The Song That Never Ends - Work Life Balance "Life Work Balance." - Your Resource For Success Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Unveiled, where all conversations are safe, revealing, and uncuffed.
Tonight show has partnered with Chrisi's Dishes, Jin Chefez Photography
and sponsored by w S B I l C, your
resource for success podcasts. Here are your hosts for this evening,
Carmen and Kimberly Petche, Chris and Jen Chefez. What are

(00:25):
we revealing tonight? We are revealing the song that never ends,
work life balance. This Oh yeah sings.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Work life balance?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Why your coffee?

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, we can have that.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
What you need, whatever you need, whatever you need.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
So obviously this is a conversation that will never end. Okay,
because it's a constant work life balance.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
What does that really mean?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
It's funny because I've heard people get mad when you
say the term work life balance. A lot of people
that do not agree with that.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
People have miserable.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Right, But then of course that's what people do strive for,
is work life balance. So what are your thoughts about that?
You guys, what do you think?

Speaker 4 (01:32):
I'm going to jump right in because this is this
is a topic that I get into with people a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
One.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
I don't call it work life balance. I call it
life work balance. My life is my priority over work.

Speaker 5 (01:42):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
I led way too many years making work a priority.
And when I was in my twenties, it was about, okay,
I'm the breadwinner. I got to make sure that I
can take care of everything, and work was my priority.
And then I had Amanda. I was still the breadwinner,
and it was all right. I worked is still my priority,

(02:05):
and I would fill in my blanks with my life.
And then after all that ended and I changed my
career and came to work for the government, I saw
it was happening again, and I made work my priority
for whatever the reason was. You know, we were going
through our things and life and external stuff. But it

(02:29):
becomes that what you can control, because that's your control,
and it be by default becomes priority. And then I
left and I realized how god awful and unbalanced it was,
and how sick it got me. I was physically, emotionally

(02:49):
and mentally a wretched human. And while work didn't see
that side of it, he did. And I am so
greatful and blessed for the last how long has it
been six nine months of not prioritizing work, I do.

(03:12):
I prioritize life now. I prioritize everything that has to
do with what is truly going to make me happy,
and if it's not worrying about everybody else and somebody
has a problem with that, tough shit, right.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
And I agree that what you've seen I seen at
work that she didn't see. The constant running around like
the rat on the wheel, constantly worrying about everybody else.
People standing outside the door in the line literally every
day is if they could not function on their own.

(03:46):
Every day was a problem. It was unbelievable. And I
would tell her, it's like, I'm not coming in here
unless I need you to. And sometimes I would just
go in there just so she could get the relief,
not because I needed anything.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
And she'd be like to shut the door, to shut
the door, just so she could have.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
A moment to just calm down.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Because everybody was bringing not results, but problems, all problem,
all problems, and have to work seven days a week
versus just having a normal life. There was no there
was no such thing, thank you, And you know, I
get you.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
You're right, there's this thing of so called work life balance.
There isn't such thing.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
You have to make that And I like the term
analogy that you use of life work balance, and you're right,
and that's something I think that I can agree that
I have strived for for many many years and have
had to turn that terminology over myself because I've been
more of a business owner for probably as many years
I have been working. So I've gone back and forth

(04:48):
from working to be in a businesswel for years go
back to work business owner. And I've done that because
it also maintains my opportunity to continue to learn and
to grow, and then going back into the business world,
and also giving other people opportunity to give them a
job and to get their time to learn and to

(05:08):
grow as well. But then coming back into that environment
of working for others. They don't get that. They don't
get the of the understanding that it's not just about
bringing in the money. It's not just about sitting in
your cubicle all day long and you look up. You
can't even bring you to have a lunch. If I
hear one more person tell me, oh, you should, you

(05:30):
shouldn't be working during your lunch hour. You should, you
should take your thirty minutes. So why do you set
up with.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Dam meeting during lunch.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
And have the audacity to get an attitude about it
when we say something.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
I agree, I think that you're spot on. I like
changing the words life work balance, right, It's not really
a balance because from from my perspective early on in
my career telecommunications, there was no life work. It was

(06:05):
work life and it consumed. But then again, that was
an industry that was growing at a rapid pace, very competitive,
and I actually enjoyed everything I was doing. I you know,
it was from the work week into Friday, cutover into
Saturday morning, leaving and going to have breakfast, all right,

(06:30):
and then Sunday was your your your life balance, right,
and it was mostly crash and burn, right, but it
was sustained. It couldn't be sustained for very long periods
of time because the culture that we were in always
talked about work life balance, yes, but they were different

(06:51):
than what the government is today. It was hey, take
Monday off, take Tuesday. It was like, you did a
good job all week, you work through the weekend, don't
come back to Wednesday. It was a different full and
you had the ability to do that. It's that's not
the case. Is so even though today we talk about

(07:11):
work life balance, and they talk about it as if
they understand it. Uh, it's really if they understood it,
they would say, you know, don't work past the eight
hours a day. Right.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
So I always find it interesting for you having been
you as being a soldier, you only had work for
so long. Where did the life balance come in?

Speaker 6 (07:36):
It wasn't work, that was our life. That's right, because
I think if like you have career career service members
who understand the mission.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
The mission is to you.

Speaker 6 (07:49):
Know, be there, be ready to go in a month's notice,
to defend our country and do the things that we
need to do. But the age of eighteen nineteen years old,
and I was like, oh my god, this is gonna
take forever. Fast forward twenty years, It's like, holy shit,
where did it go? Because it was that was the life.

(08:11):
There was like our work life balance was we worked
and played with everybody that we knew. And now with
what we do some of us do now it's literally
you go in there and your relationships that you have
with some of these people can be either be really

(08:33):
good or really bad. But there's people who don't understand, like,
no matter what tomorrow, if you don't show up, this
train's still going to keep going and nobody cares that
you left, or nobody cares that you're there. You know,
it's absolutely true, Like our leadership is freaking horrid and
they're not even they can't even have leaders that you

(09:00):
don't don't even know what goes on in their own organization,
nor do they know that they if they don't even
know what certain things are within their organization, they have
to be able to talk to it.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
So that's what I so, as we were talking off
before coming on live, you know, back in when did
it start started the beginning of March. I took a
class about leadership and how to be an effective leader
and the attributes of a good leader and the skills
are a good leader. And every day at the end

(09:34):
of the day, when CHRISA got home from work, he's like, so,
how a school because we always joke about me being
school And I was like, schools fine, or my brain hurts,
Like there was so much knowledge being shared and I
had wonderful instructors and for anybody, and I'm going to
give them a plug because I got to say, like
for anyone in the government, if you work for the army,

(09:55):
I highly recommend you take the Cees intermediate course. It
shed light on what you really should be doing and
what a good leader is, and it highlighted to me,
to Chris's point, what a poor leader is. And the
same people that are scheduling meetings during your lunch don't
care about your life.

Speaker 6 (10:16):
Why schedule a meeting at three or four o'clock in
the afternoon. People want to go home. People don't want
to like to sit in a freaking tanning booth for
fucking eight hours and look at a freaking monitor and
then have to go home and do life stuff. It's like,
because we're sitting there and we're literally taught, like ninety
percent of the conversation that we have at our work

(10:38):
is everything, but the ten percent of work, it's like yeah, right, right,
right right.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
I mean you're like, hey, you we were going to
go down this path though, because I don't want it.
I really don't want it to be a bitch set
about the government.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
Right, it's about the government.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
It's anywhere you work today, right. But because I can
only compare the companies that I worked for Rome, IBM, Siemens, Unified,
all these different companies that really professed a great place
to work, though Okay, so Rome. Even though I didn't

(11:24):
work in headquarters. I worked in New York. Right, it's
the third person high for the New York office. But
I had the philosophy was the same. If you worked
in Santa Clara, California. There was a campus there that
had flexible hours for everybody. Everybody. If you wanted to
work from two to two to ten, two am to

(11:45):
ten because you had other obligations, perfect right, you could
do that. There's a full, full, full gym like at
that time, Goals gym was small compared to the gym
that was there, Olympic sized swimming pool. It was the
epitome of a great place to work, only because the

(12:07):
competition in Santa Clara, it was always robbing Peter to
pay Paul. One of the biggest benefits they did study
and they said, okay, on your sixty year of working
at this tempo, you need time off. And it was
it was a six month sabbatical that you were entitled
to every sixth year because of the pressure. Right and then,

(12:31):
But so the great minds that did this didn't realize
that we were going to grow at a pace where
you can't afford to give everybody your off six months
your workforces out right, So he says, we'll reduce it
to three to three months, and then it would reduced
it to six weeks, or you could take the six
months and still continue to work, but they would pay

(12:51):
you a check. Right, So for a year you got
paid eighteen months. Right. So that's the true epitome of
a great place to work. Their their idea of a
great place to work. Was it sustainable? Not when IBM
took over, because they got rid of it. They got
rid of it, right.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
So then the question becomes of what defines life work balance.
Is it up to your organization to provide it for
you or is it up to you to make it yourself.

Speaker 6 (13:17):
Well, hold on, I'm going to use somebody at this
table for example.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
That's the.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
Live somebody's knocking.

Speaker 6 (13:26):
I thought, I was like, let's going on, So we'll
take somebody from An example of this table is that
some people with their job have to communicate with people
that work overseas, and yet they have to spend that
time at work longer. Does that person ever get compensated
for that time? Absolutely not, not zero. And I know

(13:49):
if any of my old soldiers ever listened to this.
There was plenty of times we work countless numbers of
hours and there was always time like hey, tak an
next shower here, taking an next shower there, because that's
what leader good leadership is supposed to be. Like that's
but people have lives outside what they do for money,
you know, like I'm I'm much rather be home.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
It's a more complicated world today than it was, absolutely well,
and in reality, it's not that much more complicated.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
It's the complication becomes with the leaders leadership.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Right, So, no matter what environment you're in, if your
leaders feel that they have to micromanage and hover over
you and don't know how to allow the individuals to
do their jobs. So we're so majority of us sitting
at this table have all been in leadership roles, right,
And if we don't don't know how those leaders people

(14:44):
don't know how to allow us to be accountable for
what we do, then what kind of leaders are you?
So it's not so much that anything is any more complicated.
It's about allowing the people to do their jobs and
learning to believe that they can do their jobs.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Is I have to micromanage and hover over you to
get things.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
To comp so you should be able to come in,
get your eight hours in or whatever program that you're under,
and still be able to have a life. But because
there's so much of that, Oh, I got to hover
over this person and see what they're doing, or I'm
going to manage Well, we want you to do your job,
but we're still gonna hover over you and still tell

(15:20):
you how to do your job.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
You can't have it both ways.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
So let me ask you a question. Then, we've all
worked in the private sector at one point in our lives. Absolutely,
I have owned my own business, just like you. I
know you you're now technically as a contract. But my
point here is so having owned my own business and
knowing the type of people needed to make sure my

(15:45):
business functioned, there was a certain personality type that had
to be hired. I had client who was so god
awful to their people. They would, to your point, schedule
meetings during lunch hours, not compensate them with like time off,
even though they worked sixty seventy hours that week. And

(16:08):
I dropped them as a client. I was like, I'm
done with you. You can't respect your people, so your
people are not respecting my people. That's not how I
do business, and there was a financial impact. Obviously. I
think when we look at the life work balance of people,
there's fear of, well, how am I going to pay
my bills if I lose my job? What if I

(16:29):
fight back? What if I push back? So my question is,
why wouldn't you push back? Having been the person that
didn't push back? Now, don't tell me I have a
meeting during my lunch if you want me to take
that half hour lunch, don't schedule a meeting because I
won't be there.

Speaker 6 (16:44):
People have already learned with like with like with me,
if it's a it's if it's anything after three o'clock
fifteen hundred for you military's folk, I ain't going to
be there because my life is sitting across from me
at this table and friends, because there's more important things
and having to worry if somebody freaking can't talk on

(17:05):
a phone.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, and that's funny. We see more and more people
get up and don't just don't show up. Right, A
lot of people just don't show up anymore. And the
funnier part about it they leave those people alone, is
that they don't exist, and then they expect other people
just to be there, so there's never instead of addressing
the issue and addressing the elephant in the room, they
just ignored.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
So then we're so then you end.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Up finding that there's always just a handful of people
who have to fight for everybody.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
And that's the saddest part about it.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
So it's still right, So it still goes back to leadership.
So it depends on the individuals not understanding what real
leadership is. And you know, we shouldn't have to fight
every every role, every stage. You know, it's no different
than having my team. Like I tell my team we

(17:56):
are we're one, but we have to be able to
work together. I'm not going to work you to death.
But at the same time, I have my expectations. It's
like they have expectations of me. Whether I'm in the
corporate arena, whether I'm in the government arena no matter,
or whether it's my own business. Right, we all have
a certain role to play. I play hard and I
work hard, bottom line, but i'm but at the same token,

(18:18):
I don't have time to hover over you.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
I'm not to here to babysit you.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
But you are in essence because as a leader, there
is a certain amount of watching that has to be done. However,
with that said, what's.

Speaker 6 (18:31):
My favorite, what's my favorite saying you're the what? As
a leader? You're the QAQC. That's all you are.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
You are.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
But but if I have to do that to the
point where I'm going to manage you and babysitting you,
I'm doing and trying to do your role, you got
to go. And I have no problem with walking you
to the door. And everybody knows that.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
So at what point does it become do you put
the onus back on yourself for your own life work
balance because we all have our We watched them the
other night where they were talking talking about everyone's got
their price, and I can't remember what it was, Okay, everybody,
Actually it was twenty four. It was how I meant
for It was how you know what is your Everyone's
got a price? And to me, it took me a

(19:16):
very long time. When it was my business, my price
was very high, very high bottom line working for another entity,
not my own. Going through what I went through, where
the the scales of justice or your work life balance,
life work balance were very un settled, it's not as

(19:41):
much anymore. Right now. I am at a stage in
my life where maturity knowledge, I'll still want a car
Mine's favorites is my give a fox or give a shits.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Give a shit factor is in many micro funs.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
That's exactly it. And I don't have that patience anymore
for somebody to tell me that you have to I
don't have to do shit. I got to die and
pay taxes and negotiable. So when it comes to having
life work, I would much rather spend a nice day
with y'all instead of somebody telling me, well, you're gonna

(20:22):
be late to your next thing.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
No I'm not.

Speaker 4 (20:25):
You're not imposing your will on me. But again, we
all have that breaking point, like at what point do
you say, I can't live this way, I need to leave.
I know what mine was. Oh, I've been there. I've
been there.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
I mean you know, I guess you know when you know,
And I definitely.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Have been there where when you know. I won't say
when the experience was.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
But during the time where hey, I locked that door,
I said, hey, I know how to take care of
myself and when you need me, you know where to
find me. And I didn't have to come back. I
was asked to come back, which you know, but at
the end of the day, it gets to a point
where I had to know where my priorities were for me. Yes,
And you know it's funny because I always get people

(21:10):
ask me, well, you know, how could you do that
to you? You know, how could you do you didn't
want to go work for anybody else? No, because I
knew my value right and when you know who you
are and you know what you can do for yourself
and your capabilities. And that was the best experience, was
to be able to get back out there one percent
and truly understand what I could do. I loved it
one hundred percent working from home promote. You know, I

(21:33):
could work the hours I wanted to work. I had
a life, yep. I was able to take some time
and you know, if I need to get up and
go work out, I could work out first start my day.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
I could breathe.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
But I felt good mentally and still could able to
get and I only worked eight hours.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Some days I didn't work eight hours.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
It really depended on what I needed to do to
get what I had to do with the team that
I was working with at the time, and then with
the mother many many.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Staff that I had.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
You know, I just I made it work for the
better better men, but also I knew I still had
people relying on me as well, right, so you you
have to know how to even balance that piece out.
But I think a big part of it is just
understanding who you are and like you said, what you
will and will now deal with. And some days I

(22:23):
regret not holding on to that piece, and then other
days I don't. It just really just depends. I think
now I feel a little more regretful because I'm married now.
Another I want to be able to have more of
a balance, to spend more time with my significant other,
to be able to be home and do other things

(22:47):
and not have to worry about, oh shit, we got
sent trafficked for an hour and a half, or we
got to rush out this door to do this. We
gotta rush everything. Now is back to the rush mode,
you know, trying to figure out, well, what time we're
gonna eat because now we gotta wait till seven o'clock,
you know, because we're not getting home at a certain time.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
You know, everything is based on their.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Time versus my time, and that's the reality that we're
living in. And then now that things are even more
crazier with the environment that we're in versus how.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
It used to be.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
People are on pins and needles, you know, than what
it used to be. So it's just about understanding who
you are and your needs. And obviously there will be
a time, you know, where I'll have to make decisions
whether I like it or not, or whether they'll make
decisions for me whether I like it or not. You know,
so you know it is what it is, and you

(23:41):
just move on and you keep doing what you need
to do. But I just think for us, we know
what we have to do, we know what we want.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
I know my husband will be coming closer to his retirement,
and once that retirement is there for him, then I
can make the move that we knew that we need
to have.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
There'll be more official far family.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
So the work life work balance, like I'm going to
start saying that more than work, Right, the life work
balance did change from when I was single, because there
was there was it was easy to say, oh, I
could work an extra two hours and it not impeded

(24:22):
the balance to the other balance my life balance, because shit,
I was seven minutes away from the post. Right, there's
restaurants all over the place. So it's it's it wasn't
an inconvenience, and I don't want to say it inconvenience,
it wasn't. It wasn't those things I was willing to

(24:42):
accept because I didn't need that fifty to fifty or
sixty forty. But you're also a workaholic too, right, And
and that's that's one of the things that was a
problem with being a workaholic. I was a workaholic when
I was in my my you know, seventeen on, right,
and even when I had that little hiatus for when

(25:04):
you know, my tenure in the commercial world went away,
and then coming here to Virginia, I still was a workaholic, right, absolutely,
But what you were saying is now the priority has
changed and my priority is different, and I struggle with
that sometimes every day. It's like I understand that work
has to get done, but at what cost? And I'm

(25:27):
not willing to make it at my cost because there's
no give and take there. It's expected that you devote
all of your time to a job, and that's just
not going to happen.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
So who sets that expectation, Well, it.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
So shared expectation ahead.

Speaker 6 (25:46):
So going back to what you had said earlier about
you know, it was different for you being you know,
in the army for twenty years where that was the
life right. And I think that's where I'm at with
our balance, our life life work life work balance, is
that for twenty years, I put my I put everything

(26:08):
else prior to me, and I spent excuse my language,
six combat six deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, multiple field
training exercises, you know, multiple twenty four hour shifts, blah
blah blah blah blah. And now I'm at the point
where it's just like every time I get up and
drive for forty minutes there, forty minutes back a day,

(26:30):
it's like, I don't want to give my life to
those people anymore. I want to give my life to
doing things I want to do for myself or for
my family, or for my friends.

Speaker 4 (26:41):
So that's a great way to put it. I think
it's about appreciation. Like you, I was a telecom baby,
you know, came up with the telecom world. It was
high case, and I loved it. I'm not even gonna
lie to you.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
I'm addictive.

Speaker 6 (26:55):
Loved it.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
There was not a single moment and for anyone listening.
Who knew me back then? You know, I love this ship.
Like you want to talk cutovers in the middle of night,
I got you right. But it was great and there
was appreciation.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
And it was a satisfaction knowing that a problem can
come up and you can fix it because you had
direct control over cost, schedule, performance totally and you can
make it.

Speaker 5 (27:18):
You can make a decisions say no, I'm not giving
you this, but I'll give you this, and you negotiate
it and it gets done and then it's all appreciative
recommendation letters like coming from Yeah it was tough, we
had tough cutover, but you persevered.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
It was gratification.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
So appreciatation that's the key. Who who is gracious and
thankful for the work that you're doing all of us right,
And I don't want to believer it, but the fact
remains is that I had my own come to Jesus
about this and I've made decisions that many a night

(28:01):
Chris and I sat up saying is this the right
decision for our family? Who is going to appreciate the
fact that I'm doing all of this stuff? And the
bottom line was and it was a like a smack
in the face, not literally obviously, but it was for
me to have to sit back and say, nobody cares.

(28:22):
I can drop dead, plainful out of the sky tomorrow
and it's not going to matter. And then it was okay,
So what can I do and what can I do
for somebody who's going to appreciate what I'm doing, whether
that be myself, whether that be my husband, whether that
be my friends, my community. Where can I actually not

(28:47):
balance work in life and not balance life and work,
but prioritize because one of them has to be the priority.
You're not going to have fifty to fifty and it's
either you're a workaholic dedicated to your car, or pause
and pivot. You're dedicated to your life and your family.
And what you said, nobody's gonna care if you quit tomorrow, Kim,

(29:09):
Who is going to care? You know what they're going
to care about? Do they have access to your files?
Do they have access to your knowledge? Who can they
put in your place?

Speaker 6 (29:16):
Exactly why I don't put anything?

Speaker 4 (29:21):
And it's scary because you, again, how often do you
get to see your friends during the work week? We don't.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
We don't anymore, not at all.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
And like, Okay, we have friends at work, but we're
not We don't.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
Have those are our quacks. These are friends.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
But there's a work there is a work family that
makes it, that makes makes this work life work balance
tolerable with times because there they're committed individual.

Speaker 6 (29:54):
Place that's horrible. You want to be in a place
where you can be thank you, where you can like
and this, and this goes back to something that Jenna
and I have talked about is like I know not
to bash anything but anymore, but I really hate everything
that I do now. Like I'm not not in the
sense of like being with my wife for you guys

(30:15):
or anything like that. It's I hate going to work, okay,
And no, I really do want the.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Club well no really what he works club, but the But.

Speaker 6 (30:28):
Jenn has always asked me, She's like, so what do
you want to do, And it's like, I don't know,
because like from age of five, I was digging trenches
in my father's backyards playing g I Joe and I
got to be the real g I Joe. I got
to do everything I ever wanted to do. I went
and I did my own little business for a little bit.
And now it's just like I have my fulfillment is what.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
Make me really good spaghetti and me boss.

Speaker 6 (30:51):
But the thing is, it's like like if somebody asked me,
what do you want to do for a job, It's like,
I don't know. Like I did everything I ever wanted
to do for my life. I got to I got well,
hold on, wait wait, I got to jump out of airplanes.
I got to you know, walk hundreds of miles for
no apparent freaking reason with like sixty five pounds on
my back. It sucked at the time, but it was

(31:14):
epic now, you know. I got to I mean, I
got to go defend my country. We won't talk.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
About that right now. Uh So there's and all this other.

Speaker 6 (31:21):
Type of stuff like I got to shoot ship, blow ship.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Up, I got to do.

Speaker 6 (31:25):
You've got nothing to prove exactly, I have nothing to
prove to anyone.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
But it is some of that. Some of that. Really
you don't know what else you want to do or
what you would like to because it's very hard just
for anybody say, well, what would you want to do
now if you left, If I left right now, what
would I want to do? And my answer would be,
I'll go work at Walmart, right because I could greet
people for a while.

Speaker 4 (31:47):
He likes the little carts.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
He likes to look getting a little carts.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
So hold on, I love the idea of you in
a little blue vest. I'm not gonna lie. I know right,
take the visual. It's amazing. Car has to see.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Okay, Walmart, but Costco.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
Plays thirty thousand dollars to their people, so what they do.

Speaker 7 (32:11):
Yes, All I was trying to say is that that
you at this stage in my life, I would want
to relax and be comfortable with not having any pressures that.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Say, oh, if this job doesn't go well, you suck right,
and and and that's that's not it's not being fair
right to put that sort of pressure on myself.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
I agree with you. So as Chris was saying before
that he's done everything he's wanted to do, I immediately
start thinking when we were young, go back to high school,
where do you want to go to college? What do
you want to be when you grow up? Then you're
in college or in your case, you're in the army,
and it's well, what do you want to major in?
So there's always this notion of what do you want?

(33:01):
And as I think about it, it's what do I
want to be? What do I want to do? How
much money do I want to make? Nobody's ever asking well,
what makes you happy?

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Right?

Speaker 4 (33:10):
And you know what? I know my retirement career that
makes me happy, and it is it's taking photos of
pretty landscapes and little flowers and buggies and being with
my husband and my garden and our dogs and our
friends and having barbecues. And those are the things that
make me happy. Now, are we at that stage in

(33:32):
life when we can throw our hands up in the
air and say we're done. Well, part can say no,
because you still need to financially, be money and pray
to God that we can sustain. But then the other
part is like, are you willing to let go of
what you currently have and whittle down to do it?

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yep?

Speaker 4 (33:52):
And like that's a big question for a lot of people.
Are you willing to give up your house and move
into a condo or are you willing to give up two
cars and go down to one? Are you willing to
give up your I don't know, half a million dollar
whatever the incomes are of the world today, income to
make forty five thousand dollars a year, like those are

(34:16):
the big questions that people have to ask themselves. Can
they do? They know how to live, but can.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
That becomes very scary because it's you know, if you
if you do the five minute analysis, you say no,
I can't forget do it. But if you sit down
for hours and map it out, and you could probably
come up with a number that is sustainable for your
happiness right. And that's an important thing. That's why there's
people that make a lot of money out there coaching
people on retiring what they can live with, what they

(34:47):
can't do right.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
And you'll find it's amazing what you really can live
with or without. And it's funny because I won't mention
the person's name that I had the same conversation with
several times for probably a couple of years, and she
started out with the hey, I have this big house,
I can't live without it, and blah blah blah. I
mean just put herself through the ringer that I have

(35:09):
to have these things. And then literally just one day
it's like I realized I don't need this, got rid
of the house. Then it was like, okay, I'm gonna
buy a condo, got a nice condo, Realized I don't
even need this big, big condo, got a smaller condo,
just a one bedroom, beautiful condo, made just for her

(35:31):
the way she needed it for her, and she's happier
than she's ever been. So it's about, really, what do
you really need?

Speaker 3 (35:38):
Right?

Speaker 4 (35:39):
So when I say she went from a want and
a need, and that's what.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's about, is truly understanding what what do you really
think you can live or live without? And I think
that's the reality check that everybody has to have. So,
you know, we think that we have to have a
lot of everything. You really don't, and so we're so
used to, We're so used to wanting I need this,
I need this, I need this. And if you put

(36:05):
that the pros and cons to make that checklist, you'll
start to realize that, you know what, I can be
retired now and probably have a pretty damn good life now.
Obviously things are getting more expensive, you know, so you
start to think, Okay, can I ford to live here?
Do I need to be somewhere else? There's all those
little things you think about. But at the end of
the day, you know, even when we got together, we

(36:26):
started to look immediately at where are we at? Where
can we afford to be by this time next year,
this time, and you know, for me, because I'm obviously
a little bit younger.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
So there's I had already had plans in play.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
So there's all those things that you start to the
reality check of where you want to be and what
you want to do. I said, I'm gonna have my
early retire at sixty two. I'm getting the hell out.
I already made that plan. I'm sticking to it. Yep,
you know, and and it is what it is, you know.
So you start to just think about dwindling down sooner
than later, getting all the things out where it's the bills,

(37:01):
whatever it is you need to do, get everything you
need up front, and realizing that's all you need because
the more you keep buying and you start to really
do I really need to do? I really need to
keep buying all these things? What more materialistic things do
you need to have? So it's putting those checks and
balances in place that will help you start identifying why

(37:21):
do you need to have those things?

Speaker 4 (37:23):
Right?

Speaker 1 (37:23):
And I think that's a part of the thing. When
people start.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Talking about balancing, it's not the balancing of just all
the other things we're talking about on work. It's a
balancing of everything else in life. Whether you like the
world or not, it is a balance. It is understanding
of do I.

Speaker 4 (37:39):
Need ABC, dear F in order to move forward and
how does that look for me? So is that balance
or is that prioritization.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
It's both because at the end of the day, we
still got to work right now, right, we still have
to live. Money is a necessity and if you're not
prepared for that, you can't survive.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
We see that every day. There's been plenty of examples
of that. Every day there there is.

Speaker 6 (38:02):
But then there's also things like, you know, the way
we live, our lifestyles were you know, eighty percent of
the meat that we I hunt and fish for. You know,
we garden most of our vegetables. I mean, we learned something.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
But if you're working eighty hours a week.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
You can't do that exactly. And then you're going to
have those people.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
And I and I get that, but there's always going
to be those people who are never going to do that.
So those are always those people are never going to
be prepared for that.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
Right So I call it bleeds and blondes, bleaz and blas.
You know, you have the things the bleeze that you need?
What are the things I need? What are the things
I want?

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Those are my blas.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
And when Amanda was in first and second grade, I
can't even believe I'm admitting to this now. I volunteered
and taught junior achievement to the kids. And I know
it's not hysterical with a bunch of little ones.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
I'm very impressed.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (38:53):
It was fun, it really was. I went into the classroom.
It was a week long thing, and you taught these
children durn about certain components to life that they're not
going to learn in school. And it was great. And
one of the things we did was we had our
needs and wants and actually understanding from a child's perspective,

(39:13):
what are their needs? Oh I need my cookies? Yeah
me two kid, I feel you right, cookies either, let's
let's not get it twisted. But then somewhere between first
second grade and going off to your first job, those
needs and wants changed dramatically. Do I need, you know,

(39:36):
a fifty thousand dollars car or do I want a
three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand dollars home. Well, now
you came here, yeah, you almost have no choice, right,
so exactly, but again those needs and wants. Right, So
when I look at the four of us, and clearly,

(39:59):
you know, without delving into financials and all the rest
of it, we have to assume that our friends and
our family are all able and capable of taking care
of themselves. But the reality is that that's not the case,
and they're busting their asses trying to make a living,
trying to put some a couple pennies here and a
couple dimes here so that one day they can retire

(40:23):
or appreciate time. But what's going to be sacrificed along
that way? Like you said sixty two, that door is shut,
it's done. I get that. I feel that in every
ounce of my being. I do not understand how there
are people who choose and we know them without mentioning
names to be seventy five years old or however old

(40:46):
he was is and being treated like a pos but
coming into the office every day because he needed he
felt that that's what he needed to do. I don't
want my validation for any of us. I don't want
your validation to come from an office and a pen,
whether it's red, blue or black, checking boxes right, It's

(41:07):
it's sad to me there's something that's been lost. What
a two income family is the only way you can survive.
That's tragic, right.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
And for some people who still work at those ages,
it's because they need to stay busy. It's something to
do and see. And I want to have that choice.
Even if I decide I still want to continue to
do something because I want to now because I have to.
There's a difference, and like I said, it's still all
about preparedness. There are many people that I communicate with
and to this day who don't even know how to

(41:39):
save a dollar. It amazes me that they don't have
a concept of what it means just to save a dollar.
They'll go out here and buy the most expensive cell phone.
I don't even know how much of the newest cell
phone is because I'm not gonna buy a new cell
phone every year. They'll go out and buy the most
expensive tennis shoe. I'm not doing that.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
The priorities is what is the problem, right it?

Speaker 6 (42:05):
For Like for us, like we just you know, a
couple of a few months ago, we recently got new.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Vehicles, but how old were our vehicles?

Speaker 6 (42:13):
It wasn't they were under ten years but it But
that's that's the difference. It took us eighteen months, eighteen
months for us to say yes no, yes, no, and
the reasons why for us to get these new vehicles.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
But but you took the time to understand why. And
then they were, like you said, almost ten years old
for three years ago. And I used to do every
three years.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
I used to go out and get every three years.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
I don't the one I have sit out their own.
But in less than three years, okay, when I got it.
But see, that's what it was. That was my thing,
that was my priority that I thought I was I
could afford to do it right, So that was the
mentality I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
And then there's gets a certain point in your life where.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
I don't need that mentality. I didn't need to have
a different vehicle every three years, right.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
So I wanted to have the vehicle every three years,
But I did want to because the new the new
ones look sleeker, right.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Right, But then your priorities changed. That car was no longer,
the new vehicle was no longer. Truck was important to know.

Speaker 6 (43:16):
She hated she she loved our jeep, but at the
same time, she hated the jeep because it was rolled
like hand crank, rolled down windows. There there was no
heated seats, there was no there was no luxuries to it.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Are important.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
What was the real reason we got new cars? You
can tell it.

Speaker 6 (43:36):
Oh the Honda was too low to the ground to
get in and out of.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Girl, I hear you and my.

Speaker 6 (43:49):
Vehicle and wrapping up the deer in a tarp and
putting on the back of the basket and driving down
the highway on a jeep. Let me tell you, sometimes
you just worried about what time you came out of wood.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
These these things are what needs you needs change as
you get older.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
So sometimes it's not it's not the heated seats. It's
the fact that it's four inches high.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
Those make a difference.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
It's a difference. I tell you what. I loved my
BMW three thirty c I it was a penny has
to get in and out. The only saving grace was
it was a convertible. So all I do is put
the convert and I could be able to lift itself.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
Okay, that's brilliant. I love everything about that.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
So what's the balances, like, you know, what.

Speaker 6 (44:39):
Are those things that people should strive.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
To do to like what do you really need versus
what you think you need?

Speaker 6 (44:46):
Right, So like for like for us, like we when uh,
when the Chris's Dishes was hot, and you know, we
traveled all over the state of Virginia, Maryland. We went
from Vermont, Key West, Hawaii to do dinner parties. Yes,
to Hawaii to do dinner party. But at the same time,
we use that time together to be like, Hey, we're

(45:07):
gonna go check out this place. We're gonna go check
out this place. Blah blah blah blah blah. And now
it's like we know our little places. Say, if we
want to do a weekend getaway, that's that's our balance.
Like we're gonna all right, we're done, we're out of here.
We're gonna go away for the weekend and just go
you know those types of things.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
But does that offset what you're putting in for work?
And I think that's where it comes in. Also, I
can give you, boss, one hundred and ten percent while
I'm here for forty hours a week, Why would I
not put in one hundred and twenty percent to my family?

(45:42):
Right and for everybody listening, you define family however, you
want your significant other, your kids, your dogs, your cats,
yourself right, yourself right right, Like, why wouldn't you make
that same investment and that be your balance, Because for
me it's not fifty fifty. I'm not giving you the job.

(46:02):
Who could give a shit less about me? The same
level of effort that I am giving to what's important
and who cares about me never gonna happen again. I
won't do it now. Not to say that if we
woke up in June first and said, I'm just picking
a random day, Hey, let's reopen the dishes, let's sell everything,

(46:24):
get an r V, hitch up one of the cars,
and just start driving around the country and we'll cook
dinner parties and we'll get to see things.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
That's actually not a bad idea. Oh my god. You
could be like Guy Fieri and go through you know,
dad there, you go go out there and you say, oh,
you know, and you do a podcast.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Right, I mean, four of us hop into a little RV.
We can get an A. I'm not saying we can
get a Class A, but we could just put it
out there. I'm just putting it out there, but that
that is one of those things where like I love traveling,
I do. I love to be traveling, and I love

(47:09):
whether it's car or plane, just not boat. It makes
me happy. I feel alive. I'm experiencing things, I'm learning things.
That's where my balance is by being exposed to those things.
How do you get there?

Speaker 3 (47:25):
Like?

Speaker 4 (47:25):
What is that one thing that would make you so
happy to do right now? If you didn't have to
get up tomorrow at whatever hour and go in? What
one thing? It's Thursday night, but hold on, it's Thursday night,
so tomorrow's Friday. You gotta go to work. You don't
have an order to sit around doing nothing?

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Right?

Speaker 4 (47:46):
What would be the one thing that.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Sitting around doing nothing? He knows if he sees me
come out, we ain't doing nothing but your home, right,
I get sitting around doing nothing sometimes is just what
I just want to do. I don't want to be
on a schedule. I don't want to have to think
about where we're going. Nope, And it means I can

(48:08):
come out, Like I said, if he sees me, come
out with my pgs. So I've got cleaned up and
I'm coming out with the fresh pair of pgs.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
I'm good.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
I don't want to do anything.

Speaker 5 (48:17):
What about you?

Speaker 4 (48:18):
What is the one thing if you didn't have to
go into job tomorrow, what would you want to do
that would make you so happy?

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Hmm.

Speaker 6 (48:31):
Obviously we know hunting and fishing, but if it was
like work type.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
Thing, anything, whatever would make you happy.

Speaker 6 (48:39):
I think, like, honestly, I think starting that new business.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
To starting in your own business. Yeah, okay, what about you?

Speaker 3 (48:52):
I I it's a hard thing to say. I would
rather I would like to do nothing and just explore
what I we really want to do, right, whether that
be doing an inane job that gives me. You know,
I work six hours and have the rest of the
day for myself and to spend time with Kimberly, But

(49:15):
not to start a new career because you always have to,
you know, prove yourself. I don't want to have to
prove myself. I've done that before. I've done that now.
You know. If I can't be appreciated and I can't
find the life work balance, I'll go with life and
forget about work balance until I find something that gives
me and affords me that that thing. Right. So one

(49:37):
of the things, that's one of the things I wrote down.
I was going to talk about is that you know
at the end, is is just that you don't have
to know. You don't have to know right now, you know,
I want to be able to walk away and I
feel guilty about walking away and find that thing that
makes me happy forever long I have left in this life.

(49:59):
Right that's to me, that's mine. It doesn't have to
be everybody's. Apparently, you know people that are at an
early age and they're finding themselves in this conversation that
we're having life work balance should do the soul search too,
because I got accustomed to making a lot of money
at an early age. A lot of money. I mean

(50:20):
when I started when I started in with a full
time job, I was making you know, minimum wage, winding
electrical motors and fixing transformers and stuff like that. Really
sucked work. It was dirty work, it was, but it
was like five minutes away from where I was living,
so it was great. But then when telecommunications commit, it

(50:42):
was bang bang bang bang bang, and it's like you
went from zero to sixty in like three years, and
it was like whoa, this is great money and it
was fun and it was exciting. So I think that
I want to find that excitement again, because I'm not
ready to just retire and sit home home and take
care of the dog or whatever, or join a club

(51:03):
or join the.

Speaker 4 (51:08):
Clubhouse.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
I don't. I don't want to be doing that ship right,
because that's that's that's its own set of life, work balances, right,
and you have people hate you for no reason. But
I think that I would want to do nothing and
just find something that hey, I'm happy, I'm happy, and
I'm able to spend the quality time with with Kimberly.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
I find it interesting that we all sit and we've
all known each other now for almost a decade, right,
and we can all look at each other and say,
what you're currently doing pays the bills, but isn't bringing
you joy? And I think about that a lot, because

(51:54):
you know, so every night before we go to bed,
I tell him prayer time and I say my prayers.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
You say he Hebrew or you say it in the English.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
Both actually okay, but to that point it, you know,
I do, and I ask God to you know, bless
us and extend grace over us, and you know, fortify
us with love and peace and happiness and joy. And
what is it that brings joy is it what you're doing,

(52:25):
and then is it up to us to fix that?

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Absolutely, it is up to us to fix it.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
We have the control, we have the power, we have
the wherewithal. Although we think that we're controlled by the
dollars that we're making versus the happiness we're expecting.

Speaker 4 (52:39):
But would you be happy without those dollars?

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Yes, absolutely, because it doesn't have to be anything other
than me and gimberally doing what we need to do, right,
m don't give a shit about anything else.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
And I think for me, it's like I like the
work to do. I think it's the atmosphere and the
things that surround me that make me miserable. It's not
the work, because I always love project management. That's something
that to thrived my business person, my personal business, you know,
for some years.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
But it's when it's the environment.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
When your environment is so you know, crazy, and you
have to deal with everything around you, it just it
just makes you want to just like ugh, you know,
you just kind of when you have that ugh moment.
Because there was times where I can remember when we
would come in and I loved the atmosphere. Those days
are gone, you know, and you're constantly having to strive
to just come in.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
It does make it miserable.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
I mean, granted, I'm very thankful I have a job
because there's so many people who don't. And you know,
but you're still every day trying to figure out what's next,
what's next, what's next? Right, So, but you know, at
the end of the day, like I said, it's just
really trying to understand how we move forward, what's that
going to look like. We're constantly having those conversations as

(53:51):
we as we know, the months are getting very close
to make that move and do whatever we need to do.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
But it's.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
It's life life work balance.

Speaker 4 (54:05):
And you know, you're gonna find yourself saying it that
way from and it is, and it's a better way.
It's a better way to look at it.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
And it's a better way to say it because we
have to put life first because like you said, they're
like a shit about who you are, what you do.
We see it every day, we have. I've never seen
the amount of people who are constantly leaving the job
for whatever reason. It's iner my business. But the students
are gone, they're gone.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
You know, you're missing for a second and then and
not to be facetious, but like they're not.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Even replaceable anymore.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
You can't even replace them because they can't be replaced,
not as individuals, because they just aren't replaced anymore. Right,
So you're you're being thrown more work. You're constantly being
put in a position that you don't deserve to be
put in, because now we're even more overwhelmed. And that's
the part that's aggravating, that's the part that's making us

(54:57):
more sick all the time, and the part that's saying,
you know, I hate this. I don't want to have
to keep doing this because we're constantly being put in
a position. Oh, you do good at what you're doing,
You're great at what you do.

Speaker 6 (55:07):
Do more.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yeah, we'll do more with lesser. And it's going to
continue to be not with less, but with lesser every day. Right,
So is it worth it?

Speaker 3 (55:19):
No?

Speaker 2 (55:20):
And we know that as we get older, But when
you're younger, you strive to continue to grow to keep
making that money. All other things about life is always
about money because at the end of the day, you
can't take the ship with you.

Speaker 4 (55:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (55:33):
Well, I mean I think that's like with me growing
up in the army, Like we didn't make a lot
of money. No, I know even now that you know
the making the money that I make, it's just like
I could really care less about it. It doesn't make
me happy at all. What things that make me happier
are doing things for my friends and my family, you know, Like, yeah,

(55:56):
those are that's what makes me happy. All right, ladies
and gentlemen, words.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Coming to the end.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Okay, So look, when it comes to life work balance,
you have to seriously search your wants versus your needs
and don't confuse the two because it's really a balance
there as well. Right, Start to strategize place the things
that are important in your life, uh, and and weigh

(56:29):
them against how much of the work is taking those
things in your life away or overtaking those things in
your life away. Life work balance can't be skewed to
a point where it's it's mostly work and not life balance.
Prioritization is really key. Uh. What's important to you now

(56:52):
at this point in time that you're work, that you're
working today maybe different than when you're later on in life,
like say myself, right, So words of wisdom and advice
is this is this is all I'm going to say.
Short term. You can still be frustrated to work, but
set the boundaries that make your life work balance work
for you, right, And that's that's that's different than for

(57:16):
the long term strategy. Make the change today if you can.
If you're really unhappy with the life work balance and
that you can't structure that, take the dive, make the
make the change in the career job that makes the
life a priority and not the job a priority. Don't
get to the point where you're in the in the
later stages of your career or your life and you're

(57:40):
struggling with that, because now you're stuck with I need
this job versus I can make a change and be happy.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Bottom line, all right, very well said, love it all right?

Speaker 2 (57:53):
Well, I appreciate all of my wonderful hosts this evening
for coming on and of course the listeners. We truly
appreciate you guys supporting us, and of course, if you'd
like to be a guest on this wonderful show, The Unveiled,
please reach out to Kimberly at WSBILC at gmail dot com.
Want more of The Unveiled podcast shows. Monetary donations to

(58:14):
support the podcasts are now accepted. The cash app, PayPal,
good Pods, tip job, or go to the website at
wwwwsbilc dot com. Again, we'd like to thank you all
for listening to us tonight. We'll be back next month
on Thursday evening at seven pm. Be sure to follow
us on iHeartRadio, speaker, YouTube, or wherever you listen to
your podcasts. But until then, enjoy the rest of your

(58:36):
evening and good night, good night, good night bye.

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The Song That Never Ends - Work Life Balance "Life Work Balance."

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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;}The Song That Never Ends - Work Life Balance "Life Work Balance."