Finding And Keeping Your Entrepreneurial Balance – #flashtopic From The On The Shelf Podcast With Timothy Bush

Foreigners. Welcome to on the Shelf, a program that is dedicated to helping you get your products into a major big box retailer. Tim here with you. Glad to be back. And today is actually a flash topic recording. That's right. I know it's been some time since we recorded a flash topic. And on the panel today, of course, Joe Tarnowski, Salah Khalaf is back, Tracy Hazard is back, and myself are going to round out the panel. Looking forward to our discussion, of course. Just like always. Not going to tell you what that is, but we do have a guest moderator today. Joe Tarnowski is taking the reins today. He chose the topic. He is leading the discussion, and as the only panelist member other than myself who has not missed a flash topic, well deserved. So I don't want to hold it up. I don't want to stop the progress. So without any further ado, let's get right into it. So, hey, everybody. Welcome back to flash topic. Welcome back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while, right?

Yeah. It's my fault. It has been a while. So welcome back to Joe Tarnowski and Tracy Hazard in Salakala. And maybe Tom will join us. We'll have to wait and see. He's a busy guy. But before we get going, I just want to do a quick memory for Jamie Robinson, who's obviously not going to be on our flash topic anymore. She passed away about just over 30 days ago. I think when I attended her services, she had problems with her kidney that just kept getting worse. And so we're going to miss her and looking forward to getting somebody new into her slot. But I miss her every day. She was one of those people that kind of just knew the kind of graphics and stuff that I wanted. And I would just call her up and say, hey, I need this, or, hey, I need that. And what I would generally get back was exactly what I wanted. And that's a little difficult to replace, I think.

Oh, I know. I know what you mean.

Yeah. That's tough. That's tough. Sorry to hear that.

Yeah. Yeah, she definitely. Well, but on a more positive note, Joe is going to be throwing out the topic today.

I was wondering why we didn't have one in email.

Right. Well, we don't do. We don't do the email topics anymore, so we just throw the hat.

Yeah, the hat.

Yeah. Because you guys just didn't believe me anyway. So we just do one topic now, and it's still a flash topic, but it's just one and then we discuss it. And Joe is the only other person other than me that has never missed a flash topic episode. So.

That's right.

Right.

Why is he not on video? What's going on?

Because he's just on his phone.

I'm on vacation. I'm using my phone.

Oh, gosh.

He's in his. He's by the pool. He's in his Speedo. He doesn't want anybody to see him like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Just stay in the background, Joe.

I don't want to scare anybody away.

I don't know what kind of drink he's having, but. Yeah, I can imagine.

No, believe it or not, it's just early afternoon.

Yeah. Believe it or not, when I go away and I do these weeks, and I'll get into this later on because it's related to the topic, but when I go away on these weeks, I don't have a drink at all.

Oh, wow. Good for you.

That's because it's not free from ecrm, buddy. That's why.

No, no, they only. We can only expense one, so.

Yeah, it's too early for that.

Yeah. Right. Hey, before we get into it, let me tell you my Gary Vaynerchuk story.

Yeah, go.

So over the past few months, I've been doing more and more work with different people in his organization. Right. The Sasha Group is speaking at our job before you.

Before you go any further, for the big boxers out there that don't. Maybe don't know who Gary is. Who's Gary? Why don't you tell. Start there.

Sure. Let's see. That's hard to put in a quick sentence, but basically he's an entrepreneur. He's a social media guru. His main business now is VaynerMedia, which Vayner x actually, which is a holding company of different ad agencies, a social media agency called VaynerMedia. He's got the Sasha Group, which consults with emerging brands and helping them to experience explosive growth. He's got a few digital publishing companies, so he gets into a lot of things. He's well known in the whole entrepreneur set, but probably what he's most known for is his ability to really grab people's attention through content. So he does a lot of content on all the different social media platforms. I'm sure many of you have probably seen his videos. He's heavy on Instagram, on Twitter. He's big on. He's a podcaster. So I'm basically any type of media where people are paying attention to. He's on there in some way, shape or form. So I've always been a big follower of his. And a lot of the content that I do for ECRM is based on the principles that he shares. He's a big believer in just giving away his best stuff. The only thing is not many people put take the time and execute on what he says. But I've done that and, you know, it's done wonderful things for us for ECRM as a company. So I've always been a big fan of him. When they launched the Sasha Group, which is aimed at small brands, I reached out to them to see if they can start speaking at our sessions, which they have. But then I've also gotten in touch in the past week, I was dealing with the Sasha group. I also have former Gary Vaynerchuk employee writing columns for us. And then this past Saturday, I was hanging out with this guy Zane, who's on Team Gary Vee, which is the team of like 20 or 30 people that just do Gary's content. And Zane happens to live in my neighborhood six blocks away from me, so he just moved in. I took him around my neighborhood, introduced him to everybody. So then I'm on my flight, getting ready to board my plane to Orlando, and I'm wearing my Gary V sneakers, right? He's got a deal with Kate Swiss. He's got on his fourth line of sneakers, and somebody taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and it's Drock, who is his videographer. And he points out my sneakers. He's like, hey, thanks for your support. So I'm a big fan of Drocks too, because he's the one that gathers and collects all that content that Gary uses for everything. And turns out they're on their way to a keynote. Gary was getting on the plane right there. So I caught up with the both of them after the flight and got to chat a little bit with Gary. So it was just. It was really cool. It's a great way to start my vacation. You know, I let him know all the things that I was doing with his guys. And of course, the main thing was I wanted to thank him for all the content and all of the advice he gives out for free on how to really, really optimize your content. You know, that was the main thing was just to really thank him for that. So it was pretty cool way to start my vacation.

That's good.

I love that. Joe. Joe, I'm sending you my video that I made about our new microphone because it's my Gary Vee story. So I'LL give it to Tim and Tim will link it in here. So I won't take anyone's time to tell it. But, yeah, we. Our new product was inspired by a failed interview with Gary V.

Once you guys were done talking, did you guys hug it out? Did you guys all hug it out? Did you get a little.

We didn't hug it out, but I got a selfie with each of them.

Good. We're going to have to deal with the selfie. Okay.

I love it.

So, yeah, so that was my Gary Fee story.

Do you know, interestingly enough, with as much time as they spend on airplanes, I never see anybody. Like, I never run into anybody, never see anybody. I'm always expecting to see somebody, though. I'm always expecting, hey, I'm going to see somebody I know or somebody that you know, not necessarily know personally, but now, not really never see anybody. I don't know why.

I was just bummed. I was bummed I didn't upgrade to first class on my way here because I upgraded on my way back and I would have been up there with them then.

You would really have a great time. Yeah, well, I'm out of L. A, so I always see the celebrity settings are, like, common.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Tracy, you have them?

Yeah, it's. When don't we see one?

Well, there you go. They rub it in. Yeah. When don't we.

Yeah, well, we have them in Bentonville, Arkansas, too, but they come in at a Walmart private airport, you know, for events or, you know, every year we have the shareholders meeting, they bring celebrities. Then in the holiday meetings or the annual meetings, they do bring celebrities. Always. We've had our share of meeting a few. Nice.

Yeah. That's when you have to be careful that you're not all flying and talking while your competitors are all in the next seats.

Right.

It happens. I've been there.

I can tell you stories about that.

Yeah.

Lots of good stuff.

You hear.

Like forgetting a profit and loss statement on a plane.

Yeah, I've seen that. I've seen binders get left behind presentations.

Yeah. I will tell you that I have plenty of children flying in and out of Orlando. There's no shortage of kids. You know when they say, hey, anybody traveling with small kids or need extra time boarding?

That's like the whole plane.

And I'm like, hey, listen, Your kid is 16. You don't need extra time boarding.

All right, Joe, why don't you get us started? What's the topic today?

Sure.

All right.

Basically the topic is what do you do when you're not doing your job. You know, I want to focus on all of those. That kind of work life balance, or I think more appropriately, the way Jeff Bezos considers it as work life harmony. How are we. What are we all doing to achieve that work life harmony? What are our morning routines? How are we taking care of our bodies? What kind of hobbies do we have? Self improvement vacation, like I'm doing today. So what are all those things outside of work that we do that kind of makes us better at what we do or complements it well? So that's basically what I'd like to cover. And I don't know who wants to start. Tim, why don't you start off since you're a panelist now.

Geez, I've been demoted. I'm just. Don't make it.

Get that hosting thing.

Yeah, don't make it sound so lowly. You're a panelist.

Let's start with the morning.

Tim always goes last. Yeah, Tim always goes last, so let him go first. I agree.

Exactly. So I'm a big fan of morning routines and, you know, I'm a big believer in. In routines in general. I think routines are really important to kind of combat decision fatigue. So, Tim, do you have any morning routines?

Yeah. You know, honestly, I wish I was better at really any routine. Honestly, I want to say that I really have something that I do every single morning that really, other than coffee, that really makes it happen. But my schedule, whether it's talking to people in Australia or early in the morning or late at night or calls that I have to make, my routine is not super set in the morning. And honestly, it's a challenge that I have and it's something I want to fix because really, I'm still in charge of my own schedule so I can create a routine. I will tell you, one of the things that I do probably 80% of the time is I take about a four mile walk with my dog almost every morning. Like I said, it's about 80% of the time. I'm at about 80% and my dog doesn't do anything right because like, my doctor will say, no, you can't take a walk with your dog because that's not a real walk. Because they stop to pee. They do this. Well, my dog is a nightmare until I put his walk collar on. And then it's like he's a soldier. I don't know what happens to him, but he's perfect once we put the collar on and I can walk as fast or slow as I need to and is a total rock star. And as soon as I stop, he sits right down. And then when we go again. So walking with my dog is just like a vigorous walk. So I get in a good exercise. Something else that I do in the morning is I write. And this is actually, I'm pretty consistent. I write some gratitude down. It's not super, what's the word? Regimented. So I don't have lines that I fill out and answer questions. But I try to start my day with a little bit of gratitude because I have a tendency to look at my schedule or look at in, you know, at the things that are coming up. And if I don't look at gratitude first, then I tend to look at my schedule and, and get. I don't want to say down, but maybe just feel like things are closing in on me when technically based on my job and my career and where I am and where I live, there's a lot to be grateful for before I start thinking that I'm too burdened. So if I don't spend some time with gratitude, I'll start whining about that I have too much to do. And so I think those are the two things that I do pretty consistently. I'd like to do more. Like I'd like to have a set time that I get up in the morning and get after my day at a certain time, but I can't seem to. Well, I guess what I really should say is I haven't made the decision or the choice to actually do that. Jocko mocks me every morning at 4:30, you know, with his morning Instagram watch. With his watch. I just think he has a watch picture for every day of the week and he just posts that each day.

Right now I'm sure he does, right?

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Do you find your international business kind of throws you off kilter a little bit with that? I mean, sometimes I would imagine you have really odd hour, close to odd hours.

Yeah, well, and like I said, that makes it hard to get a routine I call different parts of the world at different times of the week and then just travel in general, like I said, going to Brazil at the beginning of December for 10 days. We're doing two cities and by the time I get back, it'll take me some time to get re acclimated. I was in China for 10 days. So coming back from that was. I felt hungover, I think is the best way I can describe it. Come 4 o' clock in the afternoon, I would Just hit a wall. But, yeah, so I try to schedule out my calls and the people I'm talking to the best I can, so I know what's coming up. But, yeah, it doesn't make for a consistent routine. I read about people, you know, those people out there that have this consistent and wonderful routine, and I think, you know, maybe those people don't have families or responsibilities because I do a lot of other things. I cook every night and, you know, I do things to help my family. And so it's not always about me first thing in the morning. It's not always, you know, I don't have, like, a three solid hours that it's just about Tim. And I can do some mindful meditation and then some tai chi and then maybe have a sip of tea and then do a walk. You know, that just doesn't exist for me. And so I'm working on it to get better at it, and I know that I can. But, yeah, that's my morning routine. Are we doing morning routines first and then we're going to swing back around, or are we going the whole. What else?

Yeah, no, we'll do morning routines, and then we'll. We'll jump around to some of the other topics.

All right.

I think that gratitude thing is important. I think too many people take for granted just how good we actually have it compared to, like, you know, people in other places. And that if you just really start off the day being thankful for what you have, it kind of puts things in a better perspective. Perspective.

Yeah. It's been a kind of a game changer for me, you know, because I think that you think that you're grateful for what you have. But I think if you really think about it, a lot of times we start getting grumpy about certain things, and then, you know, you kind of have to just correct yourself. And so I think by starting off the day talking about the things that you're grateful for makes it easier to shovel off. Maybe when something comes up and you're like, oh, my gosh, that person. What do they want to talk about? It's easier to say, hey, you know what? No worries. I got time for you when you started it off that way.

But just listen to Jocko's podcast and you'll feel really grateful.

Right?

Grateful not to be in unit 731 or whatever.

All right, Tracy. Exactly.

Yeah, right, Tracy. Morning routine.

So I'm not a morning person. Surprise, surprise.

Afternoon.

Yeah. I have more of an evening routine than I have a morning routine. Although Tom and I Are like, we're the perfect co parents because Tom takes the mornings and I take the bedtimes. So like we're really perfect for match for each other that way. But lately my morning routine has been dominated by a dog jumping in bed in the morning and giving me massive amounts of kisses and distracting me. So we got a new puppy earlier this year, Lucy. And she's like purebred cocker Spanish. She looks like lady from lady and the Trap. She totally looks like that and she just like makes me slow down and I loved that. So I have like this little sweet morning, like where she's like, oh, just stay in bed a little longer and pet me. Cause look how cute I am. And that has like changed the pace of my morning because usually it's derailed by girls rushing out the door and getting on phone calls and a massive amount of email before all my interviews start for the day. So like, you know, that's kind of the whole routine is impacted in a speedy morning. You know, for me, the evening routine is my routine. And so that's where I have a practice of doing a lot of reading, which is my personal time, like personal reading. Things that I want to read, things that I'm interested in learning, checking out. That's what I do in the evening. Because Tom falls asleep, like literally falls asleep around 9 o' clock when I put the girls down. By the time I come down, he and the dog are dozing. And so like it's all my time. I don't have to hear anyone, I don't have to talk to anyone. I can do my own thing. But the last thing that I do before, you know, I get myself ready for bed and everything. The last thing that I do before bed, and that's only been in the last probably two weeks or so that I've like made sure it's a nightly thing. And this is based on working with a mentor. Right now I reread my vision statement for the next three years every single night. Now it's the last thing I read before I go to bed. And it includes gratitude in there. So it reads like a story. And that's what our vision statement, you know, each of us have our own. But that's my personal one. And it's a personal vision as well as my company one. But what I'm finding is like when I wake up, I have this massive amount of like ideas and energy that are incredibly valuable. Like it's like whatever ideas, you know, how you get those like flashes of ideas overnight and you Wake up and you're thinking, oh, that's so great. But then as you go and vet it over the day, you're like, oh, yeah, that was not a really great idea. I should not be distracting myself with that. Instead, my brain's filtering them out to bringing me just the one that's perfect, perfect. The one that solves a problem that I've been trying to solve or figure out a piece of a path. And so it's been fantastic for me. Some of the best ideas I've had is I vet them and give them to Tom and share with him what we're doing. We're like, this is key part of our strategy. This is amazing. And so it really has helped me filter through that in my brain. So it's now a night routine.

How long's your vision statement?

It's about two pages long.

Do you have it memorized?

No, not yet. Every so often I'll finesse it. You know, like you're like wordsmithing it along the way. I suspect probably in another week or so I will.

You know, there's a lot of science behind that kind of thinking about something, a product problem you're trying to solve, thinking about it hard before you go to bed or before you go for a run, or before you kind of do something that's kind of completely different from it. And then when you return to it, your brain is kind of working on it in the background.

And I've always been a firm believer in that, like creative thought and when our ideas for products and all those things that I do more time thinking about it than I do actually drawing things or that. So it's always been my practice anyway, and how. How we move through our ideas and our innovations. So it fits perfectly with where I wanted to go. And when it was suggested to me by my mentor, I was like, this is perfect for the way I want to do things. And I know this is going to work. And it really just immediately was a snap fit for us.

I'm the same way when it comes to content. I always say I don't do writing at my desk. I do typing at my desk. I do my writing when I'm wandering around and walking outside or something. I'm a very active thinker. I need to be moving around. And sometimes if I'm working on, let's say, a longer form story, I'll gather all my notes and for my interviews and everything. And then before I go to bed, I'll read through it and then I'll just forget about it go to sleep, start fresh in the morning. And I find that connections are being made while I'm in bed. What about you? Do you start off with some baklava?

I want that. That sounds awesome.

You can go to super Targets and get them.

Really.

They're in there next week. So.

Thank you so. Well, as you may or may not all of you know, my work balance story is this year or the past 12 months have really taken a different turn because I really had to change and just do things because every day is a different day and don't know what's going to happen. So as you may know or may not know, my oldest son have an aggressive head and neck cancer, mainly in his tongue, down his throat, down his armpits. So it's a long story short, it's an aggressive, aggressive type. And so I've had to deal with a lot of changes. Suddenly my day is not the same anymore. My day is which hospital going to be in, what kind of cure there is out there, which surgery are we doing today, what doctor are we seeing? And then that's in addition to my heavy load and the work I do. So I've had to live with really a huge change. I mean, my morning was walking right when I wake up, I'm a morning guy. I love to wake up and just do my exercise early morning. If I don't do it in the morning, I'm not gonna do it in the afternoon or at night. It's just me and the way I get used to doing get up in the morning and what I do in the morning. But that changed quickly because now I get up thankful one for my son for being still around and then thankful for God and thankful that we have helped and we're still around to take care of my son. So it's a lot of gratitude and thanks that I was still able to do that. I've had to adjust my days as I mean, this is the toughest thing is to go through this with your son having these difficulties, especially a healthy son. And then what do you do during the day? You know, it's just everything centered really. 12 months last October. Now it's actually 13 months. And Tim, thank you. You've been following up with me all along and you understand what I'm going through and what you've been through in your personal life. But it's been a change. It's been a change to balance things out. It's really the toughest thing to do is, you know, wake up. Okay, surgery, 12 hour surgery today, what do we do? And then my work. My work consisted of me, thank God for smartphones and iPhones and so forth. This has been my go to work. It's my iPhone because I'm sitting either in a hospital room or a clinic or attending to my son. But I managed to find time during those times to run my business. How do I do it? There's no way I can plan my day either. Maybe late at night when I get to the hotel room because of my son's situation. I've had to be in hotels most of this year for the past 13 months. So I have to manage things completely different. Things are out of order, out of shape. This is not the norm. But I had to adjust. So I do my work, I answer emails, I do everything when I leave, back to the hotel where I'm staying or on my iPhone if I can and when I can. And thank God for a few people I know who stepped in to help everything. I need things delivered done in Bentonville with Walmart. So I've had good, reliable people that are just friends that have stepped in and really up to the plate and gave me the support that I need. So a lot of thank you and a lot of thank God during the day and at night, 24 7, you just adjust accordingly. My exercise is off and on. If I'm in a hotel, I try my best to get up, do the exercise that I do in the morning. But for the past three months I didn't. But then a week ago, I decided, you know what, I need to get back in shape because I feel like, you know, that's it, I'm out of shape. So I started back into my exercise routine and thank God the business is running. I've had the opportunity to travel two days only on business to New Jersey and do a presentation for a group of the U.S. korean of chamber of Commerce and back. But other than that, everything is in between for me. But I do find the time to jump in and have that one hour. If my son is in chemotherapy that day, I'm on laptop either next to him or in a room somewhere within that center. Taking care of business and taking care of my son. It becomes top priority when it's your son, when it's your family. But I managed and I managed this year, you know, thank God people understand. I didn't have to go to a lot of meetings. I've had to cancel a lot. But I've had to balance out and make sure my son is getting the attention he needs to get from me and my wife, clearly, not just me.

Well, we wish him and you the best. I think you bring up a really important point, is that, you know, no matter how organized or how many routines we have, life sometimes gets, you know, takes precedence and sometimes we have to adjust on the fly.

And that's what I've done. That's what I've had to do. I mean, this is talk about work life balance. I mean, this is one of those just come your way and you start thinking, wow, I had a routine before what I do in the morning, what I do during the day, at night, things were going, things were flowing. But you know what? When the going gets tough, the tough gets worn. You just have to adjust accordingly. And that's what I had to do. And thank God every day for a good health and able to do what I do.

Yeah, I think that's why it's important like that. What I mentioned before, that I think it was Jeff Bezos that said it was. It's not so much work life balance, but more work life harmony. Right. Because you're never going to have that exact balance. Going to swing a little in one direction one time sometimes. Sometimes it's going to swing in the other direction. You have to kind of just go with the flow.

Yeah, Joe, you know, that's. Actually I said that on stage, I don't know how long ago is a few years ago. And I said that to someone. They were asking about how we have work life balance, because I work with my husband. And I said, well, we don't, because balance is bs. And I actually said the whole words on the stage. But, you know, we're keeping a clean podcast here, so. Yeah. And so anyway, and I instead said, you know, what we strive to do is harmony. Because harmony means that someone could have to, you know, take the drum solo because your voice is gone.

Right.

You know, you just can't do it today. So harmony is more the point because it's an entire group of you. It's. It's your whole family pulling together. Balance is temporary. If you've ever tried to hold a yoga pose or. I was a ballet dancer as a kid, you know, standing on one point, you know, on the point of your toe. You can't do that forever. It's not sustainable. Harmony is sustainable. And so when I think about that, that is what I talk about it all the time. And so that is the goal, because it's achievable, because it's beautiful, too. Your energy altogether is greater. I mean, I always think of my favorite musicians. The ones who do beautiful harmony are way more amazing to me and I can listen to them again and again than anyone who's all on their own. And there's none of that harmony going on.

So absolutely right on. Definitely.

I am a big morning routine person. I try to establish as many routines as possible, both with my morning and the structure of my day, really, so that I don't have to use up mental energy kind of figuring out what am I going to do, you know, I try to make everything routine so that I don't have to think about it, you know. So basically, unless it's disrupted for some reason, my mornings follow the same exact pattern. I get up in the morning, usually around 6 or 6:30. I have a coffee while I write two pages in my journal, which is something I've been doing since 1994 before journaling became a thing. Just as a brain dump of everything that happened the day before. Any thoughts that I'm having at that point, just a self reflection. And then when I'm done with that, I'll do my workout of the day, which is either one of several different workouts that I do. Then I shower. Super hot shower, three minute cold immersion. In other words, I shut off all of the water. I think I mentioned this before. Shut off all the hot water and I just let the ice cold water run on me for three minutes, which definitely wakes you up.

Then I easy, Tony Robbins.

Yeah. Then I start. It works. It really works. What I found with that, because it started, it was 30 seconds and I couldn't handle more than that little by little. But in addition to jolting you awake, what I find is doing that kind of helps me stay focused on a task more. Because, you know, you're standing under that ice cold water, you just want to get the hell out of there, but you kind of will yourself to endure it and kind of relax and that kind of makes it easier if you're, you know, trying to focus on something else. I find it works. Have you ever tried it? Has anybody ever tried that?

Yeah.

Well, it's supposed to. When you're under extreme cold, whether you do a cold plunge or cold shower, it pulls in all the blood from your extremities, move towards your heart and towards your brain, and so you can think a lot clearer, you get a lot more oxygen, and then as you step out of it, then you're sending really oxygenated blood back out to the extremities of your body. So it's supposed to be really good. Yeah. I can't stand it. Well, let's just say this also, the cold water in Florida is not really that cold.

No, I've noticed that in California either.

Cold water, you may want to. We want to get. Fly to Dubai and see what cold water is out of the faucet. I've been in New York.

Well, I can tell you in New York, in New York in the wintertime, that water's cold.

Yeah.

And I can't stand it.

So it's really good for your hair. So to do a cold. So. Yeah, because it closes all the follicles in your hair so that it gets less frizzy and all of those other things. So it holds all the conditioner and moisture in. So I do do it, but, like, not three minutes, I have to say, it's just that cold rinse on my hair and then I'm out of that show. Because I like mine super hot, too.

Well, the three minutes I got from, I was listening to an Aubrey Marcus podcast and he had Wim Hof on there. You know, that guy that runs in the Antarctica with barefoot and all that they were talking about. One of the things they mentioned that it does also is it releases. It triggers the fight or flight reflex, and it releases norepinephrine, which is really good at reducing inflammation caused by chronic stress. So it kind of helps to counteract that as well. So, you know, I feel very refreshed when I do it when I get out of there, you know, and then I start my day. My day is broken up, too, into routines. My first half of my day is creating content, and then I have lunch. Then the second half of my day is all the other stuff, you know, whether it's administrative or calls that I have or expenses, all the kind of mindless stuff that I could do. Because what I find is I'll have that first half of the day of intense focus when I'm creating things. But then the second half of the day, when your mind, your focus, your ability to focus is not as strong. Kind of doing phone calls perks me up, you know, when I'm talking to other people, it kind of revitalizes me. So for me, I found that that kind of combination works nice.

So.

All right, so now some of you guys mentioned.

Hey, Joe, real quick, I want to ask you, how does your routine work on the road?

Same thing. Well, I may not do the journal part only because I leave my journals at home. You know, there's some private stuff in there, so I don't want to lose my Journal, like on the road. So that journal part is usually skipped. But all the other components that I'll do. But you're absolutely right. In Florida there's the cold water is warm and Chicago is really good for the cold water. But otherwise I try to do the same thing. I may, depending on where we are, you know, at one of our programs, we may have to get up a lot earlier and I may do my workout in my room instead of downstairs in the gym, depending on how late we are the night before, how much time I have. But otherwise it's basically all the way into the shower, it's the same. And then afterwards it's just the day's not divided into creating content and all the other stuff, it's kind of chaos. You've seen me at our sessions. It's just all over the place.

I don't, I don't actually see you at the sessions anymore. We used to have time to chat, but you're just too busy for that now.

I do know that our CBD one last week I filmed 21 video interviews in two days.

Wow.

Wow, that's pretty good.

And our overflow hotel was an 45 minutes away, so I had a 45 minute trip at both end and I still had squeezed in all of those videos. So yeah, so yeah, he's right. The video thing is taking off so much that I just usually all day in the video room filming speakers, buyer suppliers, all that stuff. But the good part is that's where all of the content comes from. That's my pillar content, so to speak. How you turn those video interviews into everything else, whether it's blog post or small snippets of videos or infographics or whatever, it all comes from those, those interviews. So yeah, so on the road it does throw a little wrench in the works of that routine.

All right, man, well, what's next? Because we're at I think what, 45 minutes now, so.

Yeah. All right, well, let's skip around then. Let's see, we can talk about hobbies or vacation. Let's talk about vacation. What do you guys do for vacations?

What's a vacation, did you say?

Yeah, what is a vacation for you?

What is a vacation? I would love to.

Vacay is a four letter word.

All right, well, there's two different types of vacations. Couple days off here and there or going actually for a week and doing. Or two weeks and doing something. What is the vacation to you? Let's start with that.

I think.

I can't remember that's the real problem.

Yeah, I mean I travel a lot on my own and I go to some cool places, but I'm by myself. So it's not as much a vacation to me is when I have my whole family there. We do like to get away. We generally like just a lot of times they can tag onto what I'm doing. I was just in New York for four days and so they came and tagged on to the last two days of that. Over the weekend. For the first time ever, we're meeting up with my sister and her family for Christmas this year in Tahoe. So we're doing Christmas week away from the house, which like I said, we've never done. We generally always try to do one week at the beach at a, do a beach rental for a week. And that to me I'm a big water guy. So whether it's lake or beach or when I'm next to the water, I just feel better.

Me too. That's why I love being near the beach too.

I agree with that. Oh, speaking of routines, when I'm on vacation, I run an ocean kayak. I always go out early onto the water, watch the sun come up on the Atlantic Ocean to me is just the best part of my day. And then I'll come back in and grab a cup of coffee and go sit down at the beach. And generally still all that time, nobody's up yet, so that's all just me time. And especially on the Atlantic Ocean, if there's some storms or whatever, then there'll be some good shells out there that I might grab. And then also, you know, from June almost to November is turtle lane season. So you know, when you're out late at night, you'll get to see the turtles coming in and then in the morning you get to see where they laid their, their eggs. And if you're lucky enough like we were last year, you get to see a, a nest hatch and the little guys making their way down to the water. Yeah. So to me, Joe, anything that I can do on, around in the water is with my family's a vacation.

I think I'm with you there too, Tim. We all agree beach is the way to go. Of course before this past year, I mean I made sure we have enough time to travel overseas and do stuff or go somewhere on a vacation while there as well. That entails either beach or somewhere on the water. But things change and I think each of us that have life changing things and you begin to think, okay, where do I go now for vacation? When do I do it? How do I plan it? When do I plan it? And so forth. Absolutely. Beach is the way to go. Being on a beach, that's probably the best way. Yeah.

So my issue really is that I got young kids, so 5 and 10, and they don't get enough of me because I do travel a lot. I did a lot of speaking events this year. So that means that vacation gets to be determined by them. So it means our vacation is actually more intense than my day job. So I look forward to coming back to work because if you've ever had to take a couple of kids around Disney World, right? You know, like, it's intense. And that's the way my girls are. My girls are like, let's go to Disneyland. We gotta see Star Wars. Mom, why haven't we seen Star wars yet? I'm like, well, because it is down the freeway, however. Up the freeway, however. Do you know how many people are.

Going to be there?

I don't. You know, so talking them into something that is more reasonably paced just is not possible. Because it's like, I have mom to myself. I have mom and dad. It's our time. They're going to do what we want them to do. And you know what? I'm happy to indulge them at this age. So it dominates my choice in what happens. But that's why I say I'm not really sure what vacation looks like, because I really feel like I can always use a vacation for my vacation.

If you're going to go to Disney World, you got to come here. And that way we can plan. We'll take the boat out on the lake and we can supplement the days at the park with a day out on the lake.

You're right. I got to think that through. I got to do better at that. But, you know, Disney isn't my first choice because it is here. Like, you know, so that's, like, also another thing. I mean, I know you guys have lots of other things down there, but I also do so many trips, business trips to Florida. Like, it's really not the place I want to go. Like, I want to go someplace new. I know. Really imagine that. And so for me, Tom and I, the one thing that we do that is only the time for ourselves. So our anniversary is in January, and we.

You almost said it's in January every year.

Yeah. Yeah, it is every year. But we haven't done this every year. We've only done this probably the last three years or something like that. And so we go to A beach hotel that's local, so it's in town. Because otherwise we only have so few days. It's a. January is always a busy month with events surrounding things. And so we only have a few days to ourselves. So last thing I want to do is take the time to travel somewhere. So it's across town. We're in a hotel, it overlooks the beach. Nobody wants to go there in January, which is really funny because it's actually really still beautiful. You know, you're not going to go jumping in the water or anything, but you can hear it, you can see it. And it's my absolute favorite thing to do. And we just like never leave the room, Never. Just go out on the balcony, maybe go to dinner, but that's about it, you know, it's like that's my two days apiece I look for every single year. That would be my choice. So again, as you were saying, Tim, it's the water. There's something so calming about the water that is really important to me.

Definitely strange. I'm not a vacation person. I'm more of a long weekend person. Like during the summer when like most of the ECRM crew is taking their vacations, that's the busiest time for me because we have so many sessions in June, July, August. And because I traveled so much to some pretty cool places for work, I'll just slip in extra days here and there. Let's say I'm at the Phoenician in Arizona, I'll take an extra day. Or when I was in Budapest, I'll take extra couple of days. But what I started doing last year is I pick a place and I would just do like three or four days where I could just go off the grip, you know, and just basically away from emails, away from phone calls, away. And being that I have no wife, no pets, no kids, when I'm home, I'm going out a decent amount. So I don't even when I. Like I mentioned before, when I do this week or like the four or five days, four nights that I'm doing this week, I basically don't even drink. Last year I did the week during my birthday, I didn't even have a drink. I just go to kind of just clear my mind, get off the grid a little bit, just chill out. And the place is not so important. Like this place here was kind of chose me. I got an offer in the mail at American Express Sheridan Promo that was like 299 for five days, four nights, basically three full days because I arrived On Monday afternoon. I leave tomorrow morning. And then I got the gift card for sitting through that thing. So it was basically a free vacation. I use miles, but I didn't leave the place. I didn't go to Disneyland or World or whichever. Which is the one over here, Tim? Disneyland or World?

It's World here.

Well, okay. So, yeah, So I didn't even go to Disney World. I just wanted to be here. I would work out in the morning. I would sit by the pool for a few hours and read and then have lunch and then do some more reading and writing and, you know, but my own writing or just tinkering on, trying out different things. But yeah, so for me, the vacation is kind of the opposite. I just have those couple of days, peace and quiet. Doesn't matter where I am. The point is just to get away from my normal environment and have some peace and quiet, you know, not setting the alarm or anything like that. So it's a little bit different than a traditional vacation. But for me, that's. I found that kind of works.

Well, I don't think there's anything that I would label as traditional anything anymore. I think everybody.

Yeah, right.

I think the reason you were mentioning Jeff Bezos and when I read that piece, I really felt like what he was meaning by harmony was just stop fighting it. Stop fighting it and figure out how to work within what you have to do. I know that I'm going to have to work late on these nights, and so I'm not going to beat myself up about it and feel bad about it. I'm just going to understand, and I'm going to make that up with my family some other place, but I'm going to make sure that I do make it up. And so I kind of got from what he was saying is just stop fighting. Trying to reach something that's unattainable. Just figure out how you can make it work in harmony with what you're doing.

Tim, that's so, so true. This is what I've been saying to everyone. So Tom and I, in January, will have been married 28 years. Yeah.

Thank you. And that happens every year, right?

You're in the same year, and that happens every year.

Yeah, exactly.

And so anyway. But people are always like, how do you do that and work with your husband every single day? And I said, this is the thing. We stopped fighting a long time ago. Oh, we have to have a date night and we can't talk about work. And we stopped that a long time ago. We said, you know, what if you want to talk about it? We'll talk about it. And if there's this moment where, like, the other one's overloaded, we know each other well enough to know now is not a good time to talk about anything, let alone work right now. So unless it's life or death, we're not going there. And so, you know, we just came to this place where there is no guilt about when we choose to work or when we need to, or when something's booked and one of us has a late night phone call, the other one picks up, puts the kids to bed. Like, it just works out like that for us. And there's absolutely no guilt in that process anymore. And it's way different than it was when I raised our oldest. That was different. There was this lot of mom guilt and all this other stuff that I felt for all the travel and. But I was working on somebody else's schedule, not my own, anyway.

Right.

But, you know, so it was a little bit different because there really was no choices in there, so. But not having that at this stage in life, and it makes it so easy because you asked before, like, what do you do when you're not working, Joe? That was, like, the starting question. And I was like, what do you do when you're not doing your job? I'm always doing my job. I might not be on a phone call. I'm always thinking, I'm always forming. I'm always visualizing. It's always a part, whether it's just more on a subconscious level or not, and just feeling bad about that, like that's imbalanced or something. Why would I feel bad about it? I know I'm building something really big and worth every minute of that time because it has a purpose, it has a goal. It's creating a secure life for my family. You know, like, there's all these things in there. So when you drop the guilt part of it, that's an aha. There's harmony right in that.

Yeah, Well, I think 100%.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think that it's important these days that we show our kids that there is no just 9 to 5 anymore. There's no 9 to 5. There's no real security in 9 to 5. And there's a lot of people that do a 9 to 5. But more and more, it's a multitude of different things. And I think the quicker our kids see that, you know, my number one piece of advice for kids coming out of college is whatever job you get, start your own gig at the same Time. So, yeah, you're starting to work for somebody, but get your side hustle going right now. And that way, by the time your side hustle is making as much as your regular job, you can start to transition if you want to. But don't wait 30 years working for a company and then say, you know what? I really need to start a side hustle. It's better if you start it right out of school.

That's good advice. Yeah.

Hey, so to wrap it up, Joe, maybe what we could do, you know, so we can give some action items to the big boxers, is maybe just one thing that each person feels that should be adopted in life, you know, or in the morning or in the evening or. What do you think about that? This is your call.

Sure. No, I like that. In fact, I got something to kick that off with.

Okay. Don't make it about Gary Vee either.

No, no, nothing to do with him. When I was with Greg, when I visited someone last time, I was with our CEO, and he asked me a question. He was like, what are your hobbies? Whatever. And I realized that my hobbies are basically the same thing that I do for work. Writing, creating content, talking to people, you know, and it made me realize that, I mean, I'm one of those guys that I love every single aspect of what I do. And so the takeaway here is also to add to the two things that you've just mentioned, Tim, is find something that you're passionate about, passionate about, that you could do so that, you know, you don't feel bad putting everything into it. I mean, it really makes the world of difference when you get up in the morning and you can't wait to get started on work because it doesn't feel like work. So for me, that's always been one of. Probably one of the most important things. I've always loved to write and create content, and that's all I've ever done my entire life, and it hasn't felt like I've worked at all.

So are you saying that your one thing is so for. Yeah. So there's a lot of people out there that don't have the, I guess, opportunity to do something that they're super passionate about. They have to pay the bills, they have a job, maybe they're good at it, but it's not their passion. So your advice to them would be to find something they're passionate about and work that in if it's not their job.

Yeah. Find a way of working in or make the sacrifices that you need to so that you can do the thing you love. Live in a studio apartment instead of a two bedroom. Don't buy the nicest car, get a used car. Whatever sacrifices you got to make so that you can do that thing that you love. And that will just make you feel so much better day in and day out. And if you're doing something you love, you're more likely to put in the work required to kind of grow that into something. Whether it's your own thing or whether it's working with a company.

It makes me think, did you guys. Anybody see Bohemian Rhapsody?

Yeah, there was that one scene again last night.

Yeah, I just watched it on the plane back from New York. But there's that one scene when Freddie Mercury, he wasn't even being called Freddie Mercury at the time, had just joined the band. And he was like, you know, you could always see, like, the wheels are just always turning in his head. And he's like, what we need to do is record an album. And everybody's like, yeah, where are we gonna get the money for that? And he's like, how much you think we can get for your van? And, you know, because in his mind, for his passion, there's nothing zero he wouldn't sacrifice, including his band members, a van, you know, anyway. So that's what you mean.

That's exactly it. Yep. You can sacrifice some things if you want, you know, in pursuit of what you love.

All right, who's next?

Oh, so, yeah, Salah.

Yeah. So, you know, along those lines, Joe, same thing here. I would say because of this could happen to anybody, have life changing events. It's good to be in between everything that's going on. Work, life, family. It's good to have that, enjoy that the time when. Or take the time to be thankful for what you have. One and two. I would say just in between everything, find the time to do things you enjoy. Like you mentioned, that's my message as well. It's not rocket science, but you just have to find a way to enjoy and do the things you like in between everything that's going on. And that takes your mind away, a little bit of things that are going on in your life. So be thankful, enjoy things you like.

Definitely. Definitely. Tracey.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm a little bit along the lines with what you're saying, Jo, but I think that taking the time to contemplate, journal it, visualize it, sketch it. I use a sketchbook all the time. Mostly it ends up words in there, but there's pictures all drawn in there. Too.

Yeah, it's mixed media. That's right. And so. And it's always right next to me. Like, it's always there. So I carry it with me everywhere. And I'm always making notes, and it's not even about, like, I sometimes barely review it. It's part of the, like, contemplation process for me. Almost meditative. Right. It's the writing part and doing all that, but contemplating, what would you love? And so when I think about that, when you start to. I mean, I have an entire podcast company and business because I hated the whole production process, so it was like, I don't want to do this. How do I get myself out of this? And as you contemplate the innovation of how you can do things, of how you can stop doing things, comes to you. And so that's where you can move faster. When you're visualizing what you would love, you can visualize how you can get there. There's this path. It starts to unveil itself right in front of you. Ideas come, people present themselves. You hear something that you pick up an article, or you click on something that you wouldn't have clicked on before because you're an active contemplation of that. And so for me, that's been the key to everything we've done, and how we continually move forward is always taking that active contemplation role on everything that I want. But it all narrows down into this. What would I love and sometimes what don't I love? What do I want to get rid of? Where my problems are. But focusing on that, to moving it to a place so that there isn't anything in my day that I hate, that I dread, there isn't anything about it. I mean, folding kids, laundry, yeah, that might be the one little thing. But, you know, there's always those things in life, right? So.

Yep, Yep. Yeah. It reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci. So he's keeping his notes, both the drawings. And, you know, I'm midway through his biography. I've been reading that during vacation. So you reminded me of that.

Someone asked me recently on a podcast. Who from History. They've never. No one's ever asked me that. But who on history would I love to interview? And I said Leonardo da Vinci because of that reason. I was like, sometimes there's these notes and you don't know what he was thinking when he wrote it, but he was in the midst. I mean, it's just an external cognition. So I want to know what it means, or I want, you know, So I would love that.

Am I the only. Go ahead, Joe.

Oh, I was gonna say he wrote backwards, too. Yeah, he wrote from right to left in a mirror image.

Maybe he didn't want to share it. Didn't want his secrets out. Joe, just like you.

Oh, no, it was because he didn't. Yeah, right. He didn't like the way the pen kind of bled. If he wrote the other direction because he was lefty.

Makes sense. Interesting.

Am I the only one that thinks that if we actually went back and interviewed some people from the past, that the answers just wouldn't be as exciting as we think they would be? You know, that's really true. I really feel like if I had a chance to interview Van Gogh, he would be like, I just wanted to paint some people and they were eating potatoes and I just decided to paint it. There's no. I wasn't starting a movement or anything. I just like to paint, you know? Anyway, I have two things, actually. One I think I've already talked about, but unless you're deathly afraid of it, get into. On around the water. You know, last year at our vacation, we went deep sea fishing and we didn't catch much, so we all pitched in with the captain and he took us like another 50 miles offshore. And I won't get into the amount of fish we caught because it was unbelievable. But I will tell you that the water out there off the coast of Florida, like 65 miles off the coast, was this deep sapphire blue. Like, blue like I've never seen. It was just mystical. And all I wanted to do was dive into it and then contrast that with. Maybe there's a couple companies that you can fly into. Like, the only way you can get to these lakes in Canada is you fly in. And a lot of times, really nobody's ever been there before. And when you're standing at the foot of a lake, it's just like a piece of glass and you can see all the way to the bottom. And you're out in the middle of nowhere and there's nobody around you. There's just something about that. So if you haven't had a chance to get in or around the water, big boxers, even if it's just go out and jump in your pool or somebody else's pool, go do that. And then second, when you're journaling, when you're writing, when you're contemplating, I want you to think about the things that bring chaos to your life. And they could be the littlest things. They could be that there's Too many magazines on your magazine rack in the bathroom. Maybe you have too many bottles underneath your sink. And I don't know why I'm all about the bathroom right now, but there's a ton of things that bring chaos to your life, and sometimes they're so little that you really don't know how they're affecting you until you get rid of it. And then there's this unbelievable piece. Every time you walk into the bathroom and there's like six magazines in there, you're like, yes, it's so amazing. So one of the things I've been focusing a lot on is the things that bring chaos and trying to eliminate those, and it's been a lot easier than I thought. So take a look at those things and go get in or near the water and you'll be all good.

Sounds like you're headed for a Zen year, Tim.

Yeah. Like a Morique Marie Kondo approach.

Yes. Right. Well, chaos doesn't necessarily have to do with clutter, although clutter, I think, brings chaos. But I think, you know, for another instance is, you know, one of my big things is putting things on the back burner, you know, just procrastinating things, and then they build up and then they create chaos in my life or a crisis. And crisis is chaos. And so I work really well in crisis mode, but it doesn't do good things for me.

So, yeah, I think you're so smart in that, Tim, because we talked, I think, an episode a long time ago about some of our, like, daily practices and business and everything. And one of mine is to keep a clean inbox. And it's because of the clutter and the chaos making my mind stressed. And so it's not like I do everything that's in my email or answer every email, but it's not in the inbox. And for me, that's the way I remove that chaos from my life. I figured a way to flag it. I figured a way to track it. And so I'm not. I'm positive I'm not missing anything, but it's not actively in my mind because it sits there every time I open it.

Yeah, there was a. I can't remember her name, but she came up with Joe. And you're going to know who this is because you set me up with an interview for her. She has the sparkling wine.

Oh, Leah Kaplanis.

Yeah. What she told me. Yeah. What she told me when I interviewed her was that the second she acts on her email, she archives it and it gives her peace of mind. That it's still there. It's just not in her inbox. That's actually a lot harder to do than you think because you're like, well, what if. But the second when you search for it, it still comes right back up.

So, yeah, anyway, yeah, no, that's me. I'm like the super archiver.

So, yeah, we're digressing. But anyway, Joe, wrap it up.

All right, well, thank you, everybody. Tim, thank you for letting me host this one. It's been a pleasure. It's again, really important, I think, some lessons from here. Gratitude, really. Make sure that you're not taking anything for granted and be happy with the things that you have and expect that things will not always go your way and be flexible and adapt to that. Get near the water. Right, Tim?

Indeed, yeah.

And then, you know, I think a lot of what ran through this discussion was the importance of self reflection. Whether that be in the form of journaling or, you know, just finding that peace and quiet to kind of think, take the time. And every once in a while, I think most important from all this is every once in a while take some time and slow down just a little bit.

Yeah, I think so.

You have to get back to basics.

Yeah. So thank you everybody for indulging me. And then, Tim, I'll hand it back to you to wrap it up.

Nice. Thanks, Joe. We appreciate it. First, other host than me on Flash Topic. I think you did awesome. And big boxers. Yeah. So big boxers out there. If you pray, then I want you to say a prayer for Saul and his family. If you don't pray, then please just send them good thoughts and good vibes. I know that they can use that right now. As always, big boxers, thanks for listening. Thanks for making Flash Topic one of the consistently the top 10 most listened to episodes on the shelf. We appreciate it and we'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Take care, guys.

Yep, take care.

Hey, big boxers, we are back. Flash Topic 15 is done. And Matt, what a good topic, right? Balance. I know that balance is something that. It's just this elusive thing that I think everybody is trying to achieve. Everybody's wanting, ah, I need a better work life balance. I need a better balance in my life. I need more fun, I need more this, I need more that. And instead of, I think, trying to capture this elusive balance that people are looking for, I think you need to be just happy in the things that you're doing, present in the things that you're doing. I think when things fall out of balance is when you're thinking about something else when you're doing something different. So when you're at home, you're thinking about work, when you're at work, you're thinking about home, your attention is not necessarily on the thing that you're doing. That's when I think that you're out of balance. It's not that you spend too much time here, too much time there, not enough time over here, not a time with this person. It's that when you're with those things or in those things, you're not actually there. So maybe instead of looking for balance, we should just be looking for presence of mind or in the moment. I'm going to leave you guys with that. I'm interested in how you manage the work life balance. When this episode comes out, please go to the website on the Shelf now and comment. Let us know what you think, what you struggle with, how you're handling your work life balance. We can continue that discussion in our closed group on Facebook. On the Shelf now closed group. You can hit join and we'll get you in there. You can check us out on on the Shelf Now Facebook page. You can go to TLB Consulting Facebook page. There's all different kinds of ways that you can get ahold of us. If you need to reach out to me, you can email me at timlbconsulting.com or timothntheshelfnow.com if you want to book a coaching call. If you want to talk about your business, you want to talk about next year and how you're going to make some changes, feel free to go to tlbconsulting.com under consulting. Bam. You can just book a coaching call right there. I'll look forward to that. Listen, I appreciate each and every one of you. I wish the best for all of you and I hope you are pushing the ball forward each and every day. Looking forward to next time we get together. Until then, I look forward to seeing your products on the show.