Primary Blog/Time Management/Why Work Life Balance is a Myth (And What to Do Instead)

Why Work Life Balance is a Myth (And What to Do Instead)

Enoch Leffingwell

Thursday, September 14, 2023

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Why Work Life Balance is a Myth (And What to Do Instead)

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The First Step to Changing Your Future For The Better

  • “Surround yourself with people who normalize the achievements & results you desire to make.”
  • ​In this message, I want to talk about why I believe, contrary to popular opinion, that work life balance is a myth. What's better is work life integration. One of the reasons why as entrepreneurs, I believe that they struggle so much, especially trying to find that balance between their family and their business, their finances and their friends and their fitness is because you're compartmentalizing your life far too much. Instead, it's best to learn to integrate your life and your business that your finances and your family, they don't have to compete with each other.
  • ​"What are you willing to sacrifice now, so you can do more abundantly in the future?"
  • ​If you've ever struggled to find work and life balance then​ this episode is for you!
  • ​Watch the video to get the full training!

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DID YOU KNOW?

I host an Ask Enoch Anything show where I provide advanced health marketing strategies, shout-outs to our students, answer my listener's questions, and more. So post a screenshot or video on Instagram and use #AskEnochAnything! I look forward to hearing your questions and featuring them in my next episode! Click the photo below to go to EnochLeffingwell.com/Ask

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of Whiteboard Webinars With Enoch Leffingwell. Please note that this episode, like all episodes, features Enoch speaking unscripted and unedited. Each episode is filmed in one take. Follow Enoch on Instagram and Facebook for more content.)

Sometimes you feel like your life is like juggling. Where you've got your family, you've got your friends, you've got your business, you've got finances and your health. As soon as one goes up, the other areas of your life start to drop. You're just trying to hold on to everything. Just when you think you get the hang of it. In one minute, a ball disappears like where did it go? I thought there was more a moment ago. What is going on? And then it just pops back out of nowhere. Then you're back in the rat race again, trying to get ahead and just struggling to survive. I want to submit to you that if you're having a hard time juggling all the different areas of your life, then just ditch the juggling. Don't juggle your life, learn in integrating your life.

In this message, I want to talk about why I believe, contrary to popular opinion, that work life balance is a myth. What's better is work life integration. One of the reasons why as entrepreneurs, I believe that they struggle so much, especially trying to find that balance between their family and their business, their finances and their friends and their fitness is because you're compartmentalizing your life far too much. Instead, it's best to learn to integrate your life and your business that your finances and your family, they don't have to compete with each other.

1. Ditch Work Life Balance, Seek Work Life Integration

See, broke folk believe that I want to make money. But I also want to be present for my family, where many wealthy entrepreneurs and I mean, when I say wealthy, I mean true wealth in every sense of the term, people who have learned to not just survive in life, but to really thrive, have learned that it's not about do I pursue finances or be present for my family. What they realize is I can pursue finances, and my family together.

I'll give you an example. So I interviewed an extraordinary mother on my podcast her name is PJ. And she was known as the goat milk soap lady, and she has a goat milk soap business, she homeschooled eight children. And she raised them and built an eight figure family business. Wow!. Involving all of her family in her family business.

When you look at even the example of Jesus, Jesus worked in the family business, you see that Abraham taught his children to work in the family business. You see throughout the scriptures in in the Hebrew culture, you don't see people going out, sending their children off to the government indoctrination camps, child prison, schools, whatever you want to call them, where they learn to trade that the family doesn't know, learning languages, their family doesn't know and, and going off on a completely different direction. They had a family business where they work together as a family.

I remember the first time I ever saw a family that was so well integrated in a family business. There was a speaker who would travel around and he would teach these lectures while educating the public and community. It was amazing because as I showed up to one of his lectures, his wife, with a big ol smile on her face greeted me at the door. His daughter was the camera woman recording with this big ol camera. Then in the back he had two sons that were doing the graphics, the video editing, & live switches. The young men were creating DVDs and as a family they sold these recordings. Which now would be online courses. If there was some sort of technical mic issue that needed to be fixed, one of his younger sons would go up to the front and fix whatever needs to be done. I though to myself, “this is a whole family unit.” At that moment, I was probably like 17 or 18 years old. I saw an example of what was possible. I said, “When I grew up, I'm going to start a family business.”

By God's grace, I've been able to build a six figure family business, selling health products online to people and helping them to transform their health. As our business has started to take off, I was able to retire my mother from caregiving. So now she's able to work full time with me in business. Being able to integrate my family and finances in that regard has been a powerful opportunity for me.

I see businesses all over the place struggle because they feel when they're with their children that they should be working on their business. And when they're working on a business activity, they feel guilty because they think they should be with their children. The reality is, you don't have to choose. You can involve your children in a way that fits their talents and their abilities and be able to spend quality time while working on your family business together. That has always inspired me. That's one example of work life integration.

Often entrepreneurs feel that they have to choose between a social life with friends, creating memories, and deep connections with people or choose their business growth. People want to compartmentalize these areas of life too much. If you're an entrepreneur, and you're feeling alone, if you're feeling like there's no one else like you has similar goals to create products online, and package your health knowledge while getting paid a premium for your advice. If it seems like no one in your circle is doing that. If you feel as an entrepreneur, it's a lonely road, then you're doing it wrong.

How many people have heard that entrepreneurship is a very lonely journey? Entrepreneurship used to be a lonely journey when I was trying to balance between work and life. But once I learned to integrate my work and life everything changed. A big aha that I got was when I started my health food store, a millionaire mentor of mine, her name was Peta Kelly, she told me “Look, what you want to do when you're building a team is pick the most ideal people. Make a “unicorn job description”. Identify either people you know, in your life, or people you want to know in your life and describe their character traits. Who are the people you'd love to surround yourself with? Who are the people that can inspire you? Who can challenge you and encourage your dreams?

The problem for many of you is you're telling your big dreams to small minded people, and you're expecting them to see your vision. But why would you expect other people to understand your vision when God gave it to you? What I realized is, I can actually change my friends.

"When You change your friends, you change your future."

What Peta was telling me was how to make a dream team. Decide who would it be a dream for you to work with. They can be strategic partners. Your dream team doesn't mean that you have to employ them per se. They can be people who are experts in a different field that could be a trusted adviser of yours. You're able to use your specialized knowledge to help them with the expertise and skills you have. They're able to help you with skills that you don't have. I started investing in coaching programs. In these coaching programs, I met other entrepreneurs who were in my field or doing something similar to be on my dream team. I started attending events, virtual events, and in person events.

I remember the first time that I went to Brendon Burchard event. I was in this room at Influencer Summit 2018. There’s about 300 to 400 people in the room. All these people are content creators, coaches, authors, podcasters and other types of influencers. They’re each selling information products online. I thought to myself, “This is amazing. This is great.” Because for me it was an example of what was possible. I started to believe. I started to meet friends at these events. Sometimes I go to these events on Zoom or online challenges like High Income Health Expert Challenge. I meet some awesome people. Then I get to meet them in person at in person events. While we're connecting, we're planning collaborations and strategic partnerships. It opens up to opportunities where I can speak to their audience. I'm inviting them to be interviewed on my podcast. as we get to know each other and start learning from each other's experience, expertise, and background. I've realized that a lot of the friendships you make in business when implemented correctly, are infinitely more deeper, more connected, more exciting, inspiring, and challenging than many of the friends I had from my past.

Something that really resonated with me was what I heard Leila Hormozi say once, “The problem is many times you are making friends based on having a shared past. But the most successful people are choosing friends based on a shared future of where you're going.” That's an example of work life integration. Because you're able to surround yourself with people who normalize the achievement that you desire to make the results you desire to achieve.

"Surround yourself with people who normalize the achievements & results you desire to make.”

When you're able to do that, it normalizes your dream, normalizes your goal. It normalizes your business goals enabling you to level up your family to be able to to work with you. It's such big difference. Even vacations you can integrate your work and life. As of the time of recording, I'm in a mastermind with other high level entrepreneurs. People paid $155,000 to be in the room. One of the entrepreneurs are Carter Cofield, he was explaining this tax strategy how you're able to actually take your birthday and make it a tax write off. The way that you do it is, you go to some destination event. Rent an Airbnb on your birthday. Host a Business Mastermind where you invite all your business friends, strategic partners, and the people that you love doing business with. While you’re there you have each one take turn sharing strategies of what's been working in their business and helping to them to scale the income and impact that they're having. During your Birthday Business Mastermind, you and your professional friends are learning how to make money together. You do that for an hour or two while you’re clearly documenting what was taught and what was bought. Then the rest of the afternoon, or the rest of the time, you're able to have have fun, fellowship while hanging out and exploring the vacation destination. All of this becomes a tax write off. It's a business expense, because you had a mastermind. Tt's not about separating your work and your life and just trying to balance these things. But it's about integrating these things. Everybody benefits in their business, because you're making friends with people who are in the same industry or similar niche as you. It's also helping you make more money. It's helping you to deepen your connections, and you're able to have these vacations in these dream destination locations.

Following a similar plan, I was able to take my mother out for Mother's Day to go over to a beautiful white sandy beach, in Clearwater, Florida, because I invested in this mastermind, and the mastermind happens to be at this beautiful destination. I'm able to take her on the beach, where for the first time in my life, I got to see her swimming in the ocean overcoming her fears and swimming. I got to teach her how to swim. It was an awesome experience. Here I didn’t have to think about planning a special, specific vacation for the sake of vacationing but I can integrate our vacation with our vocation.

As a professional speaker, I found that when I want to travel. I can use my speaking or to go places. I can literally find a conference or an event in a location that is a dream destination I want to go and just get booked to speak at their event. The event will pay for my flight, they'll pay for my hotel, and they'll pay me for speaking, Imagine when you've got this vacation that is all covered because of of your business life integration.

The first time I was paid to travel across the nation to go share at this conference I was 17 years old. After someone heard me speak at an event in Oregon. She wanted to know if I’d be willing to share at a conference also. Next thing I know, I am flying all the way to Orlando, Florida. It was the first time I’ve been on a plane. It was paid for. It was the first time I stayed in a hotel. That was paid for also. All my expenses were covered. I thought to myself, “wow, this is amazing. So many times people will pay out of their pocket to go on these vacations and travel. But here I am getting paid to travel and have these first time experiences. I get to to enjoy life while serving others with my with my talents. This is incredible.” That was about 11 years ago. I've been a professional speaker ever since. I don’t say this to impress you but to impress upon you what’s possible. My point is, I want to give you examples of how you're able to integrate your work and your life.

2. Both Focus and Balance is a Season

Because here's another common misunderstanding. “I don’t want to work too much because I’m afraid of becoming imbalanced.” The reality is, if you're focused, that means you're not in balance. If you're in balance, that means you're not focused. But the reality is, success requires a massive focus. Focus is not about saying yes to one thing and pursuing it. Focus is about ruthlessly saying no to 1000 other alternatives. Success requires focus. In any area of our life, success requires focus. What's really amazes me is if you stop thinking of your life as a juggling act, and start thinking of your life as you’re always finding ways you can integrate work and life. When you level up in one area of your life it's like the tide that that raises every other area. Because you're not just a compartmentalize being. You're fully integrated being. Your social influences influence your business because you are an average of the top five voices you spend the most time with.

"You are an average of the top five voices you spend the most time with. That means if nine of your closest friends are broke, you'll be the 10th."

That also means, if your closest friends are overweight, they love going out to eat fast food and their idea of hanging out is sitting around not being physically active then chances are you're going to have some challenges with your weight. You're more likely to acquire similar health habits. We're an average of who we spend time with socially. That's why when you change your friend, you change your future. You're able to integrate your life and business. But it's important to know that focus is a season, and balance is a season.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:”

What does that mean? There's a there's a time for focus and there's a time for balance. When you are broke, when you don't have resources, your network is limited, you have limited talents and a limited skill set, when you have not really cultivated high income skills yet, this is not the time to be balanced. This is a time to be very focused. This is a season for you to create a financial fortress around your family and your future. This is a time for you to focus on learning the high income skills that are going to help you to solve valuable problems in the marketplace. This is a time to focus on how you can market that skill to people who are willing to pay you for it.

But so many broke folk are looking for balance too early and too soon. One question I found to be extremely helpful, is to ask “What are you willing to sacrifice now, so you could do more abundantly in the future?” I saw this young millionaire. His name is Jackson Parr, from Australia. He built this million dollar online health food store. At the time he was the same age as me in his early 20s being interviewed on a show. As he was having this conversation the host looked at him and said, “Jackson, you have built one of the fastest businesses that we have seen and you're so young, how did you do it?” The young millionaire said, “Well, I had a mentor who explained a powerful lesson to me. He asked me, Jackson, what are you willing to sacrifice now, so you can do more abundantly in the future?

What are you willing to sacrifice now, so you can do more abundantly in the future?

This is a season of focus. If you want to succeed, you have to do what struggling people don’t do. There are so many people who are trying to add more to their plate. When they want to take on a new skill or they want to take on a new business venture or new clients, new project, new marketing strategy, or new whatever. They try to add this new thing to their plate. They say, “Yes, yes, yes, to everything.” Then they feel so stressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. They feel out of balance and they're trying to seek this balance in life out. When in reality, what’s better than just adding more to your plate is subtracting from your plate. What I like to practice as much as I can, is before adding any new thing, I like to subtract three previous things that I was doing. That way, there's so much mental burden and mental exhaustion that is eliminated just by subtracting. Then I have the freedom to really focus on whatever I commit to.

This is one way how I ensure that I am a man of my word. I make sure that if I say I'm going to do something, I will deliver on my promises. If I say I’m going to be there, I will be there. Why? Because I subtract before I add new things. This is similar to what Jackson was saying, I was willing to subtract what most people aren’t. Now I’m able to live how most people can’t. While most people are trying to find all this balance, pursuing in their social life a direction that’s in a totally different direction than their financial future goals. They're hanging out with friends that have completely no interest, idea, or no integration with their future of where they're going. Many young people will be going to parties, when they're in their 20s or they're just playing video games watching entertainment and sports along with a host of other activities and conversations that are just a waste of time, Jackson inspired me to work on learning high income skills. Many of which are among the highest paying skills in the marketplace. As I heard Jackson I thought to myself, “I could do that!”

This decision helps me in integrating my work with my life, my friends, my finances, my travels, and my business. This integration of life and business helped me to make $10,000 a month in my early 20s. I've been able to have automated passive income for the last five or six years fully funding and supporting my dreams. Learning to apply work and life integration has been largely responsible for providing me the time freedom, the location freedom to be able to do what I love and with who i love.

Honestly I enjoy creating content. I had a friend reach out to me one day on Facebook asking me “Enoch, why are you creating all this content? There's something better you could be doing. Bitcoin doesn't require you to create so much content. I tried being a coach, I tried creating content, and it was exhausting for me. Why are you doing all that stuff?” I told him, “What? I've already reached my financial freedom. I can do whatever I’d like to. I create content because I genuinely enjoy it. As I coach health educators and entrepreneurs how they can sell their health programs from stage, how they can craft irresistible offers that the marketplace is passionate about paying them for, and how they can get booked and paid to speak is what I choose to do. I enjoy teaching these skills to my clients. I do this because I love it not because I have to.”

It's really been an amazing experience when you're able to come to terms with what energizes you and what exhausts you. You don't have to choose between or try to balance between your work and your life. But when you learn to integrate them both the world is your canvass to paint the most beautiful pictures of a future you can enjoy.

There are endless possibilities. Just being intentional about how can you synergize your work and life will take you far. How can you associate or connect what you want to do with what you're already doing? As you make those associations, there's no limit to the the income, the influence and the impact that you're able to create. This message has been about why work life balance is a myth and what you could do instead.

Your Next Steps

Are you interested in discovering more strategies like this? Do you want to know further how you can integrate your life and your business together in a way that is able to build your dream life? Are you interested in being able to create passive residual income for your family and for your future? Are you a health educator, who has a health message or a passion for health and you want to package this knowledge online and sell it? Then that's exactly what my company helps people like you to do. We help health educators just like you to build a signature offer that you can sell to the right audience who would passionate about paying you for your advice. If you'd like some help with that, and looking for clarity or want to know what can you do to move forward and you think that my business is able to help you, then I invite you to book a clarity call.

On our call, I'm gonna ask you some quick questions and to see if we're going to be a good fit for you. I would love to hop on a call with you, talk about your goals, and see where you want to go. Then discuss what what can we do to help you to get on the fastest path to cash and the life that you ultimately desire to live. Just click the button below and I'd love to chat with you soon. Remember God doesn't call the qualified he qualifies a call

Who Is Enoch Leffingwell?

An entrepreneur since he was 10 years old, and being fascinated with internet marketing since he was 12, Enoch now teaches health authors, coaches, speakers, and other health entrepreneurs how to get paid a premium for their health advice by helping them to create premium coaching programs.

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