Just B Rant: Balancing Your Life...Something's Gotta Give

If you don't proactively prioritize your time, the important things suffer. It's fun to do everything. But everything everywhere all at once? It's too much.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
So I was about to apologize to my podcast team,
but I'm going to do it publicly because it's something
that I want to talk to you guys about. So
I was going to apologize because I'm never late for anything.
I am always on time, I am very accountable, I
am very reliable, and I believe it was on my

(00:34):
calendar yesterday that this podcast was going to be this
morning at ten thirty, and now it's ten fifty two.
Because I wanted to get on the phone with someone
because I didn't want to be disconnected there and be
always texting, and so I wanted to get on the
phone because this person was about to go do something,
and it made this delay. In addition, right five minutes
before this was starting, I was passed out on my

(00:56):
couch and my son room, even though I had awakened
and taken my daughter to school and had a normal
night's sleep. And all this is to say that I'm exhausted,
physically exhausted, and there have been a lot of amazing
things that I've been doing. I'm not complaining. I went
to Paris Fashion Week, I went to my warehouse in
Miami to get organized with all the aid I've been
doing media for Be Strong to raise money to get

(01:19):
to the two million dollars that we've raised, to get
to the four hundred million dollars worldwide that we've raised
over the years. And I was at the Glamour Women
of the Year Awards, one of the best nights I've
ever had, especially in entertainment and in events. But it
was an inspiring evening of wonderful women and speeches and
conversations and connection and all of that is good, and

(01:40):
the big ticket items aren't really what's exhausting me. I
received an award this week, an Impact Award for Women
in Media. But what's happening in my life is also
that I insist on being at my daughter's volleyball game.
So yesterday, while I slept all day and couldn't move,
I went to my volleyball game. And I was like

(02:01):
a zombie because I just dragged myself there, but I
wanted to be there and it means so much to her.
And I watch my daughter look over at me when
she gets a point or when she does something good,
Like the second she does something good, she looks to
see if I saw it, and like that means everything.
That's literally why I'm there, you know. And sometimes I'm
on the phone when like she's in a timeout or
like you know, she's not on or they take a break,

(02:22):
and sometimes I don't even know what's going on with
the whole game, but I'm seeing what's going on with her,
and then I check myself about that too, because i
want to be present, which is to say that I'm
stretched thin. I'm not always stretched thin, but I'm stretched
thin right now. But I've been experiencing something with my
own personal team, which is amazing. I have a hard working,
incredible team. But because I am a person who does everything,

(02:46):
meaning I get into everything, even in my house, I'll
clean everything, I'll organize everything. Like I'm a person who's
involved in everything, right And because of that, people rely
on me to be involved in everything, and people the
muscle gets weak and people aren't doing everything that they
need to do on their own because they're just so

(03:07):
used to the muscle being weak, of me being involved
and being there to ask me things, to call me
about things. It's almost like when you have kids and
like they can just ask you every single thing and
you're like I don't know, Like you're over here, like
go phone a friend, and it happens at work. And
if any of your entrepreneurs have your own businesses in
any way, you'll know that this is true. And delegation

(03:29):
is critical, and having the right people in the right
seats so that you can delegate is critical. And it
never happens like where you're noticing it along the way.
It's almost like your garage is now busting out, or
you're exhausted, or your house is a mess. And I
hit the wall because the big ticket items of all
the things that I'm doing, and the small minutia of

(03:50):
all the things that I'm in and the needing to
be at the games and all of that has taken
its toll. And then what happens is if you're not
properly prioritizing, and if that's happening and there's a breakdown
the things that you're supposed to be doing, you're resenting.
So if everybody on my team asks me every single
question all day long about things like it's just in

(04:11):
their nature to text me, oh what about this, and
did you want to do that? And should we fix
the like versus talking to each other, talking to their community.
If they're all coming to me and each of them
don't know that the others are coming to me. Just
like kids. Let's say you have five kids and each
one is coming to you about one thing that doesn't
seem like a big deal, like what are we having
for dinner? Or what about my sneakers? Or what about
my permission slip or whatever, and they don't realize that

(04:35):
all four kids are coming. Can you fix my costume?
And then your husband's coming, and then your best friend
is coming, and your sister's sick, and this is going on,
and you have to pay the bills. You break, and
that happens with women, and we break. And then what
happens is somebody who's doing everything right, they did not
do one thing wrong. One child, your perfect child, comes
to you and says to you something very normal. You
snap at them, or you can't be there for them.

(04:56):
So that's where the balance is important. And the reason
I'm bringing that up as it pertains to the podcast
this morning, is that I have a podcast. It's an obligation.
It's something I've committed to, and because of some of
these other things that I'm doing, and because everyone is
stripping me and pulling all the meat off my bones
and all my obligations this yesterday, you know, my assistant
will say, oh, we need you to do the podcast,

(05:18):
like twenty minutes here, twenty minutes there, forty minutes there.
And I said to her yesterday like, what, this cannot
go on this way. I cannot do piecemeal podcasts. We
have to sit down and do it in one shot.
And it's not for me to decide how that shakes down.
I have an entire team that's supposed to gatekeep and organize,
so I do have that time that's going to happen.
But then today I have that time that it's supposed

(05:40):
to happen, but I'm broken down. I'm exhausted because of
the system and the machine that has broken down over
the course of the last month, and because I haven't
had enough guardrails on myself. Everybody else hasn't had enough
guardrails on myself. And no one's fault. I mean, it's
not no one's fault. It is people's fault, but it's

(06:01):
more like a breakdown overall for all of us. It's
all of our fault. So then when my assistant says,
you have the podcast in five minutes, I'm annoyed at her.
Because I am exhausted, sleeping, I'm trying to have this
phone conversation with someone that I wanted to have because
otherwise we're going to get disconnected. And then I'm not
going to speak to them verbally all day because we
both have things going on and I'm the one now

(06:22):
trying to fit twenty five pounds a shit in the
five pound bag. And you suffer and you make mistakes,
and if you don't take a day for yourself and
you don't take the time for yourself, God or the
universe will take it for you and you'll get sick.
So this morning, when it was time to do the podcast,
I ended up being twenty minutes late because I had
to stop down and do the other thing that I
needed to do. And it made me realize that this

(06:44):
which is a real obligation, and no one who expects
me to be here is doing anything wrong or doing
everything right. But because all of the other stuff going
sideways is why, then this real obligation that does matter
suffers and that can't happen. And that's when I call
everybody and say the system is broken and it needs

(07:05):
to be corrected. So because when I start fucking around
with things that are an obligation, that are real, true importance.
Then everybody realizes, like maybe every single thing shouldn't be
asked to me directly, and everybody has to find their
own community and talk to each other, because that's when
the mom crashes, the mom of your business, the mom

(07:27):
of your kids, all of it. So you know, it
has to be clear communication with your families, with your coworkers,
with yourself, with your therapist, and you know, trying to
lock the door before you get robbed, which definitely doesn't
always happen and definitely did not happen for me today.
So I apologize my podcast producers because your time is valuable,

(07:47):
and to me, time is very valuable. I don't like
when people waste my time and I don't like that dynamic.
So absolutely something has to change. So I recently made

(08:10):
a I think I did a story saying I now
know what it's like to be a Kardashian ur j Low,
and I've really been giving a lot of thought to
what it's like to try to balance a social calendar
and be a present parent, not to mention to multiple kids. Now,
there are many people that you know give their kids

(08:31):
a bath, sit down at dinner, their kids know they're there,
Their kids are safe, their kids are protected. The parents
aren't every single game. That's also not a requirement. That
doesn't mean you're a bad parent if you don't go
to every single game of your kids. We get these
guilt things that go on that don't you know, necessarily exist.
Your kid is not gonna be going to their wedding
and saying like you missed a certain game. You know,
everyone puts their own pressures on themselves. But by the

(08:53):
same token, I have found that when you are social
or you have obligations, obligations, et cetera, that there is
a delicate balance that must be met. Now, let me explain.
If I'm going to Paris Fashion Week and now my
daughter did come, but what if she couldn't come. And
if I go to the Glamour Women of the Year
Awards and it's on a night that my daughter has
a volleyball game, Okay, that's a very iconic night. I mean,

(09:16):
I met the woman who invented the Me Too movement
in Toronto. Like, to me, that's a once in a
lifetime experience, and that's like I feel grateful for it
to have happened, and there were so many strong women
in this room that I'll get into, from Pamela Anderson
to Sophia Bush to Taraji p Henson to Brookshields to
it was endless that I felt grateful to be there.

(09:37):
And so there are going to be things that I'm
going to prioritize and how do I balance that because
I'm the mom that was always at every single thing,
and that is never ever not here any time that
my daughter's home because I just never you know, I've
never wanted to miss a bath. I didn't have a
nanny just because I just knew that the muscle would
get weak and if someone else was giving my kid
to bath and I wouldn't. And again, none of this matters.

(09:58):
It doesn't mean good parent, bath parent. It just probably
means that I had a certain childhood and I'm probably
overcompensating or just want a certain relationship or whatever it is.
This is not any criticism of anyone. We are all
doing the best we can. There are mothers that have
four jobs. I mean, I'm just talking about my own experience.
So what I do you know if you eat a
big piece of chocolate cake, are we going to go

(10:20):
eat French fries afterwards. If you want to have a
healthy lifestyle, probably not. The next meal might be like,
you know, a salad with grilled chicken or something. And
for me, the balance and the same thing with money.
If you go buy something very expensive, if you buy
a very expensive watch, or you spurge, or you've just
spent money on a house, you're probably not doing your
big vacation there. That's sort of how we balance that

(10:42):
part of our life. So now I'm going out and
I'm not liking the way it makes me feel. I'm
not liking that I missed a volleyball game of my daughters,
you know, I'm not liking that there's like a business
trip coming up. So how am I balancing that? You're
getting really organized and it means like I'm one hundred
percent taking my daughter to school every morning, but we're
leaving early and we're stopping for coffee and we're not

(11:03):
I'm not being on the phone, not that I ever
am during that time anyway, but like not just sitting
there in silence, like putting on the good music and
holding her hand and laughing together and trying to get
the conversation out and it means that I'm getting you know,
being proactive about dinner. It means that I'm getting honored
for an impact award, but it took me forty five
minutes to an hour to get home. It means communicating

(11:24):
with her and being like, Okay, what are we gonna
do tonight. I'm gonna be home. It's gonna be a
little late. It's eight forty five. Will you have a
snack so you'll wait for me? You know, I walk
in exasperated, but I want her to wait for me.
And then, you know, I order the special sushi on
the way home, and we sit down and we have
like a great meal and we laugh and like I
feel whole again. But like on the way back from

(11:45):
that award serremony, coming to the house and knowing that
it was long and late and that she's got to
get up early, like I was feeling terrible, miserable, like anxiety,
and she I walked in and she didn't give me
any damage, and we had our beautiful dinner. And in
the morning I took her to school and I said
to her, thank you, I'm sorry that I was late,

(12:06):
and thank you for not like giving me any damage
about it. You know a forty five was very late
to be eating dinner on a school night with your kid,
but like, that's what we did and it made me
feel really good. But had I just said I'll be
home and hadn't mentioned it to her, she might have
had a piece of pizza. I would have come home.
I would have felt completely like disconnected and I would
have ruined it. And again, it can't be perfect, but

(12:26):
by being organized and trying to be proactive and trying
to create a balance, you know I'll be better for it.
And when the hurricane the hurricane hit Milton was was
was bad, but it wasn't as catastrophic and the worst
global disaster in history that we predicted it to be.

(12:47):
And I was supposed to go to Tampa, but where
the worst of the damage was wasn't in Tampa, and
my team for at Bistrong went and did advance work
for the whole day and said to me, because of
what we prepared for for, it's different than what we
prepared for, so you don't need to come. And I
was relieved because I'm never going to not go to

(13:08):
do relief work when I know I can be of
service and when I should go and when that will
impact raising more money. But I was relieved because I'm
stripped and I'm burnt out, and so you know, men
having good quality time with my daughter at school today,
maybe taking her to lunch, and just like I'm having
a rough time doing the best that I can because
everything's going really well. But when things are going really

(13:29):
well in relationship and work, in friendships, maybe in parenting,
there are some growing pains and you have to watch
out for the growing pains to like work the problem through,
and that is where I thrive, and that is what
I'm good good at and coming out stronger than ever.
But it requires effort, and you can't do everything. We

(13:52):
cannot do everything. You can do everything for a minute,
and then you've got to pull back. You gotta pull back.
So don't rip yourselves on things that don't matter, because
then when something does matter, you can't do it. If
I'm running around fucking around, not you know, missing some
of my daughter's games, which really it happens so rarely.
If I miss a game, I make sure I'm at
the next one, and it's special, like I don't like missing,

(14:16):
but also it's okay. I just mean, if you're doing
fucking around, doing stupid things. Then when there's a real
thing you have to do that suffers