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April 23, 2025 28 mins

Is your business taking over your life?

Meet Sophia. She runs a bakery. She almost quit because work consumed all her time. Now she takes six weeks of vacation every year. Her bakery makes more money than before. She spends quality time with her family.

Learn five simple ways to blend work and life better:

  • Link your business to what matters most to you

  • Be more than just a business owner

  • Work when your energy is highest

  • Set clear rules for using technology

  • Build personal wealth through your business

We tackle common worries. "My clients need instant replies." "My business needs me all the time." Real business owners share how they solved these problems.

Key Quote: "Work-life integration creates a system where your business and personal life support each other, not compete."

Do you think about work during family time? Can't remember your last real vacation? This episode is for you. We share practical tips to make your business improve your life.

Get our "Integration Blueprint" in the Wealth Wisdom Financial Community: wealthwisdomfp.com/community

00:00 Introduction to Sophia's Story
00:52 Welcome to Wealth Wisdom Financial Podcast
01:32 The Concept of Work-Life Integration
02:26 Mindset Shift: From Balance to Integration
06:39 Core Practices for Work-Life Integration
07:04 Purpose Alignment
07:41 Identity Expansion
09:12 Energy Management
10:57 Technology Boundaries
12:57 Financial Integration
15:27 Addressing Common Objections
21:51 Conclusion and Call to Action
 
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BtfKGk_UdHg 
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Today I want to tell you about Sophia. I
want to say Sophia, but Sophia, a
successful bakery owner who nearly walked
away from her thriving business because
she felt like she was living to work
instead of working to live. Today, she
runs an even more profitable business
while taking six weeks of vacation
annually and being fully present with her

(00:22):
family. The secret?Not work-life
balance, but work-life integration.
Today, we're revealing the framework that
transformed Sophia's relationship with
her business and can do the same for you.
In a world where chaos seems to reign
supreme, where uncertainty lurks around

(00:42):
every corner, and financial markets
are now more unpredictable than ever.
There's one place you can turn to to find
clarity and control. Welcome to the
Wealth Wisdom Financial Podcast. Hey, I'm
Brandon. And I'm Amanda. Join us as we
dive deep in the world of personal and
business finance to assist you in

(01:03):
navigating through the chaos and building
the financial future you deserve. We
believe when conventional financial
thinking doesn't get you where you want
to go, you need wealth wisdom. So if
you're ready to take control of your
financial destiny. Tune in to the Wealth
Wisdom Financial Podcast. Because in a
chaotic world, your money shouldn't be.

(01:25):
Subscribe now and never miss an episode.
Welcome to our episode
today. We are been talking about work
life reset. Today we're
continuing our conversation about
building businesses that enhance
our lives. Rather than consume our

(01:46):
lives. Your kids don't want a a business
that's consuming you. They want something
that enhances both you and them, right?
Yeah. Or even if you don't have kids,
your friends don't want that either. They
want to hang out with you. This is the
last of the series. Don't worry if you
missed out on all the other ones. You can
go back. We totally think you should go
back. They've been really great. We've
explored how delegation and boundary

(02:08):
setting create space for entrepreneurs to
reclaim their time and how important that
is if you really want financial freedom.
And today we're addressing the bigger
picture, how to integrate your life and
your work in ways that feel
authentic and sustainable rather than
fighting with each other, that they
actually work together. Now, let's start
with a mindset shift. For years, we've

(02:30):
been told to seek work-life
balance. I mean, I, I know I've heard it
plenty of times. Um, have you heard that
before?Yeah, of course. Seek work-life
balance?This is a mythical
state where your professional and
personal lives exist in
perfect equilibrium or perfect harmony.
But for entrepreneurs, this concept is

(02:52):
fundamentally flawed,
right?It is fundamentally flawed. It
assumes work and life are opposing
forces that must be kept separate,
creating a constant tug of war for
your attention and energy. Again,
feel it a lot. Yeah. So,
what if we flipped the script?What if,

(03:14):
instead of trying to find a balance
with work and life as competing
priorities, we integrated them as
complementary parts of a fulfilling
existence?That sounds awesome.
Amazing. Work-life integration
doesn't mean being available for work
24/7. Like, I think that's

(03:36):
not very good. Rather, it's about
designing your business and personal life
so they support rather than sabotage
each other. Yeah, this approach
recognizes three fundamental truths
about entrepreneurship and business
ownership. First,
passion for your work is a feature, not a
bug. Be passionate. That's great.

(03:58):
Many entrepreneurs, business owners, we
genuinely love what we do.
and artificially separating it from our
life creates this unnecessary guilt and
conflict. You don't need that. I I I
think about this a lot whenever we ask,
you know, what does retirement mean for
you?And if you're a business owner,
oftentimes you're like, I'm gonna work

(04:19):
till I'm dead. Like we, we love it.
Because we love it so much, not because
we're poor, right?Yeah. Because we just
want to. And that, and I think that
that's okay, right?You don't, you don't
have to stop working becausea
man told you to, even though you're maybe
the the man or woman. Anyway.
Yeah, the the other thing is that we have

(04:40):
to like break down that is true for
business owners, not maybe true for
everybody else, is your business demands
different amounts of attention at
different times. Some seasons require an
intense focus, while others allow more
space for personal pursuits.
Integration embraces this natural rhythm
instead of forcing A rigid balance

(05:01):
every day or every week. Yeah, I think
also it's just not just seasons in the
year, but seasons of the business. You
know, the first three years of a business
are a challenge. You're building the
systems, you're building all kinds of
stuff, so it might be a little more
focus. But as we are
building and looking at other people,

(05:22):
don't compare yourself to a business
that's 30 years old and you're only 5
and you're saying, why am I not there?
Well, because they're 30 years old and
you're 5, right?Now
this third one. I have to go back and
tell you the first time I heard the words
work life balance or probably 2006,
2007 and it was really great. I was an

(05:42):
employee at a nonprofit. Amazing. But
times have changed and we're in a much
different digital world than we were
then. And you know, having your brand
and having that be on the internet, on
your personal social media, right,
especially as a business owner, that kind
of naturally blurs the lines between
work time and personal time. And fighting

(06:05):
this reality just causes more stress,
where if you thoughtfully manage it, it
can create a lot of freedom. Yeah,
someone told me as well, like this this
idea of I want to make money while I'm
sleeping. Right?And that, that
maybe, um, with the digital world
is, is you can, right?But at the same

(06:25):
time, you don't wanna be sleeping, having
to deal with things, uh, because, um, I
don't know. Your phone dings. Yeah.
YeahUm, that, that seems not very good
for sleep management or time management.
Yeah. So now we get to the question,
how?How do we create this integration in
very practical terms?And what we've

(06:46):
identified are five core practices
that successful business owners use to
achieve meaningful work-life integration.
So we're gonna cover these five. They're
purpose, identity, energy,
technology, and money. There we go. Of
course, you're gonna have the money,
right?Yep. Let's start with purpose.
Yeah, the purpose alignment, right?So

(07:07):
ensuring your business goals and personal
values reinforce rather than contradict
each other. When your work advances your
deepest values, the artificial
boundary between work and life begin to
dissolve. Think again, it's it's thinking
about where you wanna be in the 30 years
or the business. And, And oftentimes if

(07:28):
we're business owners, there's a reason
that we created that business. Mm-hmm
Right. And it should probably be
associated with something that we,We
wanted a change in the world, right?And
that's why we created it. Yeah. And the
second one is about identity. And this is
about expanding your identity,
developing a sense of self that
encompasses but is not limited to

(07:51):
your role as a business owner. If you
show up as a business owner all the time
in every place, and that's your only
identity, what happens if your business
fails?You go through a huge crisis, right?
So instead, you can nurture
relationships, hobbies, interests that
have nothing to do with your professional
life. And this allows you to feel
fulfilled and purposeful even when you're

(08:12):
not working. And what too many people do
is they have this identity that's
here's who I am, it is what I do. Rather
than here's who I am, it's many
things and I'm multifaceted and here's
who I am that doesn't have to do just
with what I do. I think one of those
things, uh, for me was thinking about the

(08:34):
coffee shop. When we had the coffee shop,
we were the coffee shop owners. We're the
coffee people. Some people didn't know
our real names. They were just the coffee
people. I think we still have that
sometimes, the coffee people. We know a
lot, but a lot of the clients, customers,
they became friends. We actually invited
some of them to our house for wine
tastings and other things. And we weren't

(08:55):
just known as the coffee people, we were
known as Brandon and Amanda. that are
cool and love other things like the
baseball games, other things that we did,
uh, in the area. Okay. So we got
purpose, alignment, and identity
expansion. You wanna do number three?
Yeah. Then there's energy management.
This is the hardest one for me because I

(09:15):
don't have a lot of energy apparently.
Um, No. Um, but it's,
it's organizing your schedule around your
natural energy patterns, uh,
rather than arbitraryclock times,
right?This means identifying your peak
performance periods and scheduling the
most demanding work during those
times, while protecting the low

(09:37):
energy periods for recovery or less
demanding tasks. Again, this is a
hard one for me because, you know, I'm
from Texas, like you guys know this. The
energy, I'm I'm energetic, but it doesn't
see it. You don't see it. Yeah, you don't
see it. But it's around figuring out
the things that make you and provide more

(09:58):
energy and doing those things at the
right time. Yeah. So an example of this
is actually in life, Brandon has
more energy in the evenings, and I have
more energy in the mornings. So we
maybe almost like without thinking about
it, because it's just who we are. I
handle all the morning stuff with our
family, with getting our son ready

(10:19):
for school. I'll ask Brandon for a little
bit of help, but I'm the one that's you
know getting us motivated, giving the the
little guy a big hug, all the things in
the morning, whereas Brandon's really
cranky because he's not a morning person.
But in the evening, I'm the one that's
cranky, and Brandon does more of the
bedtime routine and stuff like that. And
so apply this energy management, not

(10:40):
just to when you work, but also how you
engage with your family. Yeah, I think
those, again, energy management is
really, really helpful in knowing
yourself. That, again, requires you to
know how you are and your spouse
or business partners, right?Okay, I have
to do number four. This is
technology boundaries. This is one

(11:01):
that I excel at more than Brandon does,
although he's really great at a lot of
other things. I like the people
she likes. I don't know, she's gonna be
in the Borg or something one day. Okay,
so this is just setting clear rules about
when and how you use technology. So you
prevent work from constantly
infiltrating personal time, especially,

(11:21):
remember we talked about social media and
how like when work-life balance was first
introduced or I first heard about it,
that wasn't as big of a deal. But now
we're on social media where our work
cells, our personal cells all in the same
place. That's led me to just eliminate
social media from my personal time and
for most of my professional time too. But
we've found that having

(11:43):
designated device-free times and spaces,
as well as communicating those
expectations to our clients, our team
members, our family, has been very
helpful to have some of those technology
boundaries. That's been hard, I think,
for Brandon, like he he loves people, he
wants to be social on social media, but
that can bring up work stuff during
personal time when it doesn't need to.

(12:04):
Yeah, I think that's, again, those
technology boundaries is really important
alsoas, as parents and as we
are in this world of being connected to
everything all the time. And so teaching
that, that's okay to be unplugged. Maybe,
uh, I don't know if it's gonna be a thing
that people are doing more and more. Um,
and that kids aren't even on

(12:27):
social media sometimes. I don't know.
Yeah. And even if you don't have kids,
this is still really good for your sleep.
You know, technology, have a bedtime
earlier than your bedtime. So you don't
have those screen blue stuff. And
again, you're listening on a YouTube, you
might be watching late at night. Thank
you. Yeah, thanks for doing that. Don't

(12:47):
forget, hit subscribe and like.
But also when you're done,Get that
technology free time going. Yep. OK, now
we've got #5, the last piece
of integration for work and life
integration. Here we go. Money,
financial integration, developing systems
that allow your business success to

(13:09):
directly fuel your personal
financial goals. Too many entrepreneurs
put everything into their business while
neglecting their personal wealth
building. And that's why here on the
Wealth Liz and Financial podcast, we're
talking about both. You have to have your
business finances going well, having that
cash flow management so that you can pay
yourself. But you also need to not waste

(13:30):
every dime that your business pays you so
you can build more and make sure that you
end up in financial freedom and not in
more of like unemployment when you're
retired where you have no money too.
Yeah. And this is why strategies like the
infinite banking concept find it
particularly powerful. By creating
properly structured whole life insurance
policies, us as business owners are

(13:51):
able to establish a personal banking
system that bridges our business and
personal finances together. And you can
use these policies as a place to
warehouse business profits, creating tax
advantages while building personal
assets that aren't tied to the value of
your business. I was just talkingto a
client about that just today, and

(14:13):
why we have these policies and and how it
is pretty powerful
integration tool, both personally
and business. Yeah, so here's the
thing about financial integration. It
accomplishes something very remarkable.
It ensures that the hard work that
you took to build your business

(14:34):
and you know directly results in personal
wealth creation, regardless of what
happens to your business in the future.
The economy changes, industries change,
technology evolves. Your business future
is uncertain. I think we could all agree,
no matter what business you're in, there
can be a new competitor, a tariff
change, whatever. Oh, you're in tariffs

(14:55):
again. I'm in tariffs again, yeah. Too
many entrepreneursreach retirement age
with a valuable business, but limited
personal assets. And that creates a
pressure to extract maximum value during
that business sale, leads people to make
some really bad decisions, pay too much
in taxes. Start thinking about this
now, and

(15:17):
it can result in a lot of great value for
you when your work finances and your
personal finances, they're not
co-mingled. But they're integrated.
When we discuss work-life integration, we
often hear several objections, and we're
going to cover those after our little
break from Ben.

(15:45):
Ready to take the next step towards
securing your financial future?Whether
you're planning for retirement, saving
for your dream home, or you just want to
make your money work harder for you. The
team at Wealth Wisdom Financial are ready
to assist you, and now it's easier than
ever to see how we might give you a boost
on your financial journey. Schedule a 15
minute discovery call with one of us

(16:07):
today and let's discuss your questions
and your financial goals together. Don't
wait any longer. Your financial freedom
awaits. Schedule your discovery call at
www.wealthwisdomfp.com/call.
Okay. We're going to go through this

(16:29):
pretty quickly with some side detours
brought to you by Brandon, because
everybody loves and Brandon interrupts
me, and and that's the best part of our
show. You don't love it when I- No, it's
fine. It's fine. You're good. So, you
questioners, with your objections, we
love you. We love that you're thinking
deep about these things. Here's one. My
clients expect immediate responses.

(16:50):
OK, well, this expectation exists because
you created it. If your clients expect
you to respond immediately, it's because
you've trained them to expect immediate
responses. Remember Sophia, the
bakery owner I mentioned at the top of
the episode?Initially, she believed her
custom cake clients needed 24 hour
access. seven days a week. When she

(17:12):
implemented a communication system with
clear response times and emergency
procedures, her clients adjusted quickly.
In fact, many appreciated knowing
exactly when they would get a response,
rather than wondering if their messages
were received. All it was, was hey,
thanks for your request for a custom
cake. We'll respond to you within 24

(17:33):
hours. Done. easy peasy
lemon squeezy right okay I think that
one's a hard one sometimes for you wasn't
it to to build or or is it easier to say
well48 hours. Yeah,
all good. Yeah, especially with e-mail.
Don't respond to emails often. The more
you e-mail, the more you get emailed.

(17:53):
It's a bad snowball. Okay,
next one, next objection. My industry
doesn't allow for flexibility. While some
businesses have fixed operation hours,
most entrepreneurs have more control than
they realize. Let's think about James, a
construction company owner who
initially scoffed at the idea of
integration. But his breakthrough came

(18:15):
when he separated job site supervision,
which required physical presence at
specific times, and he separated that
from business development and management,
which he could schedule with much more
flexibility and do it at his best
thinking times and stuff like that. This
distinction made him and allowed
him to create an integration while

(18:37):
respecting the realities of his industry.
He did need to be physically present at a
job site at certain times, but that was a
very small part of his week. And I also
wonder, maybe as you're growing, you
might have to be available for
certain times or or around, but then you
might have staff that staggers, right?Umm

(18:58):
And so then you're not available.
all the time, but you have a, a
team that's in different, different parts
of the time. Yeah. YeahSaturdays,
Sundays, whatever you're gonna do. Right.
Because if you're an international
company and you have to meet different
time zones, you have different staff that
are able to do that, even if you can't.
Yeah. The third objection we'll cover

(19:19):
is I can't afford to be unavailable. And
when Brandon was started talking about
growing companies, it's like, is he going
to say this?This fear though, often
masks deeper insecurities about your
value beyond productivity.
Caroline is a great example. She's a
consultant who struggled with this
belief. If she wasn't available, she was
going to lose clients and she can't
afford to lose clients. So she conducted

(19:41):
an experiment without telling anybody
else. She just tracked urgent client
requests that arrived during her personal
time. Oh, ohh there was one, right?Like,
let me make note of that. And over three
months, just noticing what happened,
less than 5% of them genuinely required
immediate attention. A lot of them could
have been resolved in the next day. The

(20:02):
95% of them just could have waited,
right, until the next morning for her to
respond to, and there would have been no
negative consequences. So if she loses
5%, right, of her clients,
that's what she could probably afford to
lose, cuz then maybe she even gets
clients that are even better. I also
think on some of this that I can't afford
to be unavailable idea is

(20:24):
as you build your team, you might still
be unavailable, but it's taken care of by
other people, right?I, I can now, they're
used to talking to me. Um, but, uh,
it shows, hey, I'm unavailable,
butthis person is going to take
over that task for you to make it
better. And they're a specialist in all

(20:44):
those things. Yep. And then I kind of
mentioned this one before, but when
people are, when we talk about
integration of personal and business
finances, everybody, you know, like, oh,
I thought they have to be totally
separate. And yes, while they're
important legal and tax reasons to
maintain, you know, proper business
entities and separate bank accounts and
all those kind of things. Financial

(21:05):
integration does not mean commingling
funds. Um, it means creating
intentional channels where business
success flows seamlessly into
personal wealth building. And who doesn't
want that?The more successful your
business is, the more your personal
wealth grows, not the opposite, which is
what usually happens. Yeah, for example,

(21:26):
with Banking Yourself, you're not
directly moving money between
personal accounts inappropriately.
Rather, you're creating a systematic
approachto compensating yourself
as the business owner and directing a
portion of those funds into assets that
you control personally. This
creates a tangible link between

(21:47):
business growth and personal
financial security. Yep. Okay, so let's
wrap this up. Work-life integration
It's not about finding perfect harmony
every day. If you found that, then you've
reached enlightenment and you need to
share that with the rest of us. Nobody
reaches a perfect harmony every day
unless you know, unless they they, you

(22:07):
know, are a monk on the side of a
mountain or something like that. Instead,
work-life integration is about creating a
sustainable ecosystem where your business
and your personal life both are
flourished and they're nourished and all
those things, rather than them depleting
each other and fighting and you know
being in conflict. And the business
owners and entrepreneurs who master this

(22:29):
integration, they have several
characteristics in common. They're
intentional about how they structure
their time. They focus work
periods and generally disconnect their
personal time. They utilize technology as
a tool rather than it becoming their
taskmaster. They create clear
expectations with clients and team
members about availability and response

(22:51):
times, their communication, right?
And they also think about their identity,
and it's much bigger, right?They're not
just who they are at work. And then
finally, most importantly, they ensure
their business success translates into
personal financial security. And this is
where Bank On Yourself provides a
powerful advantage by creating a

(23:11):
personal banking system that
entrepreneurs can systematically move
money from their businesses to their
personal assets in some really cool
tax-advantaged way. As you
were saying those characteristics, I was
like, oh, that's that's us. We made it.
We made it. We're getting there. We were
not always there. So as as you listen to

(23:33):
these stories, you know, we've been doing
this. I I remember as we record this
episode, it's about 14 years ago that we
opened up our coffee shop. business.
And we thought we knew everything at that
point. We've grown a lot. And we
probably will say the same thing in
another 14 years. Yeah. So we've learned
a lot, what not to do. One, don't open

(23:55):
up a coffee shop if you don't really want
to, or anyway, a lot of other
things. But that was us. I feel pretty
good. Yeah. Let's go back to Sophia, our
bakery owner. doing all these
things, you know, for three years. And
previously her profits went back into
growing the business, leaving her
personal finances vulnerable. But with

(24:15):
Profit First and Bacon Yourself, she
established a flow of capital from her
business to her personal assets that she
controls. And today she has a significant
policy that provides both financial
security and available capital that she
can access when needed without loan
applications or credit checks. So about
14 years ago is when we opened our
business. About 13 years ago, no, 12

(24:36):
years ago was when we started our bank
and yourself policy. And I would say
that's led to a lot of our growth
personally and professionally. Yeah, so
many. We were able to overcome
things, overcome
some challenging things. and be able to
do that growth in our business because
of the systems we have set up. Yeah, and

(24:58):
those systems really gave us and Sophia
financial confidence, and that can
entirely change your relationship with
your business. Knowing your personal
financial future is not entirely
dependent on selling your business at
some point, just allows better
operational decisions, feeling
comfortable, taking time away, all kinds
of really cool things. Now, integration,

(25:21):
doesn't happen by accident, just like
showing up to meetings and all that other
stuff. Uh, it is being
intentional, right?So we want to be
intentional. It requires intentional
design of your business model, your
schedule, your learning, your
communication systems, and your financial
structures. But the reward is a

(25:41):
life or work and personal pursuits
doesn't compete for your attention. They
complement and enhance each other. And
that's about being intentional and and
building that whole thing. Yeah. So, are
you ready to be intentional about
work-life integration?Are you ready to
create work-life integration?

(26:01):
Well, today, right now in the Wealth
Wisdom Financial community, we've
published our Integration Blueprint. It's
a comprehensive workbook that walks you
through designing each aspect of
integration for your specific situation.
It includes schedule templates,
communication frameworks, financial
planning tools specifically for business
owners. We've also included a special

(26:22):
section of how Bank on Yourself can
create a financial bridge. between your
business success and your personal wealth
building. You can get it now as a premium
member of the Wealth Wisdom financial
community at
wealthwisdomfp.com/community.
I'll have a link in the show notes to
that as well. You can access this
resource as well as lots of others and
start creating true integration today.

(26:45):
And I would add, if you want to do a
financial analysis with one of us, it
might not beUs, but it might be somebody
on our team. Go to
wealthwisdomfp.com/call.
That's
wealthwisdomfp.com/call.
And you notice I said someone on our team
because as we're growing, we want to
build this. We want to impact more

(27:07):
people's lives. We want to also
be training up and delegating other
people that can do the work that we
thought only we could do, but it is so
much more than just us. So you might also
see in the next episode one of
those people talking that that or
two of them or two of them yeah that you

(27:29):
could interact with. So
wealthwisdomfp.com/call, we would
love to serve you and see if the
concepts that we do can serve
Okay, this wraps up our work-life reset.
Happy spring. Hope it's really great
weather wherever you are and you get some
great time in life as well as in

(27:49):
work going forward. Thanks for joining
us. Hit that subscribe button. If you're
dealing with some debt, you're not going
to want to miss the next episode. Debt is
on the increase and so we made a special
one-time episode about five debt myths
that could be keeping you from financial
freedom. Don't miss it and live long and
profit. The topics presented in this
podcast are for general information only

(28:10):
and not for the purpose of providing
legal, accounting or investment advice.
On such matters, please consult a
professional who knows your specific
situation.
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