Achieving Balance In a World of Work Domination #569

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to have the money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're discussing achieving balance in a world of
work domination. I am so glad that a lot of

(00:28):
folks are tuning in to hear US talk about some
work life balance. Man, it's something that you it's a
topic that you and I discuss, I feel like, personally,
like when we're not recording ourselves talking to mark microphone,
we talk a lot, even when we're not talking to
Mike's it's true, but that's what we're talking about today.
We're talking about achieving we're talking about finding that balance
and we we have talked about work life balance some

(00:51):
on the podcast in the past, but I feel like too, Matt,
as we've grown, we've got a lot more thoughts on
this topic, as you and I have have discussed together
and just kind of grown as individuals. I mean, I
feel like there's there's just a lot more nuanced that
you and I that we've kind of seen in our
own lives, and hopefully we can kind of discuss how
we view this really important topic because especially now, where

(01:12):
work is like the lines are more blurred than ever
before for people when it comes to their work, how
they work, when they work. It's Um, it's a problem,
I think, for a lot of folks, feeling like they're
working all the time, they're on all the time, and so, yeah,
it's it's something we need to talk about and we
can't like pretend that people can just like stop working
or that they can just like that. It's easy, right,

(01:34):
but there it's just the chief financial independence. And then
you don't have to work worry about it, and can
you just do that in the next eighteen months and
then you can make whatever decisions you want. Like yeah,
that that's, you know, not in the cards for most people.
But yeah, we'll give our thoughts on on achieving work
life balance in a world where we're gonna work. Really
does nominate. But first, Matt, let's talk about I just
want to mention that I went to a concert recently.
That's that's now that, uh, can I say that Covid

(01:56):
is over? Is covid is mostly it's totally over. Okay,
everybody's saying that it's over at this point. All right,
so I went to a concert. Well, actually, interestingly enough,
you had to wear masks at this concert, so that
was kind of uh, I hadn't. I had been to
multiple shows and that had not been the case, but
it kind of felt like a throwback. Yeah, it did.
But why is that why you sounds sick right now?
Because do I sound sick? You have a little congestion.

(02:17):
I feel great. Okay. Well, so I went to went
to concert one of my favorite artists and I went
with a couple of friends and I was gonna buy
some I hate mining tickets online because the fees are
so annoying. Like I literally went down to the Fox,
one of our big theaters in Atlanta, recently and bought
tickets in person just to avoid the stupid fees they
come with buying them online. Yeah, I was there actually that.

(02:39):
It was on the way back from kids, because you,
you were dragging me along. You're like, I gotta make
a pit stop. Listen, it was right on the way, man,
it was right on the way. So staying in their
wedding on you to buy your stupid tickets. That's just
the right friend thing to do. Okay. So, but for
these tickets, uh, there, that wasn't possible, and so I
bought them online, but I found out because it was
really close to the show date, I had procrastinated to

(03:01):
buy these tickets. I wasn't sure if I was gonna
be able to make it and dive into a facebook marketplace. No,
you can't actually list tickets for sale on facebook marketplace.
I've tried before and they take it down and so,
but they have resell people resell their tickets on these
platforms where you can buy the tickets. And so I
ended up buying resale tickets instead because there were still
regular tickets left, but the resale tickets were cheaper because

(03:23):
people are just trying to offload them before so they
didn't get nothing. So I was like, Oh man, I
saved an extra fourteen bucks per ticket by buying the
resale tickets. especially. It's just a good tip if you're
getting closer to a show you want to see, uh,
it's it's not. They're not gonna like make it obvious
that you're gonna save money going in that direction, but
you can definitely click the resale part of it and

(03:45):
at least kind of check and see if there are
tickets available to love it for less money. Yeah, I
love it. It makes sense in this way to hold
loosely to some of the things that we want in
life like going to a show, because I'm sure if
those tickets were Wayne more expensives, like Nah, maybe, maybe not,
and if it's sold out, I would have just been like,
I guess I'm not going to this one. Yes, exactly.
Obviously there's some concerts, there are some shows that are

(04:06):
worth putting the money down, but if it's not like
a bucket list concert, if it's not a bucket list
vacation or destination, I'm starting to think ahead because Kate
and I are like we're going to try to plan
a little get away and I love the feeling that
we're not tied to a specific destination. Basically, we can
watch the airfares, look for something that's going to go
on sale and pounce because there's an incredible deal that

(04:26):
we're going to be able to take advantage of. That's
what you kind of did that when number one rule
of cheap travel is is to book a deal and
then figure out why you want to go to that
place right. So I'm glad you guys are doing that.
Glad you're able to take advantage of some of those
resale tickets as well from that concert with Cherous to
see where you're gonna end up. I am too. We
may not actually end up flying somewhere, maybe we'll just
end up driving somewhere, but I would like to fly somewhere.

(04:49):
I realized when you and I I mean even though
Orlandos is definitely driving distance from Atlanta, but even just
the idea of going to the airport, getting on a
plane and makes it makes it feel a little more special.
And it's been a minute since Kate's flowing somewhere. A
lot of our vacations recently we've been driving, and so
I feel like it would feel a little more special
to hop on a flight as well. So something to
keep in mind. But let's introduce real quickly the beer

(05:11):
that we're gonna enjoy during this episode. It is s'mores
by wicked weed brewing. This is the last of the
guilty pleasures beers. I'm looking forward to enjoying this one
and sharing our thoughts at the end of the episode.
By the way, this beer reminds me of that scene
in the sand lot. Were there for the insmores in
the clubhouse. Uh, I haven't seen that movie in twenty

(05:31):
five years, probably. Yeah, it's so good. But let's move on,
Matt let's talk about work life balance and and how
we can achieve more of that balance in a world that,
like I feel like it's conspiring to get us to
work more and work all the time, even and up
until I'm sure you remember this, Matt, from history class,
when Copernicus came along in the fift hundreds. Before that,

(05:52):
everybody thought that the Earth was the center of the universe.
But Old Nick Copernicus, he said that's not actually really true.
We live in a Helio centric universe and that means
the planets, including Earth, are all revolving around the sun.
Now that's just like common knowledge. We learned it in
grade school and but but nick, he wasn't really believed in.
In fact, it took more than a century for his
theory to become widely accepted. And I think, Matt, you

(06:14):
and I, we would say that that career and work
seems to be kind of at the center of our
American universe. And you and I were willing to be
heretical here in this in this episode and saying that's
a bad idea, and it's not that work can't be fulfilling.
You and I, we've always been pro work. That's actually
been one of our our our biggest disappointments with the
fire movement. Oftentimes there is kind of an anti work

(06:37):
sentiment in the fire movement. But yeah, we think it
provides meaning and structure for lots of folks, not to
mention a necessary source of income to put a roof
over your head and keep groceries in the fridge. But
when our lives revolve around work, when it's at the
center of everything we do, we think that kind of
throws things out of lack and that's kind of really
what we want to talk about today exactly. It makes

(06:58):
me think about when you're driving a car and a
tire gets out of balance and you start feeling it
a little bit. Or actually with this happened to your
bike recently. It got out of true and it wasn't
perfectly right bodily and it started out kind of lights.
He started hearing it. Uh, we noticed that. We're Buking
to get some barbecue one day and it's like, what's
that sound? It's kind of like that, that, that, that,
that whatever, but slightly rubbing on the brake. But the

(07:20):
more you wrote on it, the worse it would get and,
in particular, the faster you would drive to right a ride.
But same thing is true when we're driving somewhere. If,
if you have a tire that's out of balance, if
you don't address the underlying issue, it can get worse
and worse. Ultimately it could lead to even more damage
happening to that car. And I think the same thing
is true when it comes to our work. If we
just push on and continue to work harder and harder

(07:41):
for longer periods of time as we get into our
late twenties, thirties forties, I think it could cause irreparable
harm not only to ourselves but to those around us
and maybe some of the other things that we claim
that are important to us. And all that being said,
like we truly do believe that that finding that balance,
that that it is a possibility. Um, however, it may
not look the same for everybody. oftentimes it does come

(08:03):
down to your own personal preference and yeah, so we'll
talk about how to figure that out in your own life.
But the chrushing reality, though, is that Americans are working
more than ever these days. We work on average, four
and thirty five more hours more than German workers. We
work four hundred hours more than the folks in the
UK and three hundred and sixty five hours, typically more

(08:24):
than the French in a given year. I'm not sure
that comes from like our our puritan heritage or not,
where it's like all right, no, you're gonna work six
days a week, idle hands are yeah, simful. Um. Basically, though,
were the outliers here here in America, and it's important
to remember to that massive numbers of paid time off
days are left unused and you know, even when we

(08:47):
do take some of that personal time off, it's often
times that we that we just find it hard to
not just check in for a little bit and be
connected to the office. Basically, for a lot of folks,
even the millions who now have a more fly, a
little work environment, work it's still the center of the
universe and we believe that that's not a good thing.
And the crazy thing is, Matt, that it's true like
we have become, it seems like, even more focused on

(09:10):
work as a culture and as individuals inside of that culture.
But it's kind of crazy because it's almost not as
necessary actually as we might think, because American workers are
are more productive than ever. Thanks to specialization and technological innovation.
We're able to get more done than we're smarter than
we used to do. I don't know if that's even true,

(09:31):
but we just have to added told you just right.
We're totally dumber than we're dumber, but we have better
tools at our disposal right to be more productive and
we can accomplish more than people could decades ago, largely
because of the advent of those tools. But despite something
like a four hundred and fifty percent rise in productivity,
we're still like working our tails off. We're working more
than we should, we're more focused on work than a

(09:54):
lot of people have predicted we would be at this
point in time and and specifically when we're talking about
those predictions in in nineteen thirty. Yeah, that's almost a
hundred years ago. Economists, John Maynard Keane's predicted that there
was going to be this meteoric rise in productivity. He
was he was spot on, but he also predicted that
US being that much more productive would lead to something
like fifteen hour work weeks, that we would just have

(10:15):
loads of leisure time and it was going to be
like some sort of paradise, you know we all lived in.
But he was way off on his prediction. And the
question is why? Why did he get half of the
equation right but miss the other half? I think it's
for a couple of reasons. I think one the reality
is work provides other benefits besides just income. Like why
does Elon Musk continue to work and create new companies?

(10:36):
He doesn't have to write. He doesn't have to create
the boring company in addition to Tesla, after starting paypal
and and making, you know, tons of money off that,
his most successful venture, the boring company. He could stop tomorrow. Right,
but that company is still around. I actually totally forgot it.
I think he still just like, yeah, we're gonna drill
tunnels underground in order to foster high speed transportation. No,

(10:59):
I think he still at it and I'm curious to
see what becomes of it. But his same same true
with somebody like Lebron James, like, does he have to
dribble the basketball or dunk ever again in his life
if he doesn't want to know, he could completely just
chill out sit on the sidelines. He doesn't. He totally
has enough money. He doesn't need another fifty million dollars,
that's for sure. But why quit when you love it? Right?
And and I think that is the reality for a

(11:20):
lot of people, is that work provides something beyond just dollars.
Right and and another less positive reason is because we
consume too much as people, as Americans in particular. Many
of US could choose to work less if we could
just inhibit our desires a little bit more, if we
could rein in our spending, we would have more fiscal
ability to kind of like turn the dial down on

(11:41):
on how much we're committing and how much time we're
spending doing work related stuff. And it's not that consumption
in and of itself is inherently bad. Right and so, like,
for instance, if you thought back two hundred years ago,
the advances in technology, like I think that's something else
that he didn't count on. The canes was it counting on?
Is that as like not only is innovation and technology
gonna allow us to be more efficient, it's also going

(12:02):
to create other technologies that we're going to want to
have in our life? Right and so he wasn't counting
on something as basic as air conditioning or like refrigeration, right,
like these are things that nobody would say are, oh
my gosh, that's lavish living right there. Right, like nobody
who lives in the south is going to say, yeah,
you don't really need air conditioning. No, like that's an

(12:22):
amazing invention that's allowed large populations to live in the
south in a way that doesn't but their health at risk.
But it's more of like what you're talking about, obviously,
is like the like more the conspicuous consumption, the consuming
of things just because we can consume them, not necessarily because, uh,
it's something that has brought value to our lives. And
you and me, by the way, in midsummer and like,

(12:44):
we would be migrating north for a few months if,
if it wasn't for the A C. So that's yeah,
it's made embrace it. Maybe embrace that's on a life.
But we, we've said it before, we'll say it again.
We do think that work is a good thing. Like
your so angel, like there's this innate need that we
have to accomplish some productive work, and it's for reasons
that go just beyond earning money. Most of US derive

(13:05):
satisfaction from the work that we're able to do, even
from the jobs that we we might not love right,
like I'm thinking of even somebody who's just sweeping the floor.
You can sweep the floor, you can be a janitor
and find deep intrinsic value within that work that you're doing,
with the value that you're providing not only the people
who are walking across the floor, but also the employers
who pay your salary. It just takes a reframe for

(13:26):
a lot of times to view your job in a
different light. And and that's not saying that everyone should
stay with the job that they're in. Always, uh, there
the room to move and improve, but it does come
down a mindset, though. There's a lot of that, because
if we can realize that our work is often in
service to others, you know, that we're contributing to society,
that can completely shift how it is that we view
our work. And for those folks who do want to

(13:48):
retire early, like, it's all good. You know, work doesn't
mean that you have to collect a paycheck. It can
look like volunteering, you know, with local organizations in your community. Uh,
that is meaningful as well, and if you're at the
point that you don't need the money, it can still
be an incredibly fulfilling source of quote unquote, work, even
though you're not necessarily getting paid. Well, yeah, and speaking

(14:08):
of cleaning makes me think when I did pressure washing,
like my first job in radio. I was the only
part time I got paid fifteen bucks an hour and
I had to have something else to do on the side,
and so I became I pressure washed houses and it
wasn't my long term goal to stay in that business
for very long and in reality I stayed there for
just like a year and a half, I think. But
it was actually kind of, kind of cool. There was
something really rewarding about like getting there, the house is

(14:31):
all dirty, algae covered on the sides of it, stuff,
and you clean that puppy up and then like yeah,
the homeowners pumped and they're super happy and come home
and they're like, I didn't realize my house was that
color exactly. I thought that was I love it. Surprisingly
a cool job for that reason. And the reality is
that really, when when it comes to work, you can
take anything too far. Beer right. We talked about that

(14:51):
on the show. Like we we love craft beer, but
moderation is the key to enjoying it correctly. If Matt
and I were pounding four beers every show one we
would the show be bad and too we would be overweight,
like we would it wouldn't be good. But splitting this
twel for our hearts, all the different poor health outcomes
that would that we would be contributing to. Right. It's
right exactly, and plus it would cost us way more money.

(15:14):
And the same true when it comes to how we work,
because if we over emphasize the role that work plays
in our lives, it's going to stop giving us that
sense of satisfaction and we're more likely to get burned out.
And I like the way I actually meant that that writer,
Derrick Thompson. He he writes a lot about work and
business in for the Atlantic and he rans some numbers.
Recently found that your your career, is only one six

(15:36):
of your waking existence over the course of your life,
and I think that's helpful to put it in perspective,
because sometimes it feels like it's at least half of
our existence. And when you put it like that, I
don't know, it makes me think that we should be
finding ways to put work in its proper and likely
less important than we're making it place, because work is good,
but overwork is very bad. Totally. Yeah, and I like

(15:56):
Derrick Thompson a lot, and I mean the more I
read by him. I'm like, man like how that guy
thinks about the world. But, having said it's difficult to
look at an entire lifetime and say okay, because you're
not really thinking about work so much when you're a
fifth five year old or a ten year old. Uh,
and same thing when you're older and retired. Right. And so,
if you like eliminate fifteen years on the tail end,

(16:17):
fifteen years on the front end, it's like a quarter. Truly. Yeah,
like a third of your of of your twenty four
hour day is typically devoted to work, and that's I
think that's also where most of our listeners are right,
like we are in the stage of life typically where
we are working. And so I say that not to
just not to like roast derrek Thompson or anything like that,
but just to point out that it is important. And

(16:37):
this is the reason why we're talking and focusing on work.
It's not because it's it's this small thing that we
want to relegate off to the sides. It's because, well,
it does take up a decent amount of our time.
Is that we just need to make sure that we're
putting it within its right place, because if we are
working too much then we're looking at overwork, we're looking
at addiction, and that is also a real thing. It's

(16:58):
it's something to be wary of because if you are
prone to overwork, it's important, I think, to do some
self reflection to figure out, like why that is. GABB
or mate, he's a Canadian doctor and he writes about addiction.
He talks about how easy it is for people to
make work and what they do their identity and, unlike
drug use, it's it's basically an addiction. That's it's it's

(17:20):
more socially acceptable, but it's still an addiction that can
make us it can make our families miserable. Um, and
if you feel like maybe you fall into that camp,
it's it's going to take some real internal work to
adopt a different, less intense attachment to your work, and
I think it's like one of the first steps to
figuring out whether or not you're addicted or not is

(17:40):
if you're bristling even at the suggestion that maybe you're
working too much. You know, like that can be a
serious indicator if your partner tells you that, or maybe
you're even listening to US talk about and you're like,
I don't work I don't work too much. Let me alone.
But it's one of those things that can be easier
seeing in other people, but within yourself oftentimes I think
there's so much self denial and there's they're just refusal
of the truth when we are working too much and

(18:02):
we are finding too much of our identity from the
approval of our superiors, of our bosses, even from our clients. Yeah,
and I think one of the ways which we see
that our our culture as a whole is pretty work addicted.
What's like? The second question you typically ask somebody, after
giving their name, it is what do you do for
a living? What you do? Yeah, and that's where the
conversation starts. There's so many more interesting things about people

(18:25):
than just the job they perform, and so I don't know,
like that's my favorite conversations are one where it's a
very important thing. I don't yeah, it's it's a fine
land of I want to know that about somebody for sure,
but I also I'm like it's not everything. It makes
me want to start. The second question is like what's
your favorite what are your favorite hobbies to do for fun?
Like go somewhere else with the conversation, because that's just
always the first line of questioning and there are other

(18:48):
cool things that people have to offer and maybe we
start there and get to the work stuff later on
in the Combo. Yeah, and unfortunately, uh, people don't have
as many hobbies as they wish they had, and so
you might ask them that and they might say, uh,
what do you mean? Okay, yeah, actually, we're gonna talk
more about the lack of hobbies in our lives, plus

(19:08):
a bunch of other reasons why it is it's so
difficult for us to strike that work life balance. We'll
get to all that right after this. Allright, we're still
talking about work life balance, Matt you and I were
going to offer kind of our prescription from the how

(19:28):
to money standpoint, because for over work, we're gonna talk
about that in just a little bit. But let's continue
maybe down the diagnostic path for a little bit, because
there's a lot more that we need to kind of
consider as we're thinking about our own individual situation, because
work is obviously a necessity. Work can be and is
a good thing if it's in its proper place. But

(19:48):
and ideally there's this alignment between your work and your interests.
But you don't. You don't get there overnight and I
think sometimes maybe part of the problem is that we
assume that we're supposed to have this job that we
absolutely love and then maybe if you love it, it's
okay if you work twelve hour days, but there's often
a financial trade off if you opt to pursue work
that you find enjoyable. For a lot of folks, and

(20:11):
that was the case for me at least, when I
went to work in radio. That first job, like I said,
was didn't make very much and I had to start
off part time, even working in a major market. But
that was okay for me because I cared less about
making a lot of money and I cared more about
doing something that I enjoyed. But there was that trade
off and I think if you want to go down
that path, you just have to realize that's going to
be the case, that you might you might have to

(20:33):
be okay making a smaller salary in order to enjoy
the work that you're doing. I feel like I feel
like that's one of those trade offs that folks aren't
considering as much because, as they think, well, I have
the opportunity to earn this much money, but well, just
because you have the opportunity does not mean that you
have to go down that path. Yes, that's I think
that's the kind of thinking that I want more folks
to consider, rather than Oh, you must always I mean,

(20:56):
we're money nerds here, right, like we are always looking
for different ways to optimize all sorts of things money
related with our lives, whether it's the amount that we're earning,
the amount that we're spending. But I don't think that's
necessarily a healthy default, right. We do need to think
about how it is that we're actually spending these life hours,
these and who knows, right, like, who knows how many,

(21:16):
how long we're actually going to live? It's one of
those finite resources that none of us actually knows what
anybody is gonna how long. I'm gonna give me a
heads up. I think that's an email. You probably don't
want to but if somebody emails you super seriously and
they're like, Joel, you're gonna die on x date, you're
you're probably gonna Block that Guy Right. Probably. What if

(21:36):
they were right, though? Oh Man, nobody email Joel Uh.
And so let's let's let's talk about some of the
different reasons why today. I think we think it's just
harder than ever to fine and discover that work life balance.
Work generally speaking, like, there used to be kind of
the standard nine to five job, right. There were more
clear divisions. That's no longer the case, and technology is

(21:58):
the is the major culprit here. Uh. The same thing
that enables you to work from anywhere, it also allows
you to work at any time, often creating like that
nagging sense, that guilt that you should be working when
it's completely unnecessary. You know, like how often do you
find yourself checking an email compulsively, uh, and responding at
all crazy hours of the evening? Those are things that

(22:20):
could most likely wait until the next morning once you're
at your actual desk. Uh. And so instead of letting
these just great technological inventions work for us, we've become
enslaved to them. Technology and innovation are are one of
those double edged swords, right, and in some ways, and
in a lot of ways, it's helped us. It's allowed
us to do so much more than John Mayner Kaine's

(22:42):
would have ever thought possible, but simultaneously it allows us, uh,
to be tempted to overwork more than we ever thought possible.
It makes me think about just the intro to the
Flintstones Matt and how the Big Bird Chirps Fred. He says, yeah,
but I'm a Doity, like hops down the back of
the dinosaur, hops into a car. He's like ready to
go home, and that's by the store, gets a big

(23:03):
old slab of Toronto Rims. Why you like that in right.
Then they pulled up to the movie man. This classic,
classic things that we should be doing. Yeah, well, there
is something really healthy about kind of got some meat
and going to a drive in. That schedule, right. And
and so he's he's got that going on spades. And
we actually we have this neon dollar light in our

(23:24):
you know, in our studio, and it cuts off at
four thirty and it is this like Pavlovian symbol to
say like hey, guys, works done for the day. That's
the factory whistle. Right. That's right for us. That's our
version of it, and I think if people can implement
that like that, that can be that can be a
helpful way to shut down. You need something to kind
of help you create a delineation. And then we have
a bike ride home and that kind of helps the

(23:46):
delineation even more so I think that can be helpful
for folks. I think, by the way, we don't manually
turn that off. It's set. It's plugged into this Little
Smart Bluetooth socket or whatever, and I've got the things set.
It kicks on at eight in the morning cuts off
at four thirties every single day. And the reality is
that tech it can be used for good or bad.
Right Social Media, for instance, it it can allow you
to access, let's say, a personal finance hive. Mind in

(24:07):
how the money facebook group acts and you can get
killer advice and encouragement instantly when you need it. There's
awesome folks in there, almost ten awesome folks in there.
You can you can link up with all your old
high school friends if you have the desire to do
that for some reason. That's right. But but we all know,
everybody knows at this point, social media can also drain
hours of your time. You can be doom strolling for

(24:28):
hours on end every day through your preferred social media APP,
whatever it is, and in order to maintain work life balance,
it's crucial to figure out which tools you need and
which ones you should ditch and then set up rules
around the technology that you're keeping around so that you're
in charge of it, not the other way around, and
it just makes me think Matt Cal Cal Newport's book
digital minimalism. I feel like that helped me see the

(24:50):
need for that. Uh. We're not attempting to Romanticize the
fifties or factory jobs, but the reality is technology has
allowed us to become more and that's a good thing,
but the thing that could be freeing us has also
at times become our abuser. I think that's why it's
so important to set boundaries and set rules with within,
within your life, right, and so, like work can so

(25:12):
easily seep into all aspects of life, in particular once
you get home. And so like something that we've implemented,
that Kate and I have implemented at our house, we've
got a special counter when we put our phones uh.
It's got a little plug over there where you can
kind of charge it in as well, and so there's
a natural draw to want to put it over there, right.
It's like, oh, that's that's where the power is, but
it's also removed from our kitchen table. It's removed from

(25:32):
the kitchen a little bit and it's separate, which allows
us to, you know, hopefully at least focus on the
kids a little bit more, like, in particular, Monday through Friday,
right like they've been at school all day. They've got
a lot they want to talk about and if I'm
tempted to you know, like hop on a text threat or, uh,
get back to an email or something like that, it's
gonna make those conversations feel a little more second rate
as compared to just fully engaging with them, uh, and

(25:55):
investing within those relations. Reality might be you need to
hop on email for and we can talk about we'll
get this in a little bit, but for let's say
twenty minutes a night. But you can do that after
the kids are asleep. But if your phone is buzzing
in your pocket, you're probably gonna hop on and think
that the need, you've got to be on there right now.
And you you what, could wait and be confined to
a specific small period of time. You've you kind of

(26:16):
let overtake the rest of Your Life, and that one
little change can make a big difference as to whether
or not you feel like you have to respond right
now or not. Exactly, or, the very least, turning off
those push notifications so that you are not notified if
you still happen to have your phone in your pocket.
But Um, another thing that's keeping us, I think that
that that's causing us to seem like we don't have
as much balance, is flexibility. Because, like today, most folks

(26:38):
have more flexibility than ever. They've got more options than
ever when it comes to their work. Not everyone, of course,
but COVID has created a work economy that gives more
optionality to just a slew of workers out there who
previously didn't have so much. A recent survey from Gallup
finds out nearly half of all workers in the US,
and that's what that comes out to, is around sixty

(26:59):
million and folks have the flexibility now to work when
and where they want, at least part of the time.
And interestingly enough, we actually think that, like full time
working from from home has some serious downsides, uh, for
us in a number of ways, but for a socially
for sure. Plus they can impact our ability to to
move up the ladder, increasing our our skills and our

(27:20):
income and the impact that we're gonna have at our jobs.
And so because of that hybrid work, it sounds better
to us. It seems to be the policy that that
more employers are implementing, because, you know, you can't completely
put the cat back in the bag when it comes to, uh,
the ability to work from home. But this, you know,
the reality is that this new found flexibility can have
both pros and cons to it. Yeah, and, like we said,

(27:42):
like technology, that double edged sorting. It can make it
so that we're able to get more work done in
fewer hours, but that's just not how it shakes out
for the most Parton and there was this new study
method that actually shows that, while folks are working more hours,
as work from home increases, so so people are actually
dedicating more hour their job, even though they're not in
the office, largely because maybe hey, I'm not commuting, while

(28:05):
I spend that time working. Well, each hour is actually
less productive than it used to be, which to me
says that we're switching tasks more, we feel compelled to
work more, but we're not getting as much done when
we're quote unquote, working like we're spending more time in
front of our computers, but we're just not getting as
much done, and I think a part of that is accountability.
Right when you're sitting at home it feels like you're

(28:26):
at home. And what do you like to do at home?
You like to do the laundry. You wanna check the
package that was that was just dropped off on the
front porch because the Amazon guy showed up. Like there's
all these other temptations and you're not. It's less of
a work environment versus coming in and it's like it's
it's time to work, to get the business done, and
people still feel like they're always working though. They always

(28:47):
feel attached to it, which is just a draining sensation.
And so the reality is so many months of malaise. Yeah,
like we feel like we're floating in the middle. We're
attempting to multitask. It's just making us it harder for
us to perform any of our tasks, work or personal,
really really all that well, that's right. Yeah, let's talk
about status as well. In the pursuit of status, the

(29:07):
pursuit of job titles, I think that can lead us
to to work a whole lot more than maybe we
wish we did, because I mean, first of all, like
you certainly don't have to be crazy ambitious right, like,
depending on on how it is that you grew up
in the circles you run in. Uh, you might be
more than happy to simply punch the clock Monday through
Friday without feeling the need to to rock it up
the corporate ladder, or you might find that ambition like that.

(29:29):
It just comes naturally to you. Right like that. You
are always pushing yourself forward. This is a different strokes
for different folks kind of kind of thing. Ambition. It
can be good or bad. You know, so much of
it depends on how you funnel that ambition. And so
if you are pursuing a job or a career for
like exterior, external signaling reasons, I think it's likely going

(29:50):
to lead to significant amounts of unhappiness. You just want
to tell all your friends, if you want everyone to
know you're a podcaster, you know, and that's the only
reason you're doing because you think it's the coolest job ever.
or a doctor or CFO, see, whatever, like whatever it is. Oftentimes, yeah,
folks are a tempted into taking jobs that they otherwise
would totally turn down because they like the ring. Like,
not like literally literally, like they like the ring of it.

(30:12):
When they were to say it, they they like the idea.
They love that. Second question in the Combo. What is
it that you do for a living? You're like, Oh, boom,
I was waiting for you to ask. I actually wish
you would ask that before you ask my name, because
I'm so proud of it. I'm literally a rocket sciences
Um and so I mentioned because I just think it's
important to keep in mind, even within personal finance. You know,
I see folks in our space doing more, they're working

(30:33):
harder and they're progressing more quickly and because that is
easy to get jealous, but man like, I've got to
remind myself of the reality that my joy that is
coming from things that cannot be measured by acquaintances or
other folks within the personal finance space or or things
that folks post on social media. I think it's good
to be ambitious, but you need to have bumper rails
in place. For me personally, that's why I like to

(30:55):
have hard boundaries around when it is that I do
allow myself to work. I like the that I do.
I like the ability that the impact, Joel, that you
and I are having on the countless people who listen
to our show who are able to put themselves in
a better financial position based on what it is that
we talk about. That's amazing. Plus, we have fun doing it.
It's so much fun. Also, I like making money, like like.

(31:15):
These are all things that lead to someone wanting to
be a little more ambitious. I think those can all
be good things. And so how do you contain that?
And so for me personally, just having some just hard barriers.
So when it is that I give myself, that I
throw myself at that work allows me to not think
about it when I'm not working. Yeah, I mean I
like that. You said ambition, but with bumper rails and
it's like in a bowling alley, right, we call them

(31:37):
gutter guards when I was a kid, and you stick
those things in the bumpers, maybe you might not get
a strike, but at least you're gonna hit up in.
It's almost impossible to not hit up in right with
those up. And so, uh, if you have those those
gutter guards up, if you have some sort of and
we're talking to talk about how to do this in
just a minute, but if you have those limitations on
your salitation, safeguards, boundaries like whatever, it is like. It

(31:59):
makes me think of Um like a camp fire fire.
It's a it's a great thing to have when you're
out camping, especially when it's cooler. Like you used to cook.
It's an entertainment. You just sit there, you stare at
it for whatever the bear wants you to do, it
within within a reasonable and we'll put it in the
fire pit. Though, like like, there are precautions you need
to need to take, because if it gets out of
that firing it's going to cause a lot of harm.

(32:19):
In the same way, work is the same thing as fire,
and one of the things people are giving up because
they are so focused on work is leisure activities and hobbies. Matt,
that is there was a recent survey and it just
brought a tear to my eyes. So sad that, especially millennials,
there's just such a lack of hobbies that they have
been able to cultivate in their lives. And and there

(32:41):
was a recent American time use survey and it was
literally at the bottom of the list leisure time or
hobby activities. Like people just ain't got time for that,
and that made me that may be bummed out. I'm like, man,
I just want more time for those things in my life,
and if that means cutting back on work, even though
I like my work. I'm gonna do it because that's
that's off matters. Yeah, and not only that, I thought

(33:01):
you're gonna reference the study about how watching TV was
most people's number one leisure activity, which is, I mean,
we've talked about that before. Just like, no wonder, four
hours on average a day. It's so much. It's a
problem and no wonder it's not rewarding, because it's it's
I mean it's quite possibly the most passive, disengaged thing
that you could do with your leisure and it's actually

(33:22):
it's actually draining. Like studies have shown that scrolling on
your phone or watching TV, those are draining activities. They
you think that they're going to be. And I'm not
saying that watching TV is is all bad. Sometimes Emily
and I will watch like watching the show, an episode
of community and nine or something like that, but it
is a real problem if it's something like four hours
a day, because something that can be good in small

(33:42):
amounts then becomes a drug that like numbs us, and
I think that is is how a lot of people
use television and it's preventing them from from exploring the
world around them, from enjoying hobbies that matter. It's it's
a television side tangent, right. Yeah, what's sort of like
folks who are trying to quit smoking. Right, eventually it's
helpful to have a cessation device or something you can
maybe substitute in rather than just trying to culd Turkey

(34:05):
eliminate smoking altogether overnight. And I know people who have
done it and I'm impressed by it, but it makes
it more difficult. It's not it's easy to accomplish and
in front of the show Laura Vandercamp, she just wrote
a great article in the in the New York Times,
about incorporating fulfilling and enjoyable activities into your everyday life.
It's it's not necessarily that we need to remove more
things from our lives, but maybe, I don't know, we
should look to add more fulfilling, meaningful hobbies and activities

(34:29):
to our calendar. That might mean detaching from work a
little more, but maybe the more we start to experience
and enjoy things that like we haven't made the time for,
it will naturally start to kind of realign our priorities. Yeah,
it's no surprise that watching TV is like the least
meaningful fulfilling leisure activity because like, yeah, you're you're not
engaged in it at all, and I think sometimes it's

(34:50):
still the one we participate in the most. It is
and I think folks maybe they count on that because
they're thinking, okay, well, I don't want to have to
think about my leisure and the recreation that I participated in.
What Laura was arguing is that by engaging with it
and being a little more proactive with it that we
can find that not only do we have the time
to participate within that activity that we previously thought we didn't,
but now that our lives just and like generally speaking,

(35:13):
feel more fulfilling because we now have this activity outside
of our work. But I like what you said about
smoking and cessation devices, because when you have an absence
of something pulling you out of work, it can be
difficult to say, well, I'm going to work less. Right,
if you're saying, well, I work too much, I'm going
to just start cutting back, well, if they don't have
anything to go to their thinking why? Why would I
want to cut back on working? Why don't I just

(35:34):
keep working make more money, because at least they're there's
there's some sort of like scorecard, right, and that's what
they're measuring. And so you have to develop these core pursuits,
these hobbies, these interests to pursue so that it pulls
you away from work and not only will you find
that you actually are working less, but you're gonna find
much more fulfillment, plus a whole lot of other benefits
that come with pursuing some of these interests. And so
maybe you want to get on the pickleball bandwagon, because

(35:57):
that's that's hot right now, or just I don't one
of my things even just I like to take bike
rides before dinner with my little dude. I know you
like to do the same that with your with your kiddos.
We ran into each other on the mountain, like not literally,
but yeah, you were going up the mountain, we were
coming down. I'm like, how dody, it's like the best,
the best thing of you before dinner, a little physical exercise,
getting outdoors, like seeing wild animals. It's awesome. We literally

(36:17):
did that lesson. We ran in. was like, oh, fancy again,
but there's just so many options right. It doesn't even
have to be outdoors and physical. You could like join
a choir. I mean there's just there, but learn to
play the piano. There's there's a million different things you
can participate in and it just reminds me of our
conversation with West Moss back in the day. Mat which
will link to that one in the show, notes such

(36:38):
a he had such good and important data and thoughts
on what it looks like to be a happy retiree
living a well rounded life. The happiest retirees have more
what he calls core pursuits, and so what it's like
three and a half person that we didn't start using
that term until we we talked. We talked with him,
but like that's just a part of my vernacular now,
like it's just something that you need to develop a
core pursuit. So, whether you're into what corps singing like,

(37:01):
whatever it is that you love, having and developing more
core pursuits is going to make you more well rounded
and it's gonna make you happier. The happiest retirees, we're
not the ones with the most millions in their four
one k they were the most well rounded people who
lived closer to friends and families, spent more time with
them and had more personal endeavors. That just kind of
light them up. Yeah, and if you're thinking, well, I

(37:23):
don't have time for hobbies, thank you very much. All
my time is occupied by work and all the other
responsibilities I have in life. You'll be surprised that, when
you allow yourself to participate in some of these life
giving activities, you'll be surprised at how you're able to
make time for these things, not only from the enjoyment
that they're able to bring to your life, but in
how they cause you to feel about the other areas

(37:43):
of your life as well. But, Joel, we're gonna keep
talking here. Right after the break, we're going to discuss
how it is that you're going to be able to
find balance within your own life. We'll talk about what
it means to find meaningful work. We'll get to all
of that right after this. All right, let's keep going.

(38:06):
Let's talk about work life balance. This one's kind of
getting to be a long one. Is it kind of
ironic that the work life balance episode as it feels
like it's going to run along? Hey, I don't know,
there's a lot to say right there's there's just Um,
there's a lot of nuance involved in this conversation that
I feel like we have to bring to the Ford,
especially when we're talking about something as complicated as our
relationship to work. And I think one of the things

(38:27):
that we have to talk when we're talking about how
to help people find their own balance, how you and
I try to do this. Well, one of the things
you have to do is be careful with the time
frame you're using to judge whether or not you are
living that balanced life, because the reality is one day
or one week of overwork doesn't necessarily mean you're overworking right.
You want to start by taking an honest assessment of

(38:49):
how much time you're actually dedicating towards work, and do
it over multiple months so that you can at least
kind of have a better understanding of because you might
be in in some sort of a job where, Hey,
I travel a lot in the month of October and
so because of that, like it might feel like I'm
spending too much time working, but you know what, I
get plenty of time off these other times and I

(39:09):
feel balanced, even though it feels like I'm loaded up
in the fall. It's like the difference between weather and
climate change. It's like they are there. You know they
might be related, but they're very different things as well,
and it can't be like, oh, it's degrees in September,
this is this one day. Yeah, right, well, and and
it's also important, by the way, when you're thinking about
your how how much time you're spending towards work, to

(39:31):
include everything in this calculation, that that includes a commute,
if you have one. You might be shocked by how
many hours your job actually requires of you. And then
the question is, once you've kind of understood like this
is roughly how many hours, over a longer period of
time I am working, can I work less? Or maybe
you need to find something else entirely to do entirely

(39:51):
because the job that you currently have is not going
to allow you that's sort of flexibility and, like we
said at the beginning of this episode, like your definition
of Balt is going to be largely determined by your
specific circumstances. But taking that holistic view of your job
and how much time you're actually spending on it, taking
that realistic snapshot, I think it's gonna is going to

(40:12):
be the right starting point. That's right. Yeah, you need
to take you need to perform an honest audit of
your time. I did that for an entire year, and
actually I'll link to the the APP I used clock up,
I think it was. Was It clockify? I think that's right.
But if you think that might be helpful for you,
we can link to that in our show notes. But
it's important to point out too, that not all balance
is equal or that your balance is better or worse

(40:33):
than somebody else's balance. Right, because we are all in
different stages of our lives and you might be front
loading the sacrifice. That's what our our friend DOC G says.
If you're in your your early twenties, you might be
working really hard, trying to make a lot of money.
You're cutting back in other areas. We think this is
this can be a great idea. Essentially, you're you're basically

(40:53):
earning more balance for future you by putting in more,
more work now, you're gonna have more options when your
life incurs other demands, like like having kids, like having
a family. It's the same thing we do with our money, right,
the more we're able to funnel towards the investments now,
we're providing future flexibility for ourselves. Well, we can do
the same thing kind of with our time. If in
those early mid twenties, we're able to put more effort

(41:14):
into our career in a little bit more time. It
does allow us more future flexibility when the demands are
actually more severe. Totally. Yeah, or uh, the other side
of the coin. Right you might be on the flip side,
wanting to work less right now in order in order
to spend some more time with your grandkids because you've
got more money than you need. You know, there's there's
just no need to work at all anymore, and so

(41:36):
I think most of our listeners are probably, you know,
somewhere in the middle of that pendulum. But we're pointing
this out because finding balance it's not a black or
white proposition, and you are unlikely to want to mimic
like our sensibilities directly. Uh, it comes down to taste,
and that's something else that that Derrick Thompson mentioned in
that article too, how he likes a certain kind of wine,

(41:56):
and just because you don't like that wine doesn't mean that, well,
you're an idiot. Yeah, that you're done. I mean, for
us it's it's craft beer. Not Everybody out there who
listens to the show likes craft Beer Tho, but what
we always say is you've got to find your craft
beer equivalent. What is it that you're willing to splurge on?
And in the same way when it comes to work,
what is your craft beer equivalent as far as work goes?

(42:17):
What is the balance that you're trying to strike that
that is going to work for you? It doesn't necessarily
mean that that it's better or worse than what it
is that Joel and I are talking about here on
the show, but it is important for you to figure
out what that is for you, and part of the
equation is going to be asking yourself the question, do
I like my job? Because your answer to that, sir,
it's probably going to indicate how you need to move forward.

(42:38):
That's going to factor into the equation. The the ideal
is to do work that doesn't necessarily feel like work. Right.
That is kind of glorified in today's culture and I
think the reality is more people can do work that
they find meaningful than ever before. But it's it's easier
said than done, because we we do feel like that.
It's possible for for a lot of folks, how the

(42:59):
money serves. In particular, if you like your job, you
probably won't feel as much of a burning necessity to
cut back on those hours. But while you're pursuing meaningful work,
it's still important to spend time thinking about those other
important elements of your life too. Just because your work
is fun or meaningful doesn't mean you aren't too attached
to it, right, doesn't mean you're not overdoing it, and

(43:20):
then you couldn't enjoy your life more. Worried to dial
it back a little bit and try to incorporate more
of those corporate suits like we're talking about. Yeah, finding
work that you love, meaningful work like that's another one
of those double edged swords, right, because, yeah, if you
are doing work that you love, you're gonna find it
harder than ever to work less because it's something that
brings you a ton of value. Like Elon Musk, he's like,
I'm literally trying to save humanity and take the mull

(43:40):
to Mars. And so when you think of that, that's
how you're thinking about it, then, I mean, yeah, this
is a way of life for him. Going Mountain biking
just doesn't register on the scale exactly. Um, you know.
And as we're talking about different jobs to like, like
certain careers are just not going to be compatible with
having much balance, you know, like or they're going to
at least throw in a bunch of extra hurdles, like

(44:01):
it's going to be more difficult to have balance, uh,
like as a pharmacist, or maybe not, like as an
e Er doctor. Right, pharmacists work a lot to somebody WHO's,
you know, like like an author or a web developer,
where they can easily set their own hours. But other
jobs are going to allow for all types of flexibility,
and so what you do and the company you work

(44:23):
for are going to have major impacts on how much
balance that you're going to be able to achieve. Uh.
And if you are experiencing the negative reality of a
job that that feels too demanding to you, you might
have to start asking some of these hard questions, right
about what your future career should look like and what
changes that you'll that you'll likely need to make. It
comes down to forecasting, thinking in your mind, looking ahead,

(44:46):
and if you are experiencing, you know, the negative reality
of a job that's too demanding, you might have to
start asking yourself some hard questions about what your future
career should look like, what changes that you'll need to make. Yeah,
I think the the best long term vision for work
in your life should be to do work that's voluntary,
and I don't just literally mean volunteering. there. There's just

(45:09):
something more fulfilling about work that you're able to do
when you don't need that paycheck in order to pay
rent or the mortgage, making progress with your savings, achieving
a nice little piece out money fund, just creating more
financial margin and space will give you. I would say
it's going to give you a different connection to your work.
You don't have to be completely financially independent in order

(45:29):
to appreciate and change your connection to your work. If
you need that paycheck this Friday to pay rent for
for October, like, you're gonna have a different connection to
your work. You're gonna feel differently about the email that
showed up in your inbox because you're living paycheck to
but if you have six, eight, nine months worth of
savings in the bank and you're like boom, like I
just I like my job, but I don't have to

(45:50):
treat it the way other people do who are reliant
on the next paycheck to make sure their budget doesn't
get messed up, well, that's kind of a cool thing
to realize that. Once you're personal finances are in better shape,
you can have a different relationship to your boss, to
your employer, to your job, and it just allows you
more breathing room to decipher whether or not the job
you're currently in is when you want to keep in

(46:12):
your life moving forward. Exactly basically, what you're saying is
that when you have financial margin in your life, like
you can look at your job, your career with like
through a completely different Lens, and that's man, that's invaluable
and man, you know, I stumbled across another Lower Vandercam
gym recently about whether or not it's okay to to
work from the beach. I think this is in the times,
but basically her argument is that if working a little

(46:33):
bit on vacation, if it allows you to get away
more often, that it's likely a good thing, and if
you make room for some small, like vacation style getaways
during like your typically non vacation work days, that it
can provide some helpful balance. So, for instance, like if
you can get out for an afternoon hike or or
a bike ride or like a surf session, but if
that forces you to work after the kids go to bed,

(46:55):
if you have to shift your hours a little a
little bit. If you have to move your time well,
that could be well worth it to you. In a
time study she did for for one of her books
you mentioned. Yeah, there's a couple and her and her
husband they go on hikes during the middle of the
day because it allows them to like basically help each
other out, like they're able to. It's not the goal
of a hike, like goal of the hike is to
get out because it's beautiful, get some exercise, get some

(47:17):
fresh air, they get to reconnect talk about stuff, but
they happen sometimes to solve problems for each other, for
each of their individual jobs. And guess what, they're able
to sit down and work on the spreadsheets at night
at nine pm, because who wants to go hiking in
the dark? Nobody wants to do that. And so the
ability to to move time around a little bit is
an incredible benefit if you have the luxury, if you

(47:39):
have the flexibility to do that within your job. Yeah,
and I think that's again when we talked about the
double edged short of technology. The reality is that you
probably can get in a quick twenty or thirty minute
work session on a vacation and I'm not saying that's ideal,
but I'm saying if it allows you to take more vacations,
then maybe that is a good thing. And I like
the way Laura thinks about it, because because some people
are more rigid about their hours and when they let

(48:01):
work interrupt it, but because of the way work has
evolved in our modern culture, we have a lot more
say over when and how we work, and that can
be bad or that can be good. That can allow
us to work a little bit at night, just adding
to our the amount of work we're doing overall, or
it allows to take that break during the day so
that we can kind of time shift when we work.

(48:22):
And I think you have to make sure you're setting
up those bumper guards, those those guardrails, just like you
would with the Bowling Alley, to make sure that you're
not overdoing it and allowing that technology to to run
your life. But you have to use it in a
way that's going to allow you to take the time
you need and want for the things that matter to
you that go beyond work exactly. Yeah, time is like
one of the most fungible things right the ability for

(48:43):
us to just to kind of decide that like, okay, well,
I wasn gonna use this time for this thing, but
now I'm gonna kind of push it over here. It
just depends on what it is that we're trying to achieve,
but it's simultaneously, though, it's important to be careful when
you start blurring the lines between work and life or
work and play, because it can be difficult to perceive
what's going on below the surface. Like one of the
things I've learned from reading about Warren Buffett is that, man,

(49:07):
he was a terrible father, he was a terrible husband
and even though he was present at home, his mind
was elsewhere. He was analyzing balance sheets in his mind,
thinking about these businesses, these deals that he was considering,
and that meant that he wasn't very involved and he
was not very engaged when it came to raising and
growing his family. And so it's I don't I mentioned

(49:27):
that because when we are on our own, sometimes we
might be tempted to work a little bit harder and
we alone are the ones who bear the brunt of
the sacrifices we make. Right Um. But when you start
involving other people, right, like you've got a significant other,
then it gets a little bit trickier because assuming like,
unless you find somebody who shares the exact same goals

(49:47):
and timelines and schedules that you do, you're gonna have
to figure out how to make life work. But with kids, man,
it can be it's even more difficult, like they don't
understand that we have to work, you know. I mean
they learned quickly that three old is always like, Daddy,
Youre going to school too. I'm like Kinda, yeah, Buddy,
I am actually. But, like I mentioned that, because we

(50:07):
we have to keep in mind the impact that the
sacrifices we choose to make, the impacts that it has
on other people and the other things that that we
claim and that we have identified are important within our
own lives. Yeah, or so, Matt as I was kind
of like we're getting ready for this this episode, I
stumbled upon this old, old, Old New York Times article
literally from the Year Nineteen Ten and President Howard Taft He,

(50:30):
actually he was quoted and he said that people should
take three months of vacation a year. I was kind
of shocked by that. I was like where's, where's that
sort of mindset these days? Like it, it's it doesn't
very new and progress. That feels very Norwegian or whatever. Yeah,
he kind of does well and I was like, well,
that's that's probably not realistic for a lot of folks.
But when you go back to the John Maynar kines thing,

(50:51):
if we, if we were using our productive hours more
efficiently and we were cutting back on our spending, using
our money more efficiently too, like we probably could enjoy
more leisure time. And we think the reality is that
you can have it all, maybe not all at once,
but you can have a career that you enjoy, you
can have chunks of meaningful family time that matter, you
can have personal hobbies that you regularly partake in, but

(51:14):
it will likely mean proactively d prioritizing your career. And
one of the five regrets of the dying is having
worked too much. So maybe we should learn from the
reality of what hospice doctors and nurses tell us about
the regrets of people who are on their deathbed and
we should make changes now. My guess is, though, that

(51:35):
most folks that are friend doc G, who we had
on recently, Matt, who is a hospice doctor, c well,
they probably don't wish that they had never worked. They
probably found satisfaction, they would have injustitute and would not
have lived a fulfilling life. In that way around, you've
got to have some money, and the reality is, like
work life balance, it's not necessarily a set number of
hours you can't work beyond it's it's more of a
lifestyle framework. And if you don't design your life for yourself,

(51:58):
somebody else is going to do it and typically most
people that is their boss who is kind of determining
the trajectory of of their lives instead of themselves and
what they want to do. It's your life and you're
in the driver's seat. And and the reality too, is, Matt,
that the job market is full of opportunities right now
for folks who are realizing maybe my current career track,
it's it's not the best one, it's it's not a

(52:19):
great one for me to be on. It's not my
best long term interest. That is the perfect time to
try to find something different, something that allows you to
have more balance, something that even allows you to make
more money. I don't know that there's a better time
to be thinking through these things and making adjustments, because
a whole lot of workers have a whole lot more
say over what they do, how they do it, when

(52:40):
they do it than ever before. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, switching
jobs is the best way to make more money. But
even if you like the current job that you're with,
just think through like, like Joel said, like design your life,
think through what it is you want your day to
day to to look like, and then just start living
it out. It truly isn't anymore complicated than that. And,
granted your you might have to set different boundaries in place.
You might have to institute certain rules at home, whether

(53:02):
that's when it is that you're going to be on
email or when it is that you even have your
phone within reach, but the goal here is to get
you to think about what that looks like for you
and take some of those practical steps to start actually
achieving it. Uh, you got anything else? Okay, don't like
work dominate your life, man, don't. Yeah, I don't do it,
enjoy it. It's great cutting back a little bit as
a just as an American population. Granted, there are some

(53:25):
people who aren't working enough, but generally speaking, we tend
to work too much. In particular, I'm guessing a lot
of the listeners who listened to our show Julia's UH,
some quick notes on our beer for this episode. This
was s'mores by wicked weed brewing. This is an imperial
stout brewed with chocolate, Vanilla and cinnamon. Did you taste
those flavors? Uh, you know, it was kind of muddled

(53:45):
to me. Honestly, I thought it was. I thought it
was okay. I was like, man, this beer would be
better if I was sitting around campfire eating an actual
smore but I don't know, like the flames again. I'm
just not super super impressed with this stout series from
w could weed. I like with the weed as a brewery.
I prefer their Sour Beers. Yeah, this one was okay. Honestly,
if every single one of the beers, of the ones
we had four of them, if every single one of

(54:05):
those had been barrel aged in a different type of barrel,
that would have given it that additional depth and I
think each one of those would have been singing a
little bit more, like like some more bourbon barrel action
would have been yeah, just a little more depth. Um,
it's almost as if these these beers were a little
two dimensional, right, and maybe some of that aging, some
of those additional flavors would have allowed us to really

(54:26):
dive into it a little bit more and and and
be huge fans. They're still good, totally, still good. You
pick these up with these really expensive no, it was
a four pack. That's one part of the Reson I
picked it up. was like four different beers in a
four pack. It's great, like you don't normally. You don't
normally get that, so got it. But yeah, it was
I don't know, it was like eleven bucks. Or Okay,
so eleven twelve bucks for for these guys that like
that feels appropriate. If this was like an eighteen dollar

(54:47):
four pack'd be I would I would not be happy.
So much of it does come down to the value,
comes down to the cost of the beer, and there
are some beers we have that, no matter what, you're
just like that is phenomen I don't care what you
paid for it, but that's just an excellent beer. If
paid two dollars for that beer, even more amazing. We
need to go get more of that. But this was
one that, yeah, you start thinking, okay, how much, how
much were those? Okay, not too expensive. Definitely worth checking

(55:10):
out if you like a variety of some different stoubts
in your fridge, especially if we're getting closer to fall
time right. You know what, man a. that's gonna do
it for this episode, Rabbit. For folks who want the
show notes links to anything that we mentioned, will have
those available on our website at how to money dot com.
That's right, buddy. So until next time, best friends out,
best friends out,

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Joel Larsgaard

Matthew Altmix

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Achieving Balance In a World of Work Domination #569