Is Work-Life Balance a Lie?

0:00Yeah, there's plenty of work that I don't necessarily enjoy in the moment, but I'm glad that I did it when it's done. It's like exercise. And so I would, I guess if that work lives in the 50 % of work. I'm okay with it because there is definitely still some work. To me, the difference, it really is on a spectrum between, you know, do I enjoy it? And is it like good for the company? And there are certain things that I will do that I don't necessarily enjoy in the moment, but it's good for the company. I'm proud of it when it's finished. Now, those things are not things that I seek to keep around forever.

0:33Those are things that I would like to hire out and have some other people do at some point. A good example of that for me is recording videos, like video content and that kind of stuff. I really don't enjoy it that much in the moment.

0:50Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Business Lunch Podcast. I am your host, Roland Frazier, and my business partner and co-host, Ryan Dice, is here with us as well. Ryan, how are you doing on this beautiful day? I'm doing very well, and I'll tell you why I'm doing well. It's because I really have mastered work-life balance. Really? You have mastered that? It's figured out. Yeah, it's totally figured out. Did you know, you say as we record this on a holiday, I like that. I know, right? Did you know that Jeff Bezos, this is what was the catalyst to having this conversation we're having today, that Jeff Bezos says that work-life balance is a debilitating phrase, quote unquote, and that work and life are actually a circle.

1:38What do you think about that? I mean, what he's essentially saying is that there's like the better your work life is, then the better your home life is going to be. And, you know, on and on and on. And that one impacts the other. And then it's not this kind of like, you know, perfect balancing act. It's that one is going to influence the other, which, you know, I think is logical when you think about it. it's sort of like, we don't describe it as like a sleep, a sleep wake balance. You know, I mean, there's times when you sleep, and there's times when you're awake. And if you're doing too much of one, and not enough of the other than then, yeah, that's, you know, that that's not good.

2:18So I don't know, I mean, I think a lot of some of this is a little bit playing with words. But I do agree with what he said that this this concept of having a, you know, a perfect balance is a bad metaphor. It's a bad visual. It's unhelpful. I think it causes you to feel guilty when not. And I think at the end of the day, as entrepreneurs, business owners, any high performance individual, we're always living, I think, in extremes. And I know for me, I'm at my best when I'm working really, really, really hard. And I'm like in extreme work mode. And then I'm going to be in extreme rest and play mode.

2:56And as long as all of those things are happening, then it works for me. In terms of balance, though, like it needs to be some kind of 50-50 type deal. I don't know. I've never really bothered to count. I like it. I agree with you. I tend to be like, if I can get completely immersed in a project, I'm very excited about it and very happy while I'm in that ravenously devouring every bit of information I can about it, focused on it, trying to solve a problem, whatever. And, uh, and if I can check out like, you know, and like, as you know, we did recently, um, in Norway, I was pretty happy the whole time.

3:38Didn't really give work a thought and just absolutely enjoyed the vacation. A couple of It is a circle more than anything else. He said it should be that work and life are a circle. He said that if he's happy at work, he's energized at home and vice versa. And did you see it also had a little snippy? This is Business Insider, which there's some of the snippiest little twerps I've ever seen. And I say that in a Disney loving kind of way. But just like journalists are all like, I don't know. None of them are entrepreneurs. They're like, of course, he says this. when he said this, he was still married to his first wife and then they got a divorce.

4:21I saw that as really, that probably didn't have anything to do with work-life balance. Yeah, he, it's funny because he, he kind of, uh, euphemized it, uh, out in Amazon as work-life harmony, which is not terrible, but what I thought was really interesting, I haven't heard anybody say this before and um let's see they said in a um he says he's more energized better husband better dad um when he's happy at home a better boss a better colleague and then of course right after that they put the little snipe bezos was married to mccy scott at the time you know but um he said here it is. He said, if you can get your work life to where you enjoy half of it, that's amazing.

5:11Very few people ever achieve that. I thought that was really interesting because, you know, he said everything comes with pieces that you like and that you don't like. Man, that, if I was unhappy at work half the time, I don't know that I would stay. What do you think about that? I felt about right to me. Yeah. So basically, assuming that, would you feel that way if you were half happy at home and half completely not happy? I think it's tough because like how one defines happiness is, you know, is, is a big part of it. Cause there's definitely times when I am not happy when one of my children comes to me on a, you know, Tuesday night.

6:04He's defining it as enjoy. As enjoy. But even that, I think, so let me give you this example, because I believe that this is a personal analogy that there's a lot of work related things. So my kid comes to me, it's nine o 'clock at night. I'm kind of ready to go to bed. And they're like, oh my gosh, I just forgot I've got this project due tomorrow. And it's like, oh yeah. And I need a poster board for it. It's like, how late is office depot? And can I even get a poster board at this hour? And you have to spring into action and deal with this like thing. And in that moment, all I want to do is strangle my child.

6:40And I think any parent out there knows exactly what I mean, but those are also more than one left. It's why you have multiple ones though. In case, yeah, no, bad joke. Anyway, I do think that that is one of those times when in the moment I don't enjoy it, but afterwards, you know, it created a memory, it created a moment that we might still talk about, you know, today. So I do believe that a lot of work is that. And there's the, am I enjoying it in the moment versus was this good, solid, focused activities? And so for me, there's some work that I do that I don't necessarily - I'm talking about productivity over enjoyment though.

7:18So yeah, there's plenty of work that I don't necessarily enjoy in the moment, but I'm glad that I did it when it's done. It's like exercise. And so I would, I guess if that work lives in the 50 % that you don't enjoy, I'm okay with it. Because there is definitely still some work. To me, the difference, it really is on a spectrum between, you know, do I enjoy it? And is it like good for the company? And there are certain things that I will do that I don't necessarily enjoy in the moment, but it's good for the company. I'm proud of it when it's finished. Now, those things are not things that I seek to keep around forever.

7:51Those are things that I would like to hire out and have some other people do at some point. A good example of that for me is recording videos, like video content and that kind of stuff. I really don't enjoy it that much in the moment. But it's good work that I'm proud of it when it's done. But if there's things that I can do to not do it. Like I'm okay with it. So I would put some of that in the 50%. I'm really looking for, for me, two hours a day of focus work that I can really sort of sink, you know, my teeth into. And if I can get two hours of some kind of growth and learning where I'm, where I'm actively like learning something or researching, doing R &D for the next thing, if I get that in, then I feel like really, really, really great.

8:41And so that's four hours a day, call it 20 hours a week. If I've got that in the other, you know, 20 to depending on the week, 60 hours, you know, might be some drudgery. It might be some other things, but if I feel like I got 20 hours of solid work divided pretty evenly between, you know, focus work, creating assets that are meaningful, that I'm proud of. And, you know, and 10 hours, sorry, 10 hours of that. And then 10 hours of like learning, growing, improving on something, planning for the next piece. That to me feels like a good, you know, a good week. Yeah. I, it was really funny because when I mentioned to my wife, I showed her that and said, this is what we're going to talk about today.

9:30And she said, oh, is it a comedy segment? You guys are doing a bit work-life balance. And I like, I, I, it's, it's funny, but also, you know, I, I know, I think she thinks that, um, that I work too much or maybe that there's not enough of that balance. But the truth is, is that the time that she spends doing things that she enjoys, like playing chess or word games or gardening or, you know, designing and things like that, you could call that work if that's what she did for a living. To me, you're blessed if that's what you do for a living, because you are doing something you enjoy all the time.

10:05And so for me, I, I find that most of what I do for work, I enjoy, I, I, I mean, it might be 10%. Um, I mean, obviously there are times when you'd have to do things you don't want to do, but if I'm looking across a year, um, I'm generally pretty happy with the things that I'm doing. Um, and across a year, I'd say if like, if most people work 2000 to 2100 hours a year, if they work 40 hours a week, then you would be at 10 % saying that 200 hours out of the year, I was doing something that I didn't particularly enjoy, but I felt that it was necessary or helpful to the business. I'd be okay with that.

10:48If it was a thousand hours, I don't, I mean, I don't think I'd keep doing it, which is, which is interesting. I think you and I have different pain tolerances maybe. I see like golf. Like in golf, I could go out there and have a crappy round, but if I have a couple of shots that were good, then I'm like, yeah, that was a good round. Now, again, I'm always looking at for those things that fall in that category. How do I get somebody else to do it? But what I have no patience or tolerance for is just the pure drudgery. It's the stuff that I don't enjoy. and stuff that I don't see having a very clear outcome.

11:30And so there's a lot of things where I felt like at one point public speaking became that, where I was traveling a lot. I was speaking on different stages. There was no benefit to myself or the company for it. And I was like, this just has to end. This absolutely has to end right now. Right. And there's things like that where it's like, I'm just no longer going to be in this meeting because I hate being in this meeting. I can feel myself dying every second that I'm in this meeting. And it's not clear to me how this meeting even benefits myself or the company. So I'm out. Like I'm just going to opt out.

12:03That I have no patience for. That, yeah, if I've got more than about 10 % of that, then I'm probably hitting the freak out button. But I do think that there is like a big, big spectrum between I just feel like I'm in the groove. I feel like I'm in the flow, like some kind of flow state work. And maybe that's it. If I can just get a couple of hours of flow state work in a day, sort of anything else can be whatever it is. I don't necessarily have to enjoy it because I got my juice from the flow state work. Interesting. Well, I'd love to hear what you guys think. It's an interesting concept. I think that it's tremendously helpful if you generally enjoy what you do.

12:42I think that if, if I, you know, let's say that I don't enjoy digging ditches and that I had to dig ditches half of my work life, I would look for changing other things in my life to help me not have to do that. Um, if however, I get some sort of satisfaction, like ditch digging is comfort work to me because I'm working out, I'm using one of those stupid things that, uh, that, you know, God knows who invented that's, uh, that is ineffective and also inefficient with energy. I think you were demoing a post hole digger. Yeah, a post hole digger. And it's making my, uh, it's making my arms better and I can think about other things and sing a song while I do it.

13:27okay. So I think it's to me, can you find that? I would love to hear what you guys think. How much, and if you think about it like this, 2 ,000 hours a year, you have to work. 1 ,000 hours, Bezos says, can be unenjoyable. Unenjoyable, you do not enjoy it. Are you happy? Do you stay in that job? Do you want to go to something else? Are you going to make changes so that you don't have to do that? And comparatively, what if you could find something where that balance was better? Well, try to think about it in like, if we're going to try to quantize it, I'd love to hear how many hours a year are you willing to do something for work that you don't enjoy, however you want to define enjoy.

14:16And let's assume that the thing contributes, definitely contributes to the business. Now that's different from deferred gratification. You know, that's a different conversation. But I think it's the same in that how much deferred versus present gratification do you want? I just read another article when we were looking for topics today about a 50-year-old person who had retired early and said that they sacrificed about 20-plus years of their life that they wish they hadn't working to get to retire early. So they were deferred gratificationing their life to potentially have this good life at age 50, which by the way, you'd get hit by a car and die like my aunt did.

15:01You can, you know, get cancer and be told you have 90 days to live like my wife was. I mean, these are not, for me, foreign concepts that I'm very big on deferred gratification, but I'm also very big on carpe diem and live for the moment and in the moment. And I feel like when you're doing things you don't enjoy, even if it's that this is going to benefit me later, you got to balance that too. So out of the 2 ,000 hours a year that we are going to say that you work, even though many of us might work 3 ,000, what percentage of those work hours are you willing to do something that you flat out don't enjoy and still be good with it?

15:43I would love to hear that. And you're sticking with 50-50 is okay, right? I think maybe I've got a different level of enjoyment. probably by that definition, yeah, 50%. Doing 50 % that I truly don't enjoy, no. I might be at 10, 20%. Yeah, yeah, that's me, right? I'll skate back and forth. You know, 10, 200 hours, you know, that's what, that's, it's impossible to do the math, 50 hours a week, no, a month, 50 hours a month, right? That's 50 hours a month or 12 hours and a half a week that I might be doing something I don't enjoy. I don't think everything can be enjoyable. So that 10%, that 12 and a half hours a week though, to be doing something I really don't want to be doing.

16:30And that's, that's a lot too. Yeah. I would put the category as like flow state work, meaningful work, drudgery. Yeah. And so if drudgery, which, cause I can enjoy meaningful work, even though it's not like, you know, me living my best life. Like I can still find some enjoyment. Absolutely. It's below your potential and your ideal, but it's not, I don't enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of that, yeah, probably the flow state, the meaningful work should occupy 80 to 90 % or I become a dull boy. Start one to, you know, take an ax to the building and everybody in it kind of thing, which fortunately were remote.

17:10So most of the employees would be safe. That's right. Speaking was a great example, I think, though, because neither you or I want to do it. We can both get paid for it and have been. But I just looked at it and even from a productivity standpoint, what it returns, it's like we can get you honest. And I've turned down like five things in the past 10 days of people that are like, you know, can you come? And I'll do it if you ask me. I'll do it because you're my friend and I'll do it to help you. and I'll enjoy it, but it wouldn't be my first choice of what to do. But like to go out on the circuit, because we have another person we know that's like out there everywhere speaking and he loves it.

17:54Good for him. But for me, I don't see, I just don't see the return into the business, into the future that I want for the investment that it requires. And even if it pays, it's short-term money and then it's gone. So that's not, there's no future asset I'm creating other than me speaking more, which I don't want to do. And then when we go out there, what's going to happen? How many deals in, let's say, five years of speaking came to you to where it was worth that versus what you could do through other means? I do think a good question to ask is under what circumstances would this thing that is currently drudgery, could it become meaningful work or even enjoyable work.

18:34And so what I will do from a speaking perspective is if somebody, if it's a place, if it's being held in a place that I want to go, if it aligns with my wife's schedule or my family's schedule and we can turn it into a vacation that's paid for by somebody else, fine. Right. Fine. Because then it's all expense paid. And, but then my commitment is I'm going to do my talk and that's it. I'm not going to hang around and do like VIP meet and greet. I'm not going to come back another day to do a follow-up thing. Like, no, I'm going to, I'm going to show up. I'm going to do the talk and I'm going to vacation on the backend.

19:06Um, then it's okay because I feel like I'm, you know, still out there. I'm not totally falling off the speaking train and I can make that enjoyable and I can make that worth doing. But if it's not a place I want to go, or if my wife can't go, cause we got something, no, and same, like just decline them left and right. That was something that I also think it's important to note that as you grow, what you find enjoyable will change because there was a time when that, right. And so be okay with that list of the things that are, you know, meaningful work today, be okay with them becoming drudgery.

19:39That's called growth. Right. And the things that, that, that you consider to be your flow state work that, you know, that will definitely change as well as you begin to hand more of that work off to other people. So love it. Well, hopefully this was enjoyable for you guys. and it's got you if nothing else thinking about what's your percentage that you're cool with and you know what does it mean to be enjoyable versus not enjoyable and what do you think about jeff bezos is he ultimately unsuccessful because his marriage failed and can we attract attribute that directly to his lack of work-life balance as masochistic tendencies as business insider seems to suggest or uh or not uh let us know we want to hear it if you found this helpful please share it And we'll see you next time on Business Lunch.

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