Is Work/Life Balance a Myth? SWOT Analysis of Your Business

But while I was running on the treadmill, masked, which is wow, hard.

I had a couple things that I came up in my head for. We'll probably do it at the franchise convention. Just apart for the franchisees. And that is A lot of people always ask me to talk about like work, life, balance. And the reason I don't is because I know I'm like the worst at it, right? So I was like, no, it's like not for me. So. But then I kind of wanted to create my thoughts around it, like, because I do have thoughts on it, but like where? Why do I feel a certain way? Anyways, so what I wanted to do this morning on our pieces of paper is do what's called SWOT analysis. It was S W O T so how it looks.

Sorry, Leah. All our, all our times together, I'm like barring you and doing things against this Covid laws sharing pen. So how it works is SWOT analysis looks like this. So you have a grid and then you have swot. And so this is your strength, your weaknesses, your opportunities and your threats. And so usually for a business you'd be doing a SWOT analysis. It's called so your strengths. Like if we look at Augusta, for example, overall the entire organization strengths are things like culture, balance sheet, financials or whatever. And then strengths of like marketing abilities or greats for our franchisees, whatever. Weaknesses, things like experience.

Time in the industry.

Growing very quickly and from a cash perspective is harder. Whatever Weaknesses like that opportunities. You got franchises that are screwing their franchisees and like that's an opportunity. You got people who are really struggling in their business and they need help. Opportunity, right. Locally, for example. Opportunity is, you know, other smaller or long care businesses going out of business because of COVID and not being able to find employees and retain them. And one of our strengths would probably be like being able to retain good employees. Threats. It can be things like, what happens if we get shut down? What happened in something like Covid? What happens if the labor market completely flips and now there's $1,000 a week on unemployment for everyone. When we go into like the socialist society, like, how are you going to keep people here? Right? So that would be for the business. But what I want to do this morning is do a personal SWOT analysis for yourself and look at yourself as like a business, but like a whole person, a whole entity. And this is something I'm talking about, conferences, especially as a business owner is like, you gotta stop thinking about like personal life and business or even if you're not a business owner. You gotta stop thinking about like work and home and then like your whole being, like work is part of your life. So why would you call it work? Life, balance? Like it's all your life and you're living your life and it happens to be that you work sometimes and you go and you're doing other things at home, sometimes you're relaxing, times you're resty. But like that's your life. So like work is not a separate thing from you, it's part of you and it doesn't need to control you. It's just part of your life. Right. And so when we look at this and what we're doing this morning is the SWOT analysis. So go ahead and do a grid just like that. And then we will literally write these out for you. And so for example, when we look at this top part, this is usually looking inside of us. We're looking introspectively. I'll give this to you here. Awesome. When we look at this top part.

When we look at strengths and weaknesses on the top, those are things like internal. So like when we talked about, we talked about strengths internally, weaknesses internally. Opportunities and threats are exterior. So things out in like the marketplace, for example. So for you personally, your strengths might be like you have certain characteristics. You know, you're really strong at things that you know, that's your strong point. And like you're better than other people at certain things. And like there's no pride or you're not proud when you just recognize that what you're really good at. So that would be your strengths. So that would be the top left. So let's go ahead and fill those in real quick. I'll give you like 30 seconds. Just a few things, like three, four things. One line is fine or multiple.

Again, this is like you personally, when you look at yourself, this is not.

Exterior or outside forces.

Okay, so now for the weaknesses part and we can, you can fill in more later. So now we're top, the top right part. These are things that, just the opposite, that you know, you're not good at. These are the things that you're, you're just, you're weak at. And things that you try to improve on, things that.

No, you're not really that great at. And again, this is not the opposite of pride. This is not like self deprecation. This is just being self reflective and knowing what you're not good at.

And this could be anything from characteristics, personality traits, the way that you take care of yourself physically, you Know your diet, your exercise, whatever it might be, something at work, whatever it might be.

Now, I think the SWOT analysis can be really applied in a bunch of different areas. Whether you just wanted to look at health, whether you just wanted to look at a relationship and be like, where's our strengths? Where's our weaknesses? Where's the opportunities in this? Where's the threats? Things like that.

All right, so now on the bottom left, we're at O, which is opportunities. So how you want to look at that as like, okay, that top left, your strengths. Because of those strengths, what are the opportunities? So because I am honest, because I am hard working, what are the opportunities that I could take advantage of? Whether it be career wise or improving in health, or improving your professionalism or whatever it might be financially, what are the opportunities you have? Whether you want to start a certain business because you have those strengths, what are the opportunities that you have?

Again, it's not just business, it's kind of life in general.

Cool. So now the last one's T, and that's threats. So these are things that, because of the top, right, your weaknesses, what are the threats to your life, your business, money, health, whatever it is, whole being, what are the threats to you because of your weaknesses? So if I am.

Proud, that's my weakness, then what my threat could be is that people don't connect with me. I can't connect with my employees, I can't connect with my co workers. If my weakness is the fact that I'm lazy, then my threat is going to be the fact that I don't push through and actually get the job done. I don't push through the hard times.

This one's usually the hardest because so again, you're kind of looking in the future, what could happen? What are the threats to me? And.

Cool. So usually you'll feel free to fill us in later and stuff. And I really try to do this sort of analysis for lots of different things in my life. Like I said, the more grand. This is a little bit harder because your whole life. But when you start looking at, okay, health, okay, this one relationship, where are the opportunities, where's the threats, where's the weaknesses, where's the strengths in this relationship? It becomes very. I think it's really healthy. But anyways, so this SWOT analysis is something like an investment would ask you to do if you were pitching them a business idea. Be like, hey, what was the strengths of the business? Where's the weaknesses? What's your opportunities? That's why someone like Tesla has an incredible valuation because the opportunities of electrification and solar and all the rest of it is huge. Right. So that's why their value is based upon that part. But then they got to realize there's weaknesses, there's parts of them that there's going to be flaws and issues. And so I think it's very healthy to do this. And in my opinion, when we look at your whole being, that's why we did that today. When it comes to work, life, balance, I feel like there's really needs to be. Instead of looking at, like, work and life, like, work, life, balance, and being so binary with it, there needs to be more of a balance between all four of these categories of realizing the fact that, you know, it's not like I'm binary, like, I'm working or I'm not working, and I'm, like, working or I am resting. Like, there's gonna be areas in our life where we're out of balance. I feel like. And sometimes, like, I think about people say, oh, you don't. Don't get out of balance. And I agree with that, that sentiment. But when you. To make progress, you kind of have to get out of balance to some extent. Like, when you run, you are constantly out of balance. The reason you're making movement and motion is because you're out of balance. And I feel like, because people try to, like, say, oh, I don't want to get out of balance, they don't become the best dad in the world. Then. They don't. Like, I don't feel like you can. You don't have to be like, oh, I got to be a good dad and a good worker all at the same time. A good employee. You can be one great thing. Like, when you go home, you're like an incredible dad. And then you come to work and you're, like, way out of balance. Great employee, you know, great at this. And, like, you know, whether we have your PTA meetings and then you're like a deacon at church or whatever it is, but, like, you go so unbalanced in that one category for a period of time. But same thing with running. You got to counterbalance it. Right? So if I'm going to be a crazy hard worker and I'm going to give everything at work, I got to counterbalance that with making sure I'm refreshed and rested, and I do take time off, that's the balance you have to take. Right. And I kind of think of it, like, for some people, this is. For me, I think it's Very important that you just are self aware of when you need to stop and when you need to slow down, when you need to speed up. I think a lot of people, they forget there's just as much risk of getting out of balance when someone does not work enough and is not efficient and is not in motion. Like, you think about a top. Like the way that top stays in balance is through motion that is constantly staying active. As soon as that top stops moving, that's when it falls over, right? You think about teeter totter, right? Same thing, like it goes out of balance as. As soon, soon as it stops moving, right? And so I think it's important to realize that like, first of all, that recognizing these are the four kind of thing it needs to balance. These four things I think are what balances you out. And the illustration I'm gonna make at conference is like, if we have two different axises, right? Like, you know, a teeter totter is the best example work life balance. But what if we had another two axis to it by adding all four of these things, like, look, I am, I'm straight, I'm strong at this thing, I'm weak at this thing. But then I'm adding another axis of I have opportunities, I have threats. And like, balancing all those things and recognizing just being self aware, I think is the biggest part of work life balance and figuring out where you need to be at in that continuum. Because, you know, you gotta be aware, sometimes you do need to stop. And sometimes you gotta realize, look, I am bumbling around all weekend long not getting anything done. It's leading to me getting depressed. I need to go be active. I need to go get stuff done, right? And there's no right or wrong there. I think people judge themselves when they feel like they're lazy. They're like, oh, I'm such a bum, I'm never gonna get anywhere in life. And maybe you just need a rest. That's fine. But then on the flip side too, people like, oh, I'm working so hard. And like, I'm just such a slave. It's like, no, look, you're trying to build something. Be self aware of what you're doing. And like, don't beat yourself up for that. You're trying to do it for your future, your family, you know, getting out of what you've been in through the past years. That's fine. Don't beat yourself up like, oh, I should be taking more rests. Like, do what's right for you, right? And that's my biggest why I've never talked about work life balance publicly is because, like, people like, oh, like that is the standard. It's like, no, your standard is this, which is completely different than everyone else in this, in this room. And so I think to compare yourself, like, oh, they have one day a week where they don't, don't work, or they have, you know, two weeks a month where they don't work or they take a vacation. Like, that comparative is horrible because their strength SWOT analysis does not look like yours. Right. And I think being self aware is the biggest thing to realize. Should I be in motion or should I? Like when you're running, the only way you can fall is number one, you stop abruptly in the middle of a stride, right? That is, you're working, you're working. All of a sudden you're like, I just have to stop. Like, I'm just going to stop right now. And like, that's one way to fall. Another thing is running too fast. If you try to run 40 miles an hour right now, you're gonna fall down and you're gonna get hurt. And that's what leads to burnout. That's what everyone calls burnout, is they're just trying to go, go, go, go. You do need to stop, you do need to rest. But I feel it's the same way in terms of, like, someone that just stands there, they're gonna get fat, their joints are gonna hurt, they aren't gonna get any muscle, and like, they're not gonna be healthy. And so I think there's that balance between motion and rest that's really important. Important. And I think it's governed by the SWOT analysis. So that was my thought on the treadmill last night as I was cursing my mask that I was wearing.

Anyways, any thoughts? Right. Anything on that? So feel free to keep those SWOT analysis, but I think they're really, really helpful. It's something I just, in one of the lectures on the course had done the swat, and then I kind of started thinking more about from a personal standpoint, how it could be related. So ye. Anything to add to that?