Nicolas Cole says work-life balance isn't about doing everything at once. It's about accepting trade-offs and treating different periods as chapters with their own focus. During his agency's early growth, he sacrificed personal writing and hobbies, and he asks how badly you want something and whether you'll use small pockets of time to get there.
There will always be a trade-off. You will never have a day where you're like, I did everything and I didn't sacrifice anything. And so what I mean is like, you know, one day or one week you might prioritize more of your own writing or your own newsletter or something that you're working on, which fundamentally means deprioritizing maybe client work or cold outreach or some other component. Other days and weeks it's flipped. Like when I, when I was building my ghostwriting agency, I did— my personal writing suffered a lot. I wanted, I wanted to write books, I wanted to read more literature, I wanted to have hobbies, I wanted to do all sorts of things. And for years I didn't do any of them. And so that, like, you will always have a trade-off. And so I really encourage not so much thinking like work-life balance is how do I have everything at the same time, but it's actually extending the time horizon and going, for this chapter of my life, which could be a day, it could be a week, it could be a month, it could be a year, for this chapter of my life, this is the priority, and then I can change my priorities and do something different later. And two, like, so I think high level, that, that's the important idea is You can do everything you want to do. You just can't do it all simultaneously, you know? So you have to extend the time horizon. Like, there were a lot of things— there were so many projects that 10 years ago I wanted to do that just didn't get prioritized. And like, now maybe I'm able to start tackling them, but that, that was 10 years, you know? And so you got to get comfortable extending the time horizon. The, the other, the other component though is And like, how bad do you want it? You know, and, and that's where it's— you don't have to— like, the answer for everyone's going to be different. I don't think everyone should, you know, sacrifice everything in order to achieve their goals. If that's not your thing, you don't have to do it. But like, for example, traveling for your cousin's wedding or seeing family or whatever, it's like, did you write on the plane? Did you make use of the flight or did you sit, you know, decide to just watch Netflix for 4 hours? There's nothing wrong with that. I watch Netflix a lot on the plane too, but like there are chapters of my life where I'm like, damn, you know, this weekend I know that this is the only time that I'm going to have. And so how bad do I want it? Do I, do I make use of these 4 hours on the flight or do I not?
Yeah, I think that's a good point also, Cole. Like the little pockets of time, especially when you're out for the weekend or, you know, a lot's going on, whether it's an Uber from A to B or like a train ride or you're not driving. I think those little pockets of time, I think, are going to be very important for those type of things. But yeah, thank you for your, uh, thank you for your thoughts, Cole.
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