they're telling you the right thing, or they're trying to advise you on the right way to do it. My parents are like, why are you working? It's 8:00 PM on a Saturday. What do you mean I'm texting you and you're working? Go out, have some fun, go hang out with your friends. What are you doing? You're 21 years old, 22 years old. Meanwhile, I'm just grinding away and working and doing what I am. And I'm not saying what I'm doing is right, but that is what was right for me. This is my life. I don't expect anybody else to understand because they're not living my life. They're not in my head. They don't know exactly what I want. And this relates to you because your life is completely different from mine. Maybe you're a parent who has 3 kids and you want to show up to all of your kids' soccer games. Okay. That's completely different. And again, that is great. So you might have a different work-life balance than what I have. So I wanna run through quickly my, what I kind of wrote down as like my 3 gears. And I think this will be helpful for you. And I please just beg you, I understand not everybody is me. I understand you're not. You know, you might have kids. I don't have kids. You might have a 9 to 5. I own a business. I understand that we might be in different scenarios and/or you might be listening to this and you're in the exact scenario I am, but please don't focus on the specifics. Focus on the higher level ideology of what I'm about to talk about, because I really think you can apply this to your life. So going into my 3 gears that I like to think about for my work-life balance, I would say 80 to 90+ percent of the time I'm in my grind state. I am like, I'll use this past couple of weeks as our example. We are running an 8-week New Year's challenge, which by the way, this podcast is gonna come out on Monday, January 12th. So if you, if you want to join the 8-week challenge, I've been talking about it today. Like, if you don't book your call today, then you won't be able to enter the challenge. I will let you in today if you book your call today. If you book your call and you sign up today, I'll let you in. But if not, if it's tomorrow, if it's Wednesday, unfortunately you can still sign up for our coaching, but you're not going to be able to join the 8-week challenge. Link in the show notes of the podcast. If you're done fucking around and you are like, I don't wanna miss out on this, click the link in the show notes. It's actually funny. We had a, we had one of our new clients, Cindy, shout out to you, Cindy. She joined because she was like, I fucking listen to the podcast. I hear you talk about it. Like, fuck it, I just need to do it. So if that's you, link in the show notes. But right now it's a very busy time for me and for all of us on my team and, and our employees and our coaches and everything, because we're getting a lot of people signed up. We're getting a lot of people onboarded. It's, it's more work, it's more effort, it's more intensity, it's more attention to detail. It's, it's, it's everything. So these last couple of weeks, you know, I'm up at 5:00 AM and I'm going to sleep at, you know, my, my last call sometimes ends at 8:30 PM or 9:00 PM. And then I, you know, gotta do my little bedtime routine. I go to sleep, I wake up, I do it the next day, all while making sure I'm on my calorie deficit, which by the way, I'm down 14 pounds in 5 or 6 weeks. Getting my workouts in, getting my walks in, getting my steps in, doing all the other stuff that's required for my business and content and things. And so I'm, I'm like, I'm grinding. And transparently, that's, that's 80 to 90% of my life. And some people would probably say more than 90%. But so that's the first gear, right? Is, is my, I'm grinding, I'm all in, I'm working 7 days a week, every single day. Like today, I'm recording this at 10:15 AM on a Saturday. Like this is just, this is what I do. And I'm going to work the rest of the day today because, you know, I have some calls for the 8-week challenge that's going on and, and, uh, you know, making content and preparing A lot of times on the weekends, I will use the weekends to prepare for the upcoming week because I know Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday is, is a little bit busier with like the actual dynamics of the business, whereas Saturday and Sunday I can take more advantage and, and, and, and create more things and, and, and do some of the deep work that I need to do. So that's the first gear, right? The second gear is kind of what I call the sprinkle. And so what this is, I will use a couple of examples. Last year in 2025, I took, I don't know, maybe 4 trips that were just like, I'm going away for a couple of days. Like people who listen to the podcast know this about me. I love the beach. And so I went to San Diego, I went to Florida, 3 times I went to, I went to, I just shouldn't have moved there, but I went to Florida 3 times, went to Colorado. I went to Vegas. Vegas was more of a business thing, but nonetheless. So let's just say 5 little sprinkles, right? And during these sprinkles, I'm not fully stopping like work-life balance. I'm still working when I'm there. But I will take 4, 3, 5 days to kind of just like enjoy being at the beach or enjoy going out to eat to some nice dinners or enjoy hanging out with some of my friends that I know in these areas. And so it's a, it's like I'm a little bit less dialed in. So like we talked about the thermostat earlier, right? It's like I'm, I'm a little bit, I'm not cranking the heat all the way, right? I'm not just like blasting, grinding it out. I'm taking a little bit of a step back, but I'm still working because to me, when I go on these trips, like it's enough for me to just like, I don't know, like I was in Florida this past December and I was there for like 4 days, 5 days, 4 days, 5 days. And like every morning woke up, went to the beach, went for a run, went for a little swim. Uh, um, one day I didn't go in the morning. I went more like midday and just kind of took like a couple of hours at the beach because that's what I like doing. But then the rest of the day, I'm working, I'm creating content, I'm, you know, doing the emails, I'm, I'm handling business stuff. Like, it wasn't like I fully stopped. I worked, but I just sprinkled in this time. So for me, that's— and that's enough for me. Like, that's cool. I got that. There are, there are moments where like, I just need to get the fuck out of like my current environment just because I, I like Going to different places and just like visually seeing different things versus just staying in my one house and my one desk. And sometimes I want to be in my one house and my one desk, right? This is where, again, there's no right answer to this. So that's the second gear. And then the third gear is fully unplugging, doing absolutely fucking nothing. Okay? So this February, actually in about a month when I'm releasing this podcast, I will be In Turks and Caicos, I am going to. I'm going to this private island. It sounds weird saying that, but it sounds fucking sick saying that. So I want to say it out loud. And it's it's gonna be great. Like it's everything that I want. It is in the middle of nowhere. There will be no emails. There will be no calls. There will be no content creation. There will be no slack. There will be no nothing about business. Nothing. At all. It's like full stop. I am completely unplugging everything, right? It's gonna be great food. It's gonna be chill. It's gonna be just laying on the beach, having a great time, just, you know, being active. They have a great gym there. So that for me is my gear 3. It is fully unplugging and it is fully disconnecting. And I think the key takeaway for this part Which, by the way, I only do this once. Maybe I'll do it twice this year. Who knows? I'm really considering going to Greece and Italy for my birthday. So we will see if that ends up happening. I've always wanted to go there, maybe for my 30th, because I turn, I turn 30 this year. So we'll see. But nonetheless, let's say I do it one or two times a year. It's not by any means the majority, but I think what if I was to tell you The reason that I can fully disconnect when I'm on those trips is because I've been going 100 miles an hour for the past 12 months, right? I guess technically it's 11 months because I took my last complete unplug in March of last year. So this would be like mid-February. So almost 12 months. So I— a full 12 months. And again, During these last 12 months for me, I have not quote unquote taken a day off. I work every weekend. I work every holiday. I work every, uh, Saturday night, Monday night, Friday night, like every day, every single day I'm doing something. Most of the times, you know, at least 8 to 12 hours a day with my business, right? So, but because I do that, I know When I go on these bigger trips that I want to take some time off from work, I can fully do that. And I have no guilt and I have no shame and I have no anxiety and I have no, oh my God, well, I shouldn't be doing this, or I should be working hard. Fuck no, I shouldn't be working hard. Absolutely not. I should not be working hard. I've worked my ass off every fucking day for the past 12 months. Like I was talking to my dad a little bit earlier and we were talking about if I, 'cause I was planning a trip to Florida again in January. I'm probably not gonna go. We'll see. But I was like, yeah, you know, like I could go, but I, I'm about to go to, you know, Turks and Caicos and I'm gonna fully unplug and like, I wanna earn that. So to me, the way I do my work-life balance is work hard for 12 months and then fully stop. But for you, that might be, you know, I'm gonna really, really grind for, you know, a month and I'm gonna take a little trip with my partner. It could be, I'm gonna do really hard Monday through Friday, but then weekends are for my kids, right? You can have different gears. You can have different levels of your work-life balance, and this also might factor in to the different times of your life. Maybe in your job, like we coach a lot of clients who are like tax, like accountants, CPA, tax experts, for example. So right now, January, February, March, it's really fucking busy for them. So like maybe their work-life balance might be a little bit less, but then in May, June, July, August, maybe it's less. Maybe they're working a bit less and they're lifing a little bit more, but there's no right answer. So for you, I would try to stop judging yourself, other people's opinions of how you should be living your life, because I have found personally I have those 3 gears. And, and by the way, I, I made a post about this on Instagram recently as well, but it was like, it was like 8:48 PM at night. It was Friday night. I know it was Thursday night and I was, I just got done filming a YouTube video, 9:00 PM on a fucking Thursday after, you know, I've been up since 5. I'm working all day. I'm doing all these things. I'm on phone calls. I'm doing content. I'm doing emails. And, and it's like, I don't know. I'm sure maybe, maybe one day I won't want to be fucking filming YouTube videos at 9:00 PM. But you know what? Right now I totally do. And right now it's like what I know I need to do and it's what I want to do. And it's, and it's the, the, the season of my life that I'm in. And like, that can change. Yeah. And so for you, that's also why I say stop judging yourself. Because if maybe right now you really want to fucking lock in and you really want to level up your health, you want to level up your diet, you've been fucking off with your diet for the past couple of years, and it's time to get a little bit more dialed in. Like, right now you should be working harder at that. Right now you should be a little bit obsessed with getting in your workouts and getting in your diet, getting in your nutrition, getting in your walks. Because sometimes you also have to go through a little bit of unbalance to then find balance long-term. I've talked about this concept before on the podcast. How do you know what balance is if you've never been unbalanced in both directions? I'll use your diet as the example. You know what is unbalanced when you're fucking eating like shit and gaining a bunch of weight. That's, that's not balanced. Right? You're gaining 50. You gain 50 pounds, but also you might have to go through a period of being. When I say obsessed, I don't mean like eating a thousand calories and like being afraid of food, but you might have to like no, I'm not gonna drink these extra drinks. I'm gonna make sure I stick to my two drinks. I'm gonna make sure I weigh my food out. I'm gonna make sure I track my calories. Like you might have to go through. That period of unbalance, because now you know what unbalance is on the left side. You know what unbalanced is on the right side. That can then get you to the middle of balance. But if you don't know, it's very hard to find what that balance looks like for you sometimes. So the key takeaway, you might have different gears of your work-life balance, and that's okay. And that kind of leads me into the third point that I wanna make, which is I also understand work-life balance or even balance with your fitness journey looks and feels different when, for example, you hate your job versus you love it. I know I'm going to get a lot of people who listen to this. Well, Eric, I don't— I fucking hate my job and I don't like going to work every single day and what I do. I just want to get out of there. Like, okay, I understand. When I was an in-person trainer, I didn't hate my job. Like, I want to make that very clear. I loved the people that I worked with, but I I knew I wanted a lot more out of my life than just that. I wanted to help more people. I wanted to build a business. I always wanted to build a business and, and, you know, do, do my own thing and all that sort of stuff. So like, I get it. I, I also felt I was kind of stuck there, but I didn't just accept that. And I wanted to build a life that I didn't fucking hate and I didn't feel stuck or restricted in, and I wanted to, Find a way to build a life that I enjoyed living every single day, which by the way, you know, there, even right now, there are some things about my life that I, I wanna change so that I can enjoy living a bit more. But that's a different topic for a different day. But I get it. I've been there. But the hard truth is, I think this, if you're someone who hates your job and you're just like doing the bare minimum and just trying to get by and you're not trying to overachieve, Number one, you're probably not a— you probably don't want to listen to this podcast. But number two, you should probably stop using your nighttime or your weekends to escape from the life that you don't like. Scrolling on TikTok, drinking alcohol, going on a trip every single weekend. Maybe instead of doing the— using that time to escape, you should be using that time to build. A life that you want to live. For example, when I was an in-person trainer, I knew I wanted to do more, but I still had to work my job 50 hours a week, and it was very involved, and I had to show up and actually be there at the gym. So what did I do? I tried to start finding other ways that I could build my life in a way that it didn't even really feel like work, and it was something that I enjoyed doing because again, what I wanted to do was Build my own business and, and build my own life. Did, did that in a couple of different ways. I took my current clients that I had and I was like, hey, I'm gonna start doing online nutrition coaching because I had clients in person. They were showing up to the workouts, but as we all know by now, your nutrition is really where you lose the fat from. So I was like, hey, these people need more help with nutrition. Like they're getting the workouts, but they don't have the nutrition part. Okay. I'm gonna start doing online nutrition coaching on the side, right? I'm gonna still show up to my job and do my— do the best I can, but like, I'm gonna try to get a couple of clients. And I did. I got 2 or 3 clients for my online nutrition coaching at the time. And that's what was, um, when I— when COVID happened and I couldn't do my in-person training job anymore, I had 3— 2 clients paying me No, no, no. 3 clients paying me $100 a month. So, uh, yeah, I was, I was living large. I had no other paycheck coming in. It was just that. Um, but that's how it started and that's, that's what I knew I wanted to do. So I tried to build that. And then the other story that I have, I'm not sure if I ever shared this or not, but it'll be, it'll be hopefully good for you. I was like, well, shit, I need to start making more money. I need to start, you know, building my own business here. It's like, what do I do? And the apartment community that I lived in at the time had this like, you know, community wall or whatever. So I was like, well, fuck it. I don't— I didn't at the time, I had no social media following. I wasn't doing social media because I was just the in-person trainer. And so I was like, well, fuck, I'm going to post on here just like, hey, I'm a trainer. I work over here at the, at the gym. I'm looking to do some, you know, personal training on the side as well. If you're somebody who wants to, you know, lose fat, build muscle, get some workouts in, We had an apartment gym, so I checked with the community manager and I was like, "Hey, can I use the apartment gym?" And they were like, "Sure, that's fine." So I was like, "You know, I could train you right in the apartment gym." And at first nobody reached out to me, but somebody eventually texted me and they're like, "Hey, my name's Monica. I live over here, like right across the street from you, and obviously in the same apartment complex. I'm actually looking to find a trainer and get my health and my fitness together, and the apartment gym would work great for me because obviously it's right here. I would love to sign up with." And so we signed up for 2 times a week. She paid me like $150 an hour. And that's how I also got started, like my own, you know, kind of like side business, kind of coaching her in person 2 times a week. And I also actually helped her with her nutrition as well. But so those 2 stories were, even though I didn't love where I was at with my job, I didn't use the time outside of my scheduled job to, I don't know, take a fucking trip to Ibiza or like go out and drink with random strangers on the weekend. I used that to invest into my future life. Instead of like spending your free time spending money or energy trying to escape, spend your free time investing energy to Either build the exit ramp to the life that you want to get to, or at the very least, build the exit ramp to the passions that you enjoy doing. Because if you enjoy what you do, work-life balance doesn't— I don't want to say it doesn't become a thing because even me, like, I love what I do, but it is work. And there are some days where I don't want to do the things that I know I need to do. That's just life. But it's It's much less because again, I like the fact that I'm making this podcast and people are going to listen and they're going to, some people will like what I have to say. Some people won't, but either way, like, that's crazy to me because I love doing this. So this doesn't feel like work. This just feels like I'm chatting with one of my friends and we're having a conversation. And I know it's just, you know, kind of me and you here, but. That's what it feels like. So that's the other concept of this. You take a look at your life and think about if you don't love where you're at, what can you do to insert things that you do love that make it feel like you're not having to find such a work-life balance anymore because you enjoy what you do more. It's just like fitness and it's just like your diet. The parallel is this, you know, how many people listening to this, how many have you Done a diet that you hate. You, you hate the foods you eat. You, you, you don't like chicken, but you're forcing yourself to eat chicken. You hate broccoli, but you're eating it. That feels like you're on a diet. That feels like you're doing something you hate. So then you're trying to like, well, you know, you have to find ways to try to escape that. And then again, people do that with overeating and binging on their favorite foods. Whereas If you are somebody who already works in these favorite foods in moderation, yeah, you might have to be on a calorie deficit, which like isn't the coolest or the most fun, but like at least you still get to eat Rice Krispies. At least you still get to go out once or twice a week with your partner and enjoy a meal out. At least you don't have to eat broccoli. You can eat asparagus instead. Like just, it doesn't feel like a diet as much because you're working in these things and you're building your diet around What you don't hate. And that's one of the things that we do in our 8-week challenge, which again, if you know, you have to have your call booked today. So if you want to sign up, you can click the link in the show notes here to join our 8-week challenge. But that's what we do when people join. We'll ask them, what foods do you like? What foods do you not like? Your schedule, your routine, how much time do you have to cook? What do you guys do on the weekends? So this way, Like, let's say you're somebody, you hate chicken. You love— you, you, you hate chicken. You don't have a lot of time to cook during your day. You like to go out on the weekends and enjoy some time with your partner. If you get a plan that has chicken and you have to cook 2 hours a day and you can't go out to eat, like, what the fuck? No shit, you can't stick with it. It's not built for you. It's, it's not. Made for what you, your preferences are. And you're not always gonna just do things you enjoy. You know, that's unrealistic. But the point being is you can build your diet to make it more enjoyable. You can build your life to make it more enjoyable. So you don't need to focus on work-life balance so much. And I also think with work-life balance, I wanna give 2, like 2 parallels here. Some of you guys know my good buddy Pat. His Instagram is @gainsbypat on Instagram. And Pat and I live very different lives, like very different lives. And again, he's one of, he's one of my best friends. Like, I love that guy and I love spending time with him and he has such a good soul and like, I love Pat. But for example, I, I'll tell you a story. We were working out when I was in Florida in December. And, uh, you know, we're just like talking about things and, and, you know, he was like, yeah, man. So like, you know, how's business, whatever. And I was like telling him about like, like what my day looks like. And I'm like, yeah, you know, like I, I'm like, I wake up and I do my work and then he's, and I'm like, yeah, you know, I'll, I'll be at dinner. It's like 5:30. I'll have my dinner where I cook, you know, I'll have my either prepped food or, or I'll cook my dinner. I'll sit down. I'll put up, uh, like, I like to watch interviews even more than I like to watch sports. I like to watch the interviews before and after. To like see what athletes are thinking. I'm like, yeah, like I'll watch the interview of like Joe Burrow or I'll watch the press conference of the head coach and I'll eat my dinner there by myself. And he's just like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like he was, he was laughing because it's just so different than like what he does where like, you know, Pat, he's a very social guy. He has a lot of friends. He likes to go out. He likes to, you know, go out to dinners. He likes to drink a little bit, right? Like he would— I eat out maybe one time a week, 2 times a week max. Pat will eat out, you know, 10 times a week, like a lot. I don't drink. Pat likes to drink. He likes to have, you know, social events and indulge. And Pat, you could argue honestly, like he looks better than I do. He's in great shape and, you know, he has a great, a great business and all these things. But like, what I want to say there is neither one of those is right or wrong. What Pat doing is, is right for Pat and what I'm doing is right for me. I don't, Think any less of Pat because maybe he doesn't work as many hours as I do, and he doesn't think any less of me because I don't enjoy or have more fun than, than he does or whatever. It's just there's different— there's, there's different answers for different people. And I think you really need to look inward. And this is something I don't think we do a lot either, especially with I noticed this when everybody, when I graduated high school, everybody was going to college. I noticed this, like people never really, I don't wanna make a blanket statement, but I, I don't believe a lot of people truly look inward and think about like, what do they want? What do they really want? I feel like a lot of people will take What their parents want, what their peers are doing, what society deems as successful versus not, what society deems as you should be doing this and you should not be doing this. Like, by a lot of standards, I don't live a great life. Like, I don't have the weekends off. I don't stop work at 5:00 PM. I don't like, Like, I, through a lot of standards, society would think that my life is not good, but I think my life is great. And so I think you have to look in the mirror and truly ask yourself and think about, like I talked about my 3 gears earlier, like, do you have 3 gears? Do you have 2 gears? Do you have a gear for the winter and then a gear for the summer? Do you have a gear for, I gotta do my job, but now I'm also gonna try to build this side hustle? Or, or I'm at— it doesn't even have to be about money, for example. It could be about just like, I'm gonna go join a fucking softball league, or I'm gonna go join a, a, a, a painting class every single Thursday. Like, I don't care, but like, do you, like, what are, what are your gears? What does your work-life balance actually want to look like? And don't bullshit yourself. And that's the, you know, the, the part that we talked about earlier. Look in the mirror and ask yourself, are you like trying to escape with drugs or alcohol or, or mindless scrolling, mindless TV? And not to say you can never do that, and I guess if you really want to do that, I, I guess that's up to you, but I have a hard time believing because I've talked to enough people, like mindless scrolling on TikTok. Like, is that, that's how you want to live your life? Like, that's what you want an hour or 2 of your life to be taken up by every single day? That's how you want your passage of time to go? Or do you want to do other things that you enjoy and you want to, and I think people put limitations on themselves and so they don't think this is possible. I just told you 2 stories about when I was an in-person trainer, what I did to start to build this. And so it is possible for you. You might have to take some time to think about what that would be, but you gotta start taking action on building the life that you want so you don't have this constant need or this constant like, oh my God, I'm either, I'm not doing enough or I'm working too much or anywhere in between. It's like your work-life balance is gonna be what's right for you in the same way your diet and your exercise routine. Some people, I don't know, they like me, I fucking love working out, so I'll work out 5 days a week and I'll be great and I'll love it. And some people are like, I fucking hate it. I just wanna do 3 times a week for 30 minutes cuz I know I have to and I'd just be done with it. Cool. Neither one of us are right or wrong. That's what works for them. And so like at the end of the day, you, you are the one who has to wake up, who has to look at yourself in the mirror, who has to live the life that you're living. Do you like that life? All-encompassing. And again, you're not always just gonna do the things that you want to. That's unrealistic to think about. But if you wake up and you're like, yeah, I, I am like, I'm, I do like this. I do like what I have. I do like what I'm building. Awesome. You are winning. No matter how I live my life. Like for example, I was talking to, um, I don't speak about this a lot, but I, um, I coach a couple of people on their personal training, online fitness coaching business. So like I help them with their business. By the way, if you wanna learn more about that, I'll put a link in the show notes of this podcast. I know a lot of trainers listen to this podcast. And so there's a, there's some options I have for helping you with your business. And so you can click that below. But I was talking to this guy and he was like, you know, I'll be honest, man. Like, I'm kind of feeling really good about where I'm at. Like, I'm kind of crushing it. I don't know that I want to hire more staff and I don't know that I necessarily need to make more money. Like, I'm kind of loving what I'm doing. And I'm like, that's, then you're winning. That's awesome. Like, if you want to take 5 hours at night to fuck off with your fiancée, like, do it. That's incredible. And you should do that, right? And that doesn't— and when, if he thinks that, if I'm like, well, fuck, I need to do more. I need to make more money. I need to put, uh, uh, more time into my business. I wanna grow my business more. That doesn't make me wrong and him right. It's just different for each person. So define what it is that you want. This is what I talked about in a previous podcast about how to level up in every area of your life in 2026. If you haven't listened to that, I would strongly encourage you to go back and listen to that podcast. How to level up your life in every area in 2026, because you have to start with the vision of what you actually want. If you don't know what you want truly, and again, not from what other people think you should do, but what you want to do, how can you then build the life? Like, how can you build your life to do that if you don't know what it is that you want? So I, if I were you, I would leave this podcast, start to think about what it is your work-life balance, And also what it is you want your health and your fitness and your diet and your exercise routine. Think about all these things of what you want it to actually look like, and then build the life, the systems to then actually get there. And you don't have to ever worry about work-life balance, cuz fuck what other people think. Fuck what society tells you you should do. If you like working 16 hours a day, do it. If you like working 6 hours a day and you can still, you know, pay your bills and You know, like, I'm telling you, one day, I'm saying this right now, one day I'm going to get to, I don't know, 42 years old. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to wake up. I'm going to write some emails. I'm going to do a video. Now I'm just going to go fucking sit on the beach the rest of the day. Who knows? Like, if that time comes and that's what I feel is right, then I'll do that too. Because there is no right answer. There's only a right answer for you. So guys, Hope you really enjoyed the podcast today. At the very least, got you thinking about some stuff. You know, feel free to comment, leave a review, message me on Instagram if you liked this podcast, this style of podcast. I thought it was a fun conversation. I thought it was thought-provoking and intriguing. So if you liked this, please let me know. And again, leaving a review and sharing the show really, really help me. It helps my employees, it helps our co-host Sophie, it helps my business. So if you wanna support, please feel free to leave a review, share the show. It would mean the world to me. And again, last but not least, today is the final chance you'll have to join the 8-week challenge. You have to book your call today if you wanna get in on the challenge. So the link is in the show notes of the podcast. Hope you have a great rest of your day and we will chat next time.