Work-Life Balance: Is Your Job an IDOL? 🤔🚫

Hey, everyone. I'm Justin.

And I'm Courtney.

And we're so glad you guys are tuned into Made for Mondays Today. We believe that you own your Mondays and Mondays don't own you. So we're glad you tuned in today. Today we're going to talk about something interesting and so let's jump right into it. Yeah, it is.

Well, what is this episode brought to them by? What's the.

We don't do the unpaid advertisement till the end.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, at the end. So I'm glad you guys are here. How's your day going? Good.

It's good. It's. It's Monday.

Yeah.

Is it Monday?

It's Monday. It's Monday.

Okay.

We're made for Mondays. And so we had an interesting, interesting movie the other night. It looks like work horror. Yeah, it was called. It was called the Mill and Shameless. I guess this is what this show is brought to you by. Is brought to you by the Mill. The Mill is this movie on Hulu and it was starring little Rel. And my. The worst part to me of that whole movie was that he did the entire thing and some lost and found Jordan ones. I was just like, if you haven't had a chance to go watch it, here's a general summary of the movie.

It's on Hulu.

So general gist of the movie is little Rel wakes up in the middle of like this prison encampment, this cement blocks, and he has to push a mill around certain amount of times a day and it changes and all of that. His leadership comes out. His personal stuff. His wife is pregnant with a child. He doesn't really know how long he was there because eventually the son starts walking. He hasn't seen his kid. He wasn't there for his birth. And one of the people next to him ends up dying. And all of that. Come to find out at the end of the movie, not to get too much into it, but really was a massive training module. That's what all will say once you go watch the movie. Support Little Girl Productions. I saw that.

Yeah. I think the, the premise that is not a spoiler that all of this was like brought on by his like sponsors, like the torture or whatever was all from. From his company that he worked for.

And so he loved his job, right? So he loved his job. He wanted to work at the job. He wanted to be there. And then the same job that he loved so much is the same job that tortured him. Right. And tortured him and tortured him and told him to work harder Work harder. And even when he got his, his co workers on board, they were like, hey, listen, we're out. We're out for me. I'm not out for you. For how the company can give something to me. And in the end he gets, you know, whatever. And the end he says, I'm gonna burn this thing down. Right? And it made me begin to think about a lot of things when it comes to work. And for me, one of the first thoughts was like, I've never met anyone who loves their job. Right? Like, it's just like we always, I haven't. And I say it like this. I mean that's very abstensive. But like it's, this is what my job doesn't give me. My job doesn't respect me, my job doesn't give me this. It's always a want for more. More perks, more money, more this, more that. Regardless of whether or not you've done a good job or not, it's always more, more, more, more, more.

Yeah.

And then what's frustrating is in like when you actually do get the reports that you've done good work and you don't receive more, it gets even worse. I, I, I, I, like, I guess I want to talk about or think through for those people going into the week, how to not hate your job so much.

And yeah, yeah, I think James Baldwin, there's this quote from him, I have to look it up more. But I guess someone asked him, like, what is your dream job? Right? And he was like, it was a very funny response. He was like, I don't dream of labor. Like, I don't dream of, I don't know anyone that dreams of labor. Right. We, I think humans have this intrinsic or this intrinsic thought and need to be free. Yeah, right. And so although we want structure, we want income. So that's the thing. Like, so I work to have income because the income gives me freedom. The income is what provides me a lifestyle, what provides me travel, what provides me things. But I think, and that's why you have to put work in this perspective. And a lot of work that we do as it relates to coaching is like, how do we put work in its proper place in life, Right? Because I don't think anyone dreams of labor. Right? I don't think, I think there's a very small population of people that are like, I would do this for free. I would do this. And those people have a very well established life where they're not doing it for the income. It's like maybe for the Name very For. We all have an exchange value, though, in everything that we do. But how do you put jobs in their proper place? Because I think as you begin to see, you can easily begin to hate something that you once admired. And I think it's going to. This notion. I want to introduce this topic of, like, what are you seeking? Right? Like, what. What is on your bucket? What is the thing that you're trying to fill up when you go to any place? And I think that's what we can talk about. It's like, how not to hate your job.

Yeah. I haven't. I haven't met anyone, even people I've worked with or led, that have been like, I love what I do. It's always like, this is a problem. This is wrong. This is what's bad. And it makes. And leading that is very difficult. I mean, it's painful sometimes, right? Where it's just like. Like, even I pastor people, I know some people listening to this go to my church as well, is like, I never get like, oh, this is good. Until you, like, you know, you're gonna. You quit or you're done. Like, I remember, like, my former space. I remember when I left my job, it was like, oh, these are all the ways you had impact. Oh, crap. Really? Because all I heard for six years was, this is all the terrible stuff about you. This is what's horrible about you.

So it flows both ways from employee to boss, from boss.

And so it's like, yeah, that's all you're receiving. Then it's like, great. So then from me as a leader or person, me as a worker, right? I begin to add more things to my plate. I'm trying to take things off of people's plates because it's like, you hate it so much, and then it's like, you give me no responsibility, okay? So then here's responsibility. I'm working too much, okay? So I'm taking it away. Like, it's just always that, right? And so that's because I'm had. I used to have empathy, and I think I've lost a lot of it. I hate saying that out loud, but it. At the same time, then I think about, like, so the same way in terms of engaging with the work that we have. So take away the church stuff. I think about when I worked and still work for, like, universities, right? And like you said, the exchange value. And it's like, I love the. I love the teaching of students. I love engaging with them. I enjoy it because it's a. In essence, an escape from like the place where like everybody hates it every day, all the time, right? And it's very painful that it's all you get is like, this is how, this is how terrible you're doing. But then give me a raise. Like, oh my God, you know what I mean? And I guess the same. We hate our jobs. And I'm talking to those of you who are across the screen who you're getting ready to go to work and you, you know, like, I can't stand this co worker, I can't stand this meeting. I can't stand this person. I can't stand this. I don't think work was ever created for us to give that level of emotion to it where we hate it or we love it. It's a job, right?

It's a job. And I, I think saying all of that, right, we all come, like I said, with a bucket, right? And I think this is a good work. I don't know if you journal and what I really, for my clients that I work with too, in professional like development and working with them as well is what's that name on the bucket, right? So like, so you apply for the job, right? And it's like, I've never had a full time job before, so I just want to see if I can get a full time job. So our bucket, we write full time. And so you get the bite, you get the interview and you're like praying, God, I hope I get this job. Or you know, you're telling everyone about it and well wishes and you get the job full time. Really didn't care what it was. It's just like, I just want to be a full time work. I don't want to be hourly anymore. I want to be salaried with benefits, right? And that has filled you up right there. So you can't even begin to feel the work because your bucket is already filled. There's no more, there's no more to be put in there because it's like, oh, I just wanted to be a firm that I can get full time work, right? And so then even as you grow beyond that, it's like, oh, I really want to be in the sector. Oh, I really wanted to see and to gravitate. Oh, working remotely was really important. Oh, salary was really important to me. And so I'm only applying for X amount of jobs. I have this salary. And once you hit the bucket and actually get into it or get that promotion or get that, we all have that thing because we're human to Be like, this is really what I want. And once I get what I want, we're liable to do anything. So now it's, this was cool, but I just want something more. I've just outgrown it. Instead of saying like, how do I deepen my capacity? How do I pour out? Because you're filled up, right? So taking that full time analogy, so now I have a full time job, right? That's what I wanted. I wrote it on my bucket. I'm filled up. Now I'm working in my full time job and I did whatever I had to say, I said whatever I had to say, I did whatever I had to do to get it. And here I am in my full time job. You now have to pour out so that you have capacity and room to be able to fill up, right? Because you're, you're nourished anytime. Like think about it, you're going to a buffet and you're full. You don't go back. You're just like, I'm good.

You have to destroy an old narrative in order to write a new one.

Yeah.

And you're speaking very well to that. If we're going to give some sort of principle to increasing one's capacity, you have to be willing to sacrifice an old narrative, right? So you have to be willing to sacrifice the like hourly to salaried, the salary, to additional retirement, the retirement, to incentives and perks. The incentives and perks to remote days, the room. Like, to be very clear, working remotely is a privilege, right? Like it's a privilege. Like this is, it's not just a gimme, it's a privilege. Like there's a trust factor there that you're going to work for eight hours without having to be confined to a desk with someone to see you. Right? But if you don't destroy the narrative of hourly, you can't work remotely because now you're still treating this in like an hourly job or if you don't destroy the narrative of that. So I think you have to destroy old narratives. Not something even we had to do in our own lives, right? So I used to work. I remember I couldn't treat my first full time job like I did when I worked as a student in college, right? And I remember when I first transitioned from working at Vanderbilt to working at Olive Ranch and I would treat it like I was working at Vanderbilt. Oh, I'll come in when I finish. I'll leave when I do. And then the only thing I had was like what I read about how you work until I recognize that this is what an off day really looks like. You turn things off, you turn things on. You have company things, you have company rules, you have a company culture. You're assimilating to for the sake of your job and moving from the pliability of, like, I have class. I'm going to do whatever I want to. This is your job. But I had to destroy. I'm not a student any longer. I'm now an employee. And the same thing went from then I was an employee to a leader. I had to destroy the narrative. Like being a co. Like a co worker to now I lead you. Right. And so there's a huge difference even for those of you across who are leaders. You. You are not friends with your subordinates, you lead them. But if you don't destroy the narrative like you're saying of, I'm not a co worker, I'm your leader.

Yeah.

And I think the same thing has to go for those individuals who do transition into work. You're. You have a leader. You're not. You know what I mean? And. And so there's. I think what you're getting to is a very powerful thing. And it's killing an old narrative to make room. And not just killing an old narrative, I believe, also giving yourself the space to grow. Right. What are you reading? Like, what is the last book that you read? What are the two podcasts that you listen to outside of this one? And what was the last book? And where are you looking to travel? Right, Because I think that. I think that incentive because the expansion of your territory allows you to expand your mind. When you begin to recognize that the world does not revolve around your city, it changes everything. You know, you told me the story of Will Smith and how everybody was asking what he thought, what he thought, what he thought about his life. And you said he sends puts video out and it's simply him and the whole world zooming out like there's a whole world out there. And I found this TikTok that came up when I was uploading a video for Cam and I on our Brown Dad Brown Boy Adventures TikTok. And it was called Flights to Every City. It's the name of the TikTok. And it's the lamest thing because it's something I would like. And literally all it is is a flight tracker. And it's just literally, it shows you the flight from one city to another. And here's what messed me up. This messed me up. Yesterday there was a flight from Los Angeles to Dubai. And I never thought about this in my whole life. They don't fly like east to west. They flew from south to north and back south again. They literally went over the North Pole. And it was so weird because I've never seen a flight do that because it was quicker than going all the way around the world to go above the. And I'm like, my whole life it's always been like, you're supposed to go east to west or north to south, but like, on this side of the earth where the equator is and not the North Pole. And it hit me, I'm like, there's a whole world out there that we haven't seen. Not just the other side of the world. Asia, Europe and India, but literally Canada.

Yeah, I love that's. That's such an interesting. And it's a mindset and perspective shift of something that you've never thought about, right?

Yeah.

That's why goal setting is so important as it relates to this. And I'm gonna say a couple of things so exactly what you're saying. So once our bucket is filled in, one thing full time, we should always be constantly bringing new buckets to our workplace. Right. To make it new and relevant again. So, yes, you got the full time job. Right. And so you're starting at a capacity. That means, like, you have little room to learn to grow. Get a fresh bucket. I think that's what you're saying, like, get a fresh bucket. What podcast are you listening to? What things are you doing? But get a fresh bucket of, okay, my, my next goal is I, I want to be here a year. Right. And what are the things that you're doing for a year or two or whatever that looks like? I want to be in management. I want to be able to do these. And what are some action items to get you to do that? Get new buckets. We all just come with this one bucket and once it's full, full, then it's like, well, this has nothing. I've outgrown this. I have, of course, every day. If you're not growing, you're dead.

That's it.

And we come to these things where it's just like, no, I don't expect you to like something that you liked a year ago because you're growing as a human, but get a better capacity for it. Right. In doing that. And once you have these buckets, then it'll be able to tell you, like, okay, this is my capacity and this is what I have, or like, oh, I'm not ready for management. At all. How do I deepen like my space and where I'm doing? Also another thing that I like bringing back the movie with the mill. They had some like very good basic concepts as it relates to work. So work, whether that's physical labor, torture, just everyday work, life remote, working at home as a stay at home mom, whatever this is, I think these principles still kind of apply. I love how they said a couple of things like every work, no matter how you have an employee, it requires motivation, right? It requires reward and it requires the notion that you can't work by yourself, right? And I love those principles that they all remain the same no matter what you're working it. You have to have some type of motivation. And I think a lot of us have lost our motivation. Like we have nothing that we're working towards, right? We have no. And then we don't schedule in the reward. Yeah, right. Like our salary is not a reward. And I think we have to stop looking. Salary is no longer a reward, right? Like, oh, I'm getting it the way that life is lifing and inflation is inflating. Salary is no longer a reward, is requirement. But what reward as managers, what reward are we putting in that with employees and employees, what personal reward do I have for myself, right? So whether I have a trip or not planned every month, I should be taking PTO or I should be doing this even if I have nothing planned or I need to do something that seems like a reward to me, you know, and really figuring that out, what is motivating you, what is allowing you, whether that's your family, whether that's your friends and how co working is really important, right? Like think about even the notion of a stay at home mom or something that like. Or a single mom. We can't do life alone, we cannot do life. I don't care how strong you are, how independent you are, no matter what, you cannot do work in life alone. And so if you're working on an island, you're going to be burnt out and that's going to lead to hatred of your job because you feel that you are alone in stating those needs. I feel alone or I feel like there's no reward in this job, that I'm just working and working with no reward or like I don't have motivation. I really encourage whether you are a manager or, or whether you're an employee to have those honest, authentic conversations before they reach to the point because that's where a lot of the conflict happens. Because it reached to the point where there's little reward, there's little motivation, and there's little co working ability. And that's how like conflict happens, burnout happens. And unfortunately, people in or get terminated from jobs because they don't have those healthy conversations to know what works for you. Because we're all different.

Not so real. You'd like answered like 10 different, sir. No, that's real. You have to. If you don't know your motivation, you'll. You'll fail. And I've seen it happen too many times. So, yeah, I think that's.

And, And I think too like applying this, taking this out of work, even in our spaces, like social groups, churches, life, no matter what we attend, our homes, even showing up. And a lot of times our bucket says relationship, or our bucket says marriage, or our bucket says become a parent. Right. And little do we think about what goes beyond that. Right. Like, so you got married, but we don't think about the marriage. You have the kids, but we don't think about parenthood.

Yeah.

You know, in navigating through that or even like you're a pastor. Church, you found the church. But we don't think about what it means to be a church member. Right. And how we navigate that is really assessing what is our bucket and how do we get new buckets to really fulfill what we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to do.

Yeah, I think one of the Marty talked about old narratives, I had a thought in my head, I forgot what it was.

I'm sorry.

No, you're good. No, I agree. I agree. You have to increase the space for more. And I don't think we actually want. I think we actually want more. We desire. Every person innately just desires more. You have to have the space for it. And so that's like you said, that's. That's journaling, that's writing, that's preparing your week, that's organizing your week for the week, whatever that is, to ensure that you don't go in. Oh, I think. Sorry, I was getting to. So if I'm gonna work to not hate my job so much, I think there has to be a space too where you have to own the consequences of your actions. Right. And that's not me being like negative or weird about it, but there are certain things that you're boss doesn't hate you for, or your leaders, or whomever that is doesn't hate you for. But if you don't do your job, you don't do your job. And now when you're Called on it. You can't be frustrated when there's consequences. Like, for example, if your team. I remember when I was in college, which was college myself, for example, I was in college, we had a project to do for our team, and it was over the summer, it was part of our campsite, and I dropped the ball. Like, I legitimately dropped the ball. I let my team down. Other people had to pick the slack up. It was three other people. They had picked the slack up all the time. Recover well, yes, it became a head person, became a leader of people, all that type of stuff. But early in my time, I dropped the ball. Like, effectively dropped the ball. There were consequences to that. Hey, Justin, you can't travel. It was so insulting preparing. I remember preparing all the trips and could not travel because it was like that was the improvement team thing I was on. And normally improvement plans don't work. So literally they were preparing to replace me, right? And so just like, hey, you're working in the semester. Do this and do that. And so I remember working my tail off. I would come in at 6am I believe in like midnight. Like, I was doing so much work, covering up for everyone else because I really wanted the job. But the consequences for dropping the ball on something monumental was those are consequences. And I believe the same thing happens in our work. We're not saying we hate our jobs when really it's you. Improvement plans suck at the end of the day, right? And when. When you drop the ball, when you don't do something. Well, when you didn't proofread email, when you made an emotional decision, when you sent something out before proofreading it, when you decided to go above your manager to someone else, right? Like when you jump to levels of authority that they have set up to make a decision, then there's consequences to it, Right? And those consequences are never fun. The consequences are never fun. Nobody likes whipping their children. But because of that, I do believe there's a level of honesty that we have to have as workers where, like, you have to admit you dropped the ball. And you. I've said this, like, if you're the sharpest knife in the drawer, your life is really dull, right? If you're the one who's always right, something is wrong. And I believe that's what's happened in a lot of our workspaces where you're always the right one. Yeah, I'm always right. Everything I say is always right. So we can twist the truth. And so, like, you can ask five people, ask you what color Pen. You use one person's purple, other person's blue, the other person's green, the other person's blue, green. And the same thing goes for them, like, hey, why did you get that project in? Well, you, like, you should have known I was gonna text it. No, like, you didn't get it in. No, you should have known. No, no, you didn't. And so now I hate my job. Everybody around here is terrible. No, no, no. You didn't do your job. And now you hate it when the. The job says, we're trying to make you better. And unfortunately, what happens. And I've seen this both sides of it, which is why I can recognize that I've been the person who does it, and I've led people who've done that as well. Where you didn't do your job.

Yeah.

And. And there's consequences to that. And so if we're going to encourage you not to hate your job so much, ensure, at the bare minimum, you are doing your job.

Yeah.

And then here's the other piece. I'll say to that as well, if you're not going to hate it so much, because, like, you were saying, our motivation. So what happens and what's happened to me personally when I was, like, when I was. When I wasn't leading, I was supporting it to others, is I would bring my dreams to it. So then I made my workplace the place where you're gonna fulfill my dreams and wants. And when they didn't, now I'm mad, like, you hate me. You don't want me. You don't want me to be a bass. You don't want my best dreamer. I'm not gonna be an innovator anymore. You're taking things away from me when, like, no, Justin, your responsibility is like, CRM. Just get the thing in, get the names in, get them assimilated to get their information to them. And so I'm over here like. But I'm like, I want to, like, build and draw and drama and create and this. No, your job is to ensure. So do the first things first. I would suggest to anyone listening, like, make sure, as a manager myself, like, make sure you are doing the first things first. So if your leader, if you're authority figure, if your boss or whatever is asking you to, like, just use CRM for assimilation. For example. So, for example, like, at our church, every week, one of my. One of my team members is to input all the guests that come to the church. And then those individuals came more than one time. Move them to another box so we can follow up with them. There's a separate piece of assimilation that goes to each person and then they, and then if they join the church, their responsibility is to get that information, get it simulated to you and three other people, right? And so if they drop the ball, we miss out on all of our guests, our second time guests and our new members, right? And baptism candidates. And she has a great job. So it's not a negative thing. To one of my team members, shout out Michelle, like she does a great job with it, right? But if she doesn't do that, she's gifted in so many other areas. And so if she were to come with me first, like these are the things I'm dreaming about. No. So I suggest to managers, my last thing and to managers, one of the things I did add to my team that I love doing is I added this 30 minute of mandatory creative time, right. To my full time team members. You have 30 minutes of mandatory, so you have to report to me what you do in your mandatory creative time. So it's mandatory that you dream because I have an expectation that it's mandatory that the 25 things I ask you to do weekly get done. So most of them are on Friday and on Friday for half hour, they dream they have to report to me what they do in their creative moments. And it's like, that's where it's like, no, I want you to flex and I want you to do that and but I want you to dream first. Whether that's creating music, whether that's singing, whether that's dancing, whether that's writing, that's reading. But you can't confuse. This is what I need you to do from nine to five, right? But in within your nine to five, 30 minutes a week, I want you to be creative. So bring your full self here. But I need you to, for example, make sure things are in our CRM, make sure that you're recognizing our KPIs and like how we're recognizing, like how we're going to measure you and all of that. So like that way was a way that I tried to assist and like, hopefully you don't hate this, but there's certain things I expect to ensure that our Sunday morning happens, our Wednesday nights happen, our Thursdays happen, our events happen. But you can't come into work expecting your work to be the tell all, end all of your identity, and even someday. I talked about idolatry and I believe many of us idolize our work places, right? We make our workplaces the Fulfillment of God's goodness.

And it. That can be so confusing because it supplies our lifestyle.

Yeah.

Right. Like it finances our life. And that could be really hard to not see job or work as an idol because of the provision that we believe that brings us. Right. And separating those two things can be. Can be really hard. Yeah.

Our joint security and just about idolatry. Your joint security is in God first and not your job. Right. And so you mentioned even like single parents, it's not in the other parent that's working. So if that single parents are like working spouses, like it's not in the other person that's working. Right. So your job and security is not your security and lifestyle is not in your job. It's first of all in the Lord first. Right. And from. And if I idolize my job. I talked about this on Sunday. Is I then have put my job in direct competition with God and I can tell you who's going to win anything.

Toe for toe to God.

Yeah. Is going to win. And that's scary. Like we've heard that. Right? People talked about how they've wanted to go toe for toe with God. I'm like, there is not the only person I know of that tried that was Jacob. He tried. He still lost. Because God was like, I'm tired of this. I'm going to injure you. Because he could injure them. He could have killed him. I'm just going to injure you. So now everybody's going to know now this is what it looks like to go toe for toe with God.

Yeah.

I let you live, but I injured you. I changed your name and you better do this. And now even like think about it. The war we have going on in Israel right now because this fool tried to go toe to toe. Like this stuff we have, we have wars happening now.

Yeah.

Because someone tried to go toe to toe. Forgot what God. And that's what's so painful.

Yeah. I want to kind of go back to some things that you said to and you brought up when you were saying this. It really highlighted this concept that I'm even trying to teach our, our six year old son. And I'm teaching him about impact. Intention versus impact. Right. Intention versus impact. Right. Like for instance, he's six years old, he's always curious. Right. So I remember walking into his bathroom and there's toothpaste everywhere. Everywhere, all over his bathroom. And so I said, Camden, did you do this? Did you put toothpaste everywhere? And his, his response to anything is it was an accident. It was an accident. And I'm like squeezing toothpaste in excess. Like, that wasn't an act. Like, I mean it was like everywhere. It was everywhere. And so I'm like, I don't think it was an accident. I think your intention was to be curious. But the impact is now you don't have any toothpaste, right? And we have to look at the impact before our intention, right? Your intention was great. And maybe we can look at some other experiments or science things that we can squeeze things to see how what comes out and what explodes and what does that. But our impact is important. I think that this is a concept that I'm so happy is getting its highlight. It's getting into a lot of parenting books. It's in a lot of things that I think adults and employees and managers in our workspaces working with anyone alike, even in marriages and relationships. Intention versus impact, right? Some of the things that we do, whether that's saying what's on our heart or being. I'm just being real. Our intention could be, I just want attention for my boss. I just want someone to look at me and say, are you okay? I just want that. Our intention can be so pure, but the results of our, our actions and the impact that they have can be absolutely devastating if we don't do the true root of go after what we want, right? So do I need to send that? Do I need to say that? Do I need to do that? Do I need to not do that?

If you have to ask, right, you just shouldn't do it.

You shouldn't do it. You really should.

That's one thing I've learned. If you just have, like, is this going to have a bad outcome?

Just have clear communication and it's okay. Like, it's okay. But one of the things I as I've managed, I've managed lots of people in my career, right? Year after year, I get the coolest possible word and I love it. That's one of the like best titles I could ever have, right? Coolest. Because I don't really have rules, right? I get life and I'm like, can I get offshore can. I don't want to come. Don't. Like I'm just the type because I know who I've hired and, and I try to employ those things of motivation, reward and co working ability. As long as we're meeting the bottom line, quite frankly, I don't care. But one of the things that I try. Be honest with me, Courtney. I just want to have time with You. Or can I just have 30 minutes where maybe we're not talking about professional stuff. I just want to just talk. Right? I just want to talk about life. Because I. You see me every day. We realize that when we work with people, we see and talk to them every single day for eight hours. That's probably more than. You probably talk to your own family and your close friends, right?

About.

And how much. And I'm a big. I know Gen X hates this. They hate it. I'm a big Wholeness. Like bringing your whole self to work. I am so on the train. Because you do not separate. You cannot. You cannot. I wish you could, but you can't be like, oh, I'm just a mom here. No, I'm a. I'm a mom at the workplace, too. And if my child calls me, that leads to confusion. No, that. But this what I'm about to say. That's why authentic communication in all levels is really important on all levels. Every supervisor, every boss that I have worked with, I bring, hey, I am a dedicated mom. And this is what I'm telling you on the onset and on the very beginning, I think of what it is.

Honesty in terms of, like, my life cross compared to wholeness at work. Right? So honesty in terms of my life says like, hey, I'm a Christian. I really can't work on Sundays. I'm a mother or a father. I pick my child up this time or drop them off at this time. And like, xyz, in terms of emergency contacts, I think that's like, that's just honest. That's just real. That's life asking for understanding at the onset, which is smart wholeness to me. And I think that's where maybe my definition of wholeness is different. Is like, that is like. Is like all your emotions and all of your extraness and all of the, like, things that we did not hire that you did not communicate on your resume. Like coming in.

Right, Right.

So your resume commuted your communicated your professional summary. Right? This is who I am as a worker. This. I am as this. This. All of a sudden we hire you. All of a sudden, like, you show you on the interview, suit and tie on or dress on, blouse on. Because you communicated to us, oh, I come in dressed this professional. To me is this professional. To me is X. Professional means Y. So yeah, I have a child, I have a family, I have this, I have that. Like, even when I interview for the church, right? I was very clear. Like, I wear. Wants a blue moon. I don't wear robes unless I feel disrespected.

Very rarely do people listen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't wear robes unless I feel disrespected. And then I just Dr. I pray about what I wear and I wear it. Yeah, period. I was very clear about that in the interview. So it's like when I got here and my second Sunday I was in a T shirt and khakis. It was like, I told you this, this is who I am, this is what I do. Right. I think, I think wholeness in my estimation goes beyond that. Alright, so wholeness is emotions. It's like now all of a sudden I'm bringing my kids. Like, all of a sudden I'm bringing like random stuff and bringing video games and like I'm bringing everything in. Like, I'm like almost making this a second home. I think that's where idolatry begins to be creative. Because then like if I make my job my second home, then my home is my second job. So I'm bringing my job here. Right. So I'm not giving my family my full self because I'm bringing all the delineation between work and home has to be. I do believe there has to be a level of honesty in terms of this is what my life is. I'm a parent or I'm a caregiver or whatever that is to ensure that, hey, if I ask or take off for this or if I asked to be out, you've already shown that like this is what you'll receive. And the level of grace you give is gonna, oh, it's not gonna change my work input or output.

Absolutely. And I, I, I agree with that. Right. And I think a lot of it goes into the hiring process. I remember this really wise sage co worker that I had at bu. She really helped me as we were navigating and looking for additional help. Enrollment. How people always tell you who they are. 100 always. Like, at first I was like, oh, cover letters. They're just like, whatever, you know, they're not necessarily, I'm just looking at the resume and their past work experience and what they can do and their skill set. And she's like, oh, know like this. Right. This cover letter tells you exactly who.

The person is ATS is going to go. Right.

And the resume tells you whether they have this skill set and wherewithal to do the job that they're supposed to do. Right. And putting those together coupled with the interview helps to get you a good picture of what that is. Right. So a lot of times when we're looking and you're assessing. It's having a wise hire. And I think it's having a wise higher. Where people always. And this is in relationships, this is in interviews, this is in everything you have to be good listeners. People always introduce themselves and it's up to us to believe them in what they say and listen as they introduce us. And lots of times it's about hire.

Yeah.

When it does not work out. And that's what it's like. That's when you can apply very authentic and real things, like seeing someone as their whole self. Right. Like, absolutely.

You know, the worst hires I've ever had is when we rushed it or didn't. Didn't listen. Because then it's when you're in the difficult moments of like, do I have to make this decision? Where you begin to reflect upon, like.

They told me this, they told me this crap.

They told me this. And it's, it's, it's never like, very rarely do you release someone because of, like, just their work. Right? It's because the dumb stuff they do with work. Right. We're not just dumb. Dumb is the wrong word. The things that happens with work or the extra that comes to work and then you reflect upon it. Like, they showed me this. This, right? It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. And even friends and colleagues I've talked to about their situations as well. Right? Whether it's religious stuff or secular stuff, it's the same thing. This principle applies beyond, you know, the religious world or the secular world. It just applies, period. You and you heard me say this a million times on this podcast. You hire slow, but you fire fast. You have to to hire slow and fire fast. If you think about firing someone, you're too late. Right? The same thing like you said in hiring. If you get into a hiring process and they tell you that they. A whole bunch of fit to fit to fit two. Let me tell you what the job's going to be. Everything they do is going to be a bunch of fit two. Fit two, fit two. If they tell you that they're a doer the jobs and you need dreamers, make sure you hire the dreamer. Don't hire the doer because the doer is going to get things done. But if you're hiring a dreamer, you need something to dream and ideate and.

Make sure the role is a dreaming role. 100 and make sure that. Because a lot of times in which we have that dis, like the buckets are weird or we aren't matching in capacity Is because the doer is in a dreamer role. The dreamer is in the doer role. And a hundred percent that always gets. And then knowing yourself as a person, am I your dreamer? Am I a doer? Drive 50, 50 of the both and being honest and authentic. Right. It's just not about I got just to get a job. We got to get out of that, especially black people. We do. We have to get out of that. Like, I just need a job. I just need a job. I just need a job. No, you need something that aligns with what you can do every single day. So that working it, it doesn't feel like a job. It doesn't feel like, oh, oh, this is what, what we're doing. So I think that's good. I hope we've helped.

I hope so too. It's actually interesting. I'm working on this. So we're working on our book together. Bffr. And then I had this idea for a book actually to talk through different workplace personalities and working through that. Yeah. So I was thinking about different workplace personalities. I started working through it in light of like scripture and how each one of us has a unique personality and how every Moses needs a Joshua, but not like the follow through Joshua, like, like, when you die, Moses, I'm gonna come behind you. But every Moses needs someone who's going to be honest with the people. But then there's weaknesses of Joshua, right? So Moses is up on the mountain and Joshua's like, I mean, don't do it, but like don't do you know what I mean? But then this Joshua got his own weaknesses. Or like I was, I've been starting to ideate around different workplace personalities and because every single one of us has one. But you have to have a balance. Like you need a Jethro. Moses and Joshua in the same work environment, right. They all have different skill sets. Moses is the dreamer, Jethro is a supporter and Joshua is the doer. You need all three. And if you have a team of Moses's, you're just gonna have a bunch of dreamers and nothing's gonna get done. You have a bunch of Joshua's, they're gonna get done. But you're not gonna have any dreams. You're a bunch of Jethros. There's gonna be a bunch of exhorters and I think there's a, there's a way to see and survey. So that's what I'm working on. So anyway, what's your unpaid advertisement?

My unpaid advertisement is for the game of Uno. Oh, My gosh. Our six year old son, we played six games over the weekend and he's, he's beat me maybe in five out of the same. And I, I mean I'm not even going easy on him. Like I'm not like sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna, I'm not gonna put this draw too down and let him have it. No. I was like working. I'm like giving this guy my, my best strategy and he beat me. He's beat me.

So I love it.

You know, bringing families together for me.

You know. The NBA starts on Thursday.

Oh.

So I am checked out of the NFL season.

Wow. I understand football. I mean basketball. So I am on this train.

My unpaid advertisements. The NBA season. NBA, where you go when you're college. And NFL teams are absolute garbage. The Wisconsin Badgers are trash. What you call it? The Green Bay packers are trash. This year we have every, every game but the first two. We have scored three points in the first half. Three points, three points. I could buy nine points all season in the first half. And then our quarterback likes to throw game ending interceptions. So it's just horrible in the back warehouse. So Marquette is number five in the country. And so I'm really excited about Marquette being number five in the country. Preseason. And we got a final four in us this year. I'm hoping for. And the Bucks have multiple all stars. So I'm gonna watch the packers just because.

What is that about Drew though?

What scripture talks about you gotta suffer a little while. So I'm gonna watch the packers every week just to suffer because they're, it's just, it's watching a funeral. And then the Badgers I can't bring myself to watch. But this Saturday they play Michigan. So they're going to get their butts completely wiped on Michigan and it's just going to be terrible. And so football. I'm giving it a couple years. Badgers will be back in a couple years when Cincinnati coach either if he stays, Finkel stays or leaves and the Packers. I don't even know what to do anymore. Like this is just. A rod was good, but there's a thing. I'm done. A rod would call his own plays in the huddle. I understand because Jordan Love needs to do something and I'm supportive of the black man, but you put this black man in white Wisconsin.

Oh my goodness.

I feel so bad.

This is a whole podcast.

I feel so bad.

Oh my goodness.

You're made for Mondays. Mondays are on duty on your Mondays. Have a great day.