EntreLeadership - Take Control of Your Life and Business with Christy Wright

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

There’s an entrepreneurship myth that your whole life can be in balance like a perfectly weighted scale. In this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with Christy Wright, business coach and bestselling author, to discuss how life balance isn’t about doing everything for an equal amount of time—it’s about doing the right things at the right time. Stick around after the interview to hear Christy take a couple of calls from small-business owners struggling with life balance. She walks them through their challenges and gives tactical advice that you can implement in your own business.   The EntreLeadership Podcast Christy Wright's website Take Back Your Time by Christy Wright Dave Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps Learn more about EntreLeadership Summit. Learn more about BELAY virtual assistants. Getting Things Done by David Allen Download the EntreLeadership Time-Tracker. Schedule a call with Tim, our producer.   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY | Gravy | Hite Digital   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844.944.1070 and leave a message, or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I think of balance, I think of juggling, spinning plates, tight rope walkers, or getting a frame perfectly straight on the wall. All of these things are very stressful to me. And when it comes to your business, your family, your life, it can feel overwhelming and guilt-inducing to juggle it all. So how can we accomplish all the things we need to get done without dropping the ball, breaking the plate, or falling off the rope? From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, George Camel, and in today's episode,

we've got two interviews on the business driver of personal around the topic of life balance. First up, we've got Christy Wright. She's a certified business coach, Ramsey personality, and best-selling author, and fan favorite

at our Entree Leadership conferences. Then in our second segment, we're going to do something a little different. After our interview, Christy is going to coach some small business owners as they call in with their burning questions

on life balance. so don't miss that. Up first, my conversation with Christy. In her new book, Take Back Your Time, The Guilt Free Guide to Life Balance, she talks about what balance looks like and how apparently it has nothing to do with juggling. The juggling balls, the spinning plates, all these feel like, okay, it seems like a nice idea, but I can do all that. It's not sustainable. And I don't feel right. I can still not feel right. Like I can still feel like, man, I'm walking that tightrope perfectly, and I'm not having any fun. I'm not enjoying my life. I'm not even happy. And so I started asking a different question.

What if this topic of balance isn't so much something you do? How do you balance at all as a verb? What if instead balance is something you can create, something you can feel even in your busy life? And as I dug into it, I began to understand the causes of why we feel out of balance. And then what I believe is really the definition of balance as I want to lead in this space. And that is life balance is not doing everything for an equal amount of time. It's not a perfectly weighted scale. that's not realistic or desirable.

But it is doing the right things at the right time. And when you do the right things at the right time, and only you get to define what that is for you, then you will feel that sense of balance you've been looking for. And it looks a lot more like peace. It looks a lot more like, I'm happy in my life. I'm happy with how I spend my time. I'm confident in the choices I'm making.

And that may not look like how the world defines life balance, but I think it's the life balance we're actually searching for. Yeah, it's interesting. As you were talking about that, it reminded me of Dave Ramsey's seven baby steps. And we say you can't do it all at once. You need to be focused on one area at a time. And it's interesting, if you go, hey, I need to invest, I need to start saving, I need to pay off debt.

And you try to do that all at once, you're not going to be at peace. And you're not going to feel that progress. And it seems like the same could be applied to balance where we go, hey, I want to be a good CEO. I want to be a good wife. I want to be a good mother, a good friend. I want to go to the gym. And it just feels like chaos to try to do it all at once. Yeah.

And what's interesting is, so the subtitle of my book is called The Guilt Free. guide to life balance because I think guilt is such a problem in this space. We feel guilty no matter what we do. So we can be rocking at work, we're like, but I'm failing at home. Or we're spending so much time with our kids. We're like, well, I'm failing. I'm not working out, taking care of my body. We're always focused on what we're not doing. And if you live your whole life focused on what you're not doing and where you're not, then of course you feel guilty. And so what's interesting is, we don't define what life balance is. We don't define what good is. What is a good wife? What is a good husband, what is a good CEO. We don't define it. We don't even define balance. We just know we don't have it.

And so it becomes this shadow that kind of haunts us of like, you're always failing, you're always failing. And you don't even know why you're failing. You just know you are failing. And so I wanted to redefine this idea of balance and make it more practical and tactical where you can define it and say, this is what success looks like for me in this season, in these different areas of my life. And so there are seasons, let me give you an example. There are seasons where we're my house is a mess. And that is actually a sign of success because I'm spending my time on the road traveling, promoting my book. Okay, if that's the right thing at the right time, that's the right thing for me to do. It would be wrong, in fact, for me to have a spotless house and miss my flight

because that's not the right thing, right thing, right time is. You need to know what the right thing at the right time is, whether that is you're training for a marathon, you're launching a new product line, you are opening a new location of your business, you are newly married, you're having a new baby, whatever your priority is in that season, and it's not as black and white as you just get one and everything else falls off the radar. But when you know what are the top most important things and then you spend your time on those things, you don't feel bad about all the things you let go because you actually chose to let those go because they are not right in this season. Doesn't mean they're never right. Doesn't mean you're never going to get your house clean or travel to Europe

or do that thing you want to do. It just means it's not right right now. So you ask yourself, what's right right now, what are the right things in this season, and then spend your time on those things and watch how much more confident you are and how you spend your time and how you get rid of the guilt that's been that getting at you. Yeah, it sounds like you're starting to do things on your terms versus life just happening to you and you're just trying to keep up with everything. And a lot of what you're talking about, the shame, the guilt, and this kind of feeling out of balance, what are the things that lead someone there? How do you kind of do a checkup on yourself and go, is that me? Am I out of balance? What are those things that cause that? Yeah, well, because balance

is one of those things that's kind of elusive and haunts people, I wanted to define it with, it is doing the right things at the right time. So then if that's the solution, then how do we get out of balance? So I've really got four main causes. I actually walked through this at my talk at Entry Leadership Summit. Doing too many things, not doing enough things, doing the wrong things, not doing the right things. So let's look at those really quickly. Doing too many things, this is when you are just overcommitted. Like you're rushing, you're exhausted, you have tried to cram too many things on your calendar. It's unrealistic. Of course, you're out of balance because you're just, you're trying to stretch your 24 hours more than it can be stretched. You said yes to

everything. Too many things. Yeah, that's a very obvious common one. The second one, not doing enough things. I would be willing to bet that is exactly no one listening right now. But just in case there is, this might be someone, let's just look at last year during the pandemic. You know, people's calendars were cleared. At first, it was kind of fun. And then we got bored pretty quick. if you don't have outlets to pour into, you feel out of balance. Maybe someone in a new season of life as an empty nester, they find themselves with all this time, and they're kind of bored. They're like, what does this new season look like? So doing too many things or not enough things.

Doing the wrong things, it doesn't matter if you perfectly control your calendar. If you spend your time on things that are not important to you, that don't bring you joy, that are not life-giving or a priority, you're going to feel out of balance. Let's say, for example, someone works in a job that they hate. I hope you're not listening right now and you hate your business because it is your business. So you should love this thing that you spend so much time on. But let's just say someone doesn't love their business or love their job. You work way too hard and spend too much your life doing something that you hate. So of course you're going to feel out of balance, even if you only work a perfect schedule because a lot of those hours are going to something you don't enjoy. The same would be true for

commitments, responsibilities, relationships that drain you. When you spend time on things that are not right for you, you feel out of balance. That one's got a hit a nerve because a lot of leaders are listening going, yeah, I probably should delegate that. And yes, the maintenance mode and the scheduling or whatever it is, it drains my day. It drains my energy. And, you know, we partner with Belay with all the virtual assistants out there to go, hey, you can actually offload that and get back to doing the things that matter. So I love how that connects to that kind of leadership and delegation to go, this isn't fun for me. And I can move this to someone who actually enjoys doing it and is great at. So you make up a really good point here because one of the things I unpack in the book is seasons. And so I used an example in the book of when I had my first child, Carter, I was talking to a friend and she said, how is it? And I was like, it's so hard. And she said, well, it's hard because you're trying to do everything you did before. And what's interesting is I realized in that moment I had not adapted to my new season of trying to cut, of forcing myself to cut things out because I now have a child to take care of.

I think business leaders don't adapt to their new season. So they experience growth, for example, and they're still in the weeds. It's trying to do the things they did when it was just them. They're still micromanaging, and they want to check every single web copy that's going out. They want to see every single sales call. They want to see every single number. You're not adapting to the new season that your business is in, and it's not going to be able to grow as long as you keep holding on to this old season. And doing these things you used to do that served you at that time, but they're not serving you anymore.

In fact, they're holding you back. So you make a great point because when you're doing the wrong things, you're taking away time from being able to do the right things, like vision, strategy, the things that only you can do. So doing the wrong things will make you feel out of balance. And then lastly, not doing the right things. If you have things that are important to you and you don't spend time on them, whatever that is, it doesn't matter. If you don't spend time on them, you will feel out of balance because there's a disconnect between what you care about and what you spend your time on. And it's this gap that makes you feel anxious and frustrated and exhausted because you're like, this is my one life. I want to spend it on things that are important.

That doesn't mean that you need to close your business and go golf the rest of your life. if you're not integrating intentionally into your life, things that bring you joy, that make you come alive, that you care about, you're going to be stressed and you're going to feel out of balance. So maybe for someone that's getting back in church when they haven't been in church in three years, maybe that's taking their wife on a date when they haven't been on a date in three years. Maybe that's hanging out with their kids in the evening instead of catching up on email because they haven't done that in a long time. I don't know what it is.

But integrating it, even in small, little, tiny ways will make a huge difference in your ability feel balanced because the right things you care about are now actually on your calendar and in your life. So those are kind of the four causes of why we feel out of balance and it's different for different people. Well, I'm so pumped about your new book, Take Back Your Time, Comes out September 14th. Yep, it's available for pre-sale now, but it'll be in people's hands September 14th. I can't wait for it. And in the book, you walk readers through this five-step path to balance. If you're feeling out of balance, this is for you. And the first step you talk about is figure out what matters. So what do you mean by this and how does someone listening,

figure out what's the most important to them. Sure. Well, if life balance is doing the right things at the right time, which I believe it is, then you need to know what the right things are. What are the right things in the season? And I talk about priorities in this chapter of the book, but I think people tend to think of priorities as this set it and forget it thing. Like, my priorities are God other self in that order. Amen. It's a great impression. Okay, that's a nice Sunday school answer. It's completely impractical for real lifetime management.

Now, if you want to ask me, my priorities right now, George, it is getting this book out there. That's my number one priority. That's the season I'm in. I'm in the middle of book pre-sale and book launch. Of course, that's my priority. Second priority, being with my family when I'm not on the road. From there, things that I normally care about are kind of falling off. I'm not keeping up with my house as much.

I'm not spending time with friends. I'm not, you know, taking part in any of my hobbies. Because right now, I am in a season of focusing on the book. This past summer, I went to the lake. I played with my friends. I played with my family. It's going to look different depending on your season. But in any given season, you need to say, what matters? What matters most to me right now? What matters most to me in this season? What are my priorities? Because if you want to spend time on them, you need to know what those things are.

So once you've figured that out, there's kind of a self-awareness piece there of what actually matters to me. Then we have to move into step two, the second step on the path, which is stop doing what doesn't matter. And you talk about this in your talk. What do you think some of the biggest time wasters are, the things you go, hey, for most people, these are probably the things you can go, let's stop doing that. Well, we lose a lot of time to things that we don't care about, and we don't mean to. It's not intentional. No one says, man, I just totally want to spend 30 hours this week on my phone. No one says that. No one gets excited and intentionally spends their life on their phone, in most cases. But whether it is staring at a screen, mindlessly scrolling, and you didn't mean to,

or it is making other people's problems your problem or the tyranny of the urgent, whoever's in your face, you're just responding to fire after fire. We lose a lot of time to things that are not actually important to us. Stephen Covey has some great teaching. I know we use that a lot in entree leadership,

but there's a big difference between urgent and important. And I think the entree leader often gets distracted by the urgent. It's whoever's the loudest, the firefighter. The neediest, whoever has the best guilt trip, whoever is in your doorway.

You feel the need to. deal with that because it's right in front of your face. Whereas those things that are important, but not urgent, such as rest, quality time with family, strategy for your business, planning ahead, those type of things are important but never get done because they're not in your face, screaming your name. And so I walked through in this book, five common time stealers, and I list some of mine, and then kind of opening up for you to consider what is that for you, because it may be different for someone else. I'll tell you one of my, man, George, my Achilles heel when it comes to time. I love to be the hero. Like, I love to save the day. Someone has a

problem. I'm like, I'm like, I just make everyone else's problems my problem. Someone has a need, and I'm like, I can take care of that for you. And it has gotten me into more roles and responsibilities and problems that I can ever count than I ever wanted to do, and I still struggle with it. I teach this. When I was writing this book, I shared this story in the book, but while I was writing the book, after vowing to never coach my son's soccer team again, because I volunteered to coach it while I was six months pregnant with my third child. Disaster. Disaster idea. I could see what a terrible. But you're like, I want to coach. I'll be a great coach. But I'm like, I've done this before. They need me. George, they needed me. I was. They're not going to make it to the championship

without you and there. The world actually can't go on without me is what it felt like in that memo. So as ridiculous as it was that I paid for it for four months and vowed to never do that again. told that story in this book in like the first or second chapter. While I'm writing chapter three or four, I can't remember, I get an email from my son's current team of something else that they need to coach. This is like years separated and they need to coach. And still, I'm like, oh, maybe you should do it. I'm like, no, don't do it. Yeah, but they need you. You can't. Like, it's like this mental war and battle and debate. And so for me, it's the need to be a hero. One of the things I walk through in the book is I give

the reader several sets of questions to ask yourself before you say yes or no. And that just helps you understand if this is right for you or you're just getting sucked into one of these temptations of being the hero, saving the day, micromanaging, whatever that is for you. So it helps you discern what's right and what's not right for you. But man, you got to know what those things are or else you will keep losing time there. Yeah. As a fellow people pleaser, I totally connect. We all have that savior complex. We're like, they need me. Yes. No one can do it like I can. I'm back. Yeah, I feel that deep in my soul. So once we've figured out what matters, we stop doing what doesn't matter.

The step, it's in the third spot here, schedule what matters. That's an interesting one because you think schedules like, oh my gosh, more scheduling? Is that the solution? What does that really look like? Here's what's interesting. And I have been convicted of this myself, even as I have been teaching this more and more. It's holding me more accountable to it. But we say things like this.

I live by my calendar. I live by it. Live by my calendar. Live by my calendar. Couldn't do anything. If it's not on the counter, it's not going to happen. I mean, we live by our calendar. And yet so many things we want to do and say we want to do and need to do, never make it on the calendar. So quiet time.

I didn't used to have that on my calendar. Now I actually block it. Or morning workouts. I would just think, oh, I'll wake up and work out. Like, it doesn't have to be there because no one sees it, right? It's not during work time. No one's scheduling around it. It's for me.

It's for accountability to do what I say I want to do. If I want to go for a walk this evening with my family after work, put on the thing, go for a walk this week. As silly as it says, as it sounds, this is a system you have set your life up to operate in. And so if you don't put the things you actually care about on the system you created and live by, they're never going to happen. And what's going to happen is you're going to stick to your old routine of going home, picking up at phone, crashing on the couch, and just going through the day to day. And then you never do the things you say you want to do. So what I help people do in this step is take that list you create. in step one when you figure out what matters to you in this season. These are the most important

things. Okay, let's put those on the calendar so that they actually happen. And you get similar to a budget, you get to set it. No one's telling you what should go on there. You get to decide what that looks like for you, but then it just gives you a system to set you up for success to do what you say you want to do. That's brilliant. Because a lot of times, you don't go to work and you say, hey, can we meet at 2 o'clock for 15 minutes? And then it's never on the calendar. You won't show up. And so the same applies to our personal lives, especially once we get home, and you kind of turn that work brain off. Yes. And you just go, oh, yeah.

Gosh, I forgot. I had to do that thing. I wanted to read for an hour. Right. And putting on the calendar creates this accountability with yourself to go, oh, I said I was going to do this thing. And there it is in front of me. And there's a notification of my phone while I'm on TikTok.

It's saying, hey, you're supposed to read. And you go, oh, gosh, okay. And the other cool thing, too, is it's not a guilt thing. It's not a thing that's, like, so restrictive. Like, for example, I started putting an earlier bedtime on my calendar. Like, you just trying to have a bedtime on my calendar. Like, who does, right? Like, go to bed.

I realized I needed that because I was going to bed so much later than I needed to be and wanted more rest. So now at 9.30, I go to bed. So when my phone reminds me, go to bed, it's almost like freeing in a way because I don't have to think about it. I don't have to remind myself, oh, what time is it? What time is it? Look up. It's 1030. I'm watching another episode of diners, drive-ins, and dives.

We've all been there. I know, right? And then you lose, and you're tired and grumpy the next day. You're like, oh, I just need more time. No, you just need to freaking use the time you have in the way you say you want to use it. Yeah. A calendar is a system that helps you do that. So it's not restrictive.

You set it. Just make it look like what you actually say you want to do. Yeah, I love that. So we've got the things on the calendar now. We've scheduled what matters. And then you talk about in step four, protecting what matters. And I think a lot of us, we create the schedule, but then something blows up, right? And you go, oh, gosh, a friend called me and they need me to go help him with this thing, as the people pleasers do.

One of our best employees quits. A wife has an emergency. dental situation, are carefully made plans, they just go off the rails. So how do you actually protect what you say matters and set those boundaries around it, especially when unexpected things happen? Yeah, so it's a combination of both. You want to have boundaries that actually make decisions for you, because let's be honest, when you're tired and who's not all the time, the less mental energy you have to use in decision making, the better. So for example, my husband and I have a boundary. That Sunday nights, we don't make plans. It's our night at home. We don't do

anything exciting, by the way. We do laundry and get ready for the week, right? Like, it's not, it's not impressive. But it's a set aside time. So if anyone asks me, hey, you want to come to this event on Sunday night, I don't have to think because that boundary made the decision for me. Oh, no, that night is off limits. It helps me do what I say I want to do and protect my time in that way. Now, to your point of when things go wrong, there's got to be an element of grace for yourself when things outside your control happen. Because what often happens is we have a plan, especially as entrepreneurs, we're like, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to impose my will in the marketplace.

I'm going to go get it. And then things get derailed, and we're still trying to force our original plans into action. That can lead to guilt, burnout, frustration, et cetera. So there needs to be an element of adaptability. So what I do in a practical way for the week, Sunday night, I plan my week ahead. But then every day, I check in with myself of what I want to do that day. Because I may have had planned Sunday night for Thursday that by the time Thursday comes, I'm exhausted. They're good at the time.

Right. And it gives you permission to adapt, depending on how you're feeling, what's going on in your business, what's going on your family. I'll give you an example. On my calendar, if you were to look at it right now, George, it said 5 a.m. run. Confession time. I did not run. Let me tell you how my night went. Mary Grace screamed for about three hours straight so bad that we actually put her in bed with us, and I've never done that in my life.

I was desperate. I was like, child, you need, I don't know what it was. Sleep regression, teething, all of the above, just trying to drive me crazy. Don't know. But I got no sleep last night. Like none. So, of course, at 5 a.m., I didn't go run. But I didn't beat myself up for that.

I didn't still try to force myself to go pound the pavement because, oh, my gosh, it was on the calendar. No, I had grace because something happened that derailed my plans. And let me just tell you, nothing can derail your plans like kids. They can really derail your plans. So it's an element of I'm going to have boundaries to help me make decisions around what I want to do. Something I do is, I spoke about this at Summit. I put my phone in a box when I get home from work. So from five to seven, I don't look at my phone.

Okay, that's a boundary that just helps me be present for my kids. I have a boundary around Sunday night. I have a boundary around whatever my schedule looks like. But then there's grace when things come up. There's grace when things go wrong. So it's an element of both. Boundaries and grace. Yeah, I love that.

I love it. So we've scheduled it, we've protected it, and your final step is to be present for what matters. And you share this fascinating study that was done by Harvard on how mind wandering and not being present in the moment actually leads to unhappiness. So what are some of those? practical things that we can do to be more present in the moment that we're in right now and actually enjoy our lives. That's the ultimate goal, right? Sure. Well, here's what's interesting. I think we need to first acknowledge that we're not present. Because if we don't know we have a problem with this, if we don't realize our attention is being divided and divided and divided and divided that we are

addicted to our phones, addicted to input, like we'll be sitting in traffic light and put on our phone because we can't just be still. We'll be in an elevator, which takes about one and a half seconds to go between two floors and we take out our phone because we can't just be still. And so if we cannot be still, then we can't be present. And so I think understanding how we've been so programmed, addicted, and so on to this ongoing input, if we can understand that it's a problem, then we can be more careful to guard against it. So now, for example, when I'm in elevators, I go to reach from my phone and I, like, force myself to not. Yes. Like, it's like, because I'm aware that it's happening. If you're not aware it's happening, you can't guard against it. But to your point about

the Harvard study, what's interesting is our ability to be present also affects our ability to be happy. And we would never probably think that, right? Like, I didn't know that until I read about this study. But what's interesting is it cited that the more present you are, the more happiness you experience, regardless of what you're doing. So you might be thinking, well, Christy, I'm just in line at the grocery store. Like, I can check my phone, right? Like, I can just scroll my phone because that's so boring waiting in line or waiting in traffic or whatever. research shows that we are happier when we experience what we're doing, even if what we're doing sucks. It's better than letting your mind wander or scroll in your phone.

And when I think about it in my own life, I think that's true. When I ignore my phone, when I force myself as uncomfortable as it is to just be in the elevator or just be in traffic or just notice the world around me, notice a sunset, notice a person waving. Like, just notice the world. You actually not only experience the moment you're in and get to experience your life. life, which I don't know, feels important, you get to enjoy it more. And so I think understanding the barriers to being present, guarding against it so that you can redirect your focus to what's right in front of you will help you not only be more present, but feel more balanced. Wow. That's a fascinating study. And being present, as you're talking about all this, I'm looking back at moments

I've had, even today, where I was like, I have to reach my phone. I'm in the elevator. We do it, don't we? And is it because we're just uncomfortable with our environment and we just kind of need to veg out mentally? So I cite several studies in the book, but the social dilemma, which I'm sure you're familiar with, the Netflix docudrama, the ruthless elimination of hurry. There's some fascinating stouts out there of how technology has programmed us to be addicted to input. So it doesn't matter where the input comes from. When you think about when you go to your phone, you're probably not just going one place, you're going anywhere. Any app for anything. It could be weather. It could be YouTube. It could be text. It doesn't matter. We're just we're seeking

input. And so when you think about that and when we begin to understand what's happening from the technology, and I don't hate technology, I don't hate phones, but I do want to lessen its control over me, my time and my peace of mind. And so when we can understand the addictive nature, then we can do a couple things. One, we can put up, put boundaries in place to help us resist that urge, like my box example. I know that I'm going to pick up my phone, so I have to put it out of sight if I'm not going to touch it. Another thing that we can do is, and I do this with one, I'm wondering thoughts. So I know entrepreneurs, man, y'all have a hundred ideas a day. And one of the things that I've started doing is when my mind starts to wonder, which is all the time, Jenny Allen cites this in

her book, get out of your head. Humans have on average 30,000 thoughts a day. So what I've started doing is when I'm, you know, working on something in my mind starts to wonder or in a meeting, you know, which how often does that happen? Like every day for all of us. You're in a meeting, your mind starts to wonder. I ask myself a question, what is in front of me? What is in front of me? The answer to my question is always what I should be focusing on. What is in front of me? This person. What is in front of me, this meeting? What is in front of me? This project I'm working on. What is in front of me? My daughter. It's like I could be present with my kids and my mind is going through 15 to do list. And so, as simple as this sounds, boundaries in place for the temptations we feel, like, for example, technology,

but even training your brain to come back to the present, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. But it's fascinating how much, I know this sounds so, this sounds so like, but self. help guru crap. But like, George, you feel more alive. Oh, yeah. Like, I know this sounds silly, but like when I go through days where I'm present in the moment, I experience the person in front me, I experience myself, my environment, I feel literally more alive, whereas I could stare at my phone all day and feel like a zombie. It doesn't feel like a corpse. Like it's like, no. And at the end of the day, I'm like, where did my day go? I don't know. So I just want to help people put simple practices and habits in place to be present so that they can enjoy their life and actually experience their

life. This reminds me of me and Anthony O'Neill do this. It's a sensory deprivation tank. Oh, no, I have no idea what this is. It's this float tank and you get inside of a pod and you can go, I call it womb mode where you shut the pod completely and you go in total darkness and no sound. And you're floating in this water that's filled with Epsom salts. You're just floating there. And I can't tell you how long it takes for my brain to finally shut down. Because of all the thoughts and I'm like, okay, just shut up, brain. I just want to hang out here. But when you're done with it, there is this peace. I mean, it felt like you just got a massage, and it was all mental.

So I'm curious, the first time you did that, was it almost like unnerving being alone with yourself? Yes. Because you're like being alone with yourself. Like, I'm never alone with my own thoughts. And just to take a real quick spiritual sidebar here, if we never silence the noise, we will never hear from God. He doesn't yell. He's not going to yank on your arm or pull on your pant leg like your child or the annoying dog or the phone apps that are beeping at you all day. he's just whispering and it takes silence whether you were in that weird pod that you were in or in your quiet time on your deck

you need quiet to be able to not only check in with yourself and give your soul some type of silence and recovery but to hear from your creator and i think so many of us are walking around like souls that are just desperate for silence and from time with their creator and we're missing it because all the noise i wonder what would happen if every listener was intentional about taking that time, that quiet time, to actually have a thought to actually think about maybe their business, maybe it is that strategy, maybe it's time with the Lord. What would that do for their business? How would that affect the team around them? What kind of leader would that make them? And how would that change their business, change the people that they're serving? That's a fascinating thing to think about. Well, and it's interesting because you make decisions differently when you get out of it. And I think so often because we're in it, in the weeds, in the thick of it, we are always in reaction mode, right? So like someone says something in a meeting, you react, you react, you react,

it takes getting away, pulling away, zooming out, and silence to be able to look at something more strategically, more objectively, more objectively, certainly more spiritually, where you're going, oh, wait a minute, like you get a different level of clarity in solitude that you don't get when you are in the freaking front lines reacting to everything in your face. And so I think if someone's listening right now and they're like, well, you know, I'm not a Christian, I'm not a person of faith. That's not for me. Let me tell you, it's a business. strategy. It doesn't just have to be for people of faith. It is a business strategy to wake up earlier, get away, have some time alone. You don't have to have a week-long vacation in Mexico, just 15

minutes before you start your day to give you this centered desk. I'll tell you, George, I've started doing this a couple years ago, and it has been transformative for me because how I spend the 15 to 20 minutes does not matter. It's the fact that I'm starting my day as me, not as Christy write the brand, the performer, the speaker. Not as Christy Wright, the mom that's going to get yelled at in 15 minutes about where's my milk, where's my clothes, where's my pull up? None of that. I wake up and I'm only with me. And then I remember that there's something to me outside of all these things, which is so important not only to remember, but man, it's a really great place to start your day from. Wow. Well, as we wrap, the book is not out yet. It's available for pre-sale. Pre-order.

What can the listeners do to create that balance if they don't have the book in their hand yet? Where are some of the steps we can take? Yeah, I think the most important thing you can do is define what that means to you. Because if you don't define your finish line, you'll never get there. And so I think one of the problems with balance is we don't know what it is. We just know we don't have it. So I would just give people a very simple action step to define what life balance means for you. What does that look like for you in this season?

What does success look like? What makes you feel balanced? Write that down. And then when you can see it, you can achieve it. But you need to know what you're working toward. Yeah, it goes back to that goal setting, which you are such a pro at. I'm aspiration. Like, one day I want to be like Christy. And I love your authenticity and your vulnerability sharing, hey, I don't have this all figured out. Like, you know, there's still days where you're not perfectly achieving it and that's okay. And you give yourself that grace. You give yourself the boundaries to protect those things that matters, to be present in the moments that do. And I just love your heart for this stuff. I love how you've helped so many Entree leadership listeners out there. They're going, oh, my, gosh, that talk, that book, that thing Christie said, that post, you're helping people every day to create that balance. So I'm thankful for the work you do, and I'm so pumped for this book,

take back your time and how it's going to help so many more people. Awesome. Thank you, George. I'll tell you, I've spoken to Ontario Leadership since 2013, and I've spoken on this topic since then. And so much of the content of the book has been informed by the very people listening to this. I'm so grateful for their stories. I'm grateful for the men and women that have contributed to us getting to put this out there. So thanks for having me. Absolutely. As Christy talked about, life balance isn't about doing everything for an equal amount of time. It's about doing the right things at the right time.

And it's harder than it sounds, because we can get so busy reacting to life instead of being in the driver's seat. So Christy helps some small business owners figure out what that balance looks like, and it's coming up right after this. All right, like I mentioned earlier, Christy took some calls from some of our listeners to walk them through their challenges with life balance. Check it out. All right, we've got a call from Alice in Columbia, South Carolina. Hey, Alice, how's it going? Hi, Chrissy going well, thanks. Hey, what's going on?

How can I help? Well, I own a small practice and just struggling with figuring out how to balance it all work-life balance kind of stuff. Okay, let's dig into it. So tell me, what's your business? I'm a dentist. Dennis, awesome. How long have you been doing it? 15 years, 14 years.

Okay, that's amazing. So one of the things I've kind of experienced, Alice, and you can tell me your thoughts on this, it feels like balance is one of those topics that's really elusive. So when you say, how do I balance it all? Let's unpack that. Are you feeling out of balance now? And what is that, define that for me. What are you feeling and what's kind of going on in your world, this season of life,

this season of your business? Let's kind of dig into that. Well, it's just, you know, I've always, I don't know, I hate to say work life balance to me because it's like it just doesn't happen. But just that overwhelm of, you know, taking care of kids, you know, running a household, running a practice, six team members. Just there's always something and being able to turn the brain off, especially at night or when you get home and be mama and wife, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are the ages of your kids? 13 and 10. Okay. Awesome. Well, let's, you know, you definitely have a busy schedule, and so it's super easy to get overwhelmed. When you've got a lot going on as an entrepreneur, you have a lot on your shoulders. So I just want you to first hear that what you're feeling is normal. A lot of entrepreneurs feel that. Certainly parents feel that. And then when you've got both going on and pulling at you in multiple different directions, that can be overwhelming. The good news is, is that just because you're overwhelmed for a day or a wait,

week or even a season. It doesn't mean your whole life is out of balance. It might just be you're in a really hard season. So let's start by just kind of defining life balance. And I think this is one of my favorite exercises to do with people. I want you to think about what makes you feel balanced. So don't think of balance is one of those things is how do I balance it all? How do I walk a tightrope? How do I do everything perfectly all the time? That's not realistic. It's not even desirable. It's certainly not realistic in business. And so let's kind of back out of that and say, okay, what makes me feel balanced, meaning what makes me feel proud of how I spend my time, what makes me feel good in my life, what makes me like myself, what makes me feel at peace, what makes me happy? Let's kind of

dig into that. What are, think of times in your life and you're like, yeah, this feels right. What does that look like for you? Oh, that's a tough question. It's been a while. I hear you. I think when I, I hate to say when I feel more in control, but when I feel like I'm kind of prioritizing the important thing. So like when I'm home, I'm home, you know, when I can, when I feel,

don't feel like I'm, I guess, pulled in one direction over the other. And I know that's very vague. No, that's really good. But like, you know, currently I'm transitioning. I have a team member who's leaving and a new team member that's coming in. And so right now I'm constantly thinking about what that's going to look like even when I'm at home with family and that kind of stuff. So I guess when it's not like that, when I'm not worried so much about what's going on in the practice and I'm able to focus on, you know, my kids, when I'm with my kids or, you know, if I'm exercising,

or if I'm, you know, eating well, kind of that kind of stuff, you know, when things aren't crazy. Yeah. That's really. Yeah, you make such a good point. The very first thing you said was when I feel in control. And I think that that is so true. And so let's explore what it would look like for you to have a greater sense of control, even in a busy season. Because we all go through those busy seasons.

We know that that's reality and life and business. So one of the things you hit on that's going on right now that's on your mind is this transition. with team members, what would give you a greater sense of control in this time of transition where you could take it off your mind and actually be present at home like you were talking about? Let's kind of explore. What are some things you could do that would give you a greater sense of control and get that off your mind? If I had a specific system as to what the new team member is going to, I guess, do or more,

I guess more clarity at the office as to, you know, specific roles, specific duties. Yeah. Just, I guess, certainty that she's going to work out. Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes a good point. Do you have anyone on your team that could kind of take that and run with it in terms of putting some language to it, putting it on paper, here's what the onboarding is going to look like? She doesn't have to be the one to do it, but to just essentially create a plan and take that off your plate, the thing.

thinking, the strategy, the worrying, off your plate. Do you have anyone in your team that you could delegate some of that to you? I have someone I could talk to about it. I'm not sure that she would, I'm not sure that we would come at it from the same direction, though. Okay. If you did it yourself, if you were just going to put a plan on paper and say, okay, her first day she's doing this, this is her KRA, this is what winning looks like in her first week and her first month. If you were just going to do a rough plan for this person's first month,

How long would that take you? Probably a couple hours maybe. Okay. Is that something that you could carve out in the next, I don't know, week and say, I'm just going to spend two hours. I'm going to put this plan on paper. Maybe you bring in this person to help you because it would be a great training opportunity and they might have some additional insight. Is that something that you could carve out to get it off on paper and off your mind to kind of free up that overwhelm? Yeah, I think so.

Okay. That might be a good next step because here's what I've found. So much of our anxiety comes from worrying about things that truly, if we could get them out of our mind and on paper, it takes the worrying out of it. It's like anything, right? Like, Alice, if you want to run a marathon, if you want to launch a new business line, anything you want to do, when you can see the plan, you're like, oh, I can do it. Right? Like, if you can see it, you can do it. So often though, we don't create that plan, we just worry about how it's possible.

David Allen, who's the author of Getting Things Done, he's a productivity. expert. He said, your mind is for having ideas, not holding ideas. And when we try to hold ideas in our mind, that's what keeps us up at night. That's what keeps us worrying and stewing and wringing your hands and not able to really be present. So I know it would take some effort on your part, for sure, to carve out this two hours. But if you did it, I think the payoff would be huge. You know, in relation to this team member transition, I know that doesn't fix all of it, but in relation to that one. But I want to go back to something you said a minute ago, since you have kind of an action item there. I don't want to miss something else you said. You said

prioritizing the important things. What are those for you? What are those important things? Time with my kids. And one of the biggest things I want to do is cooking. I want to start cooking again at home. But yeah, that's the biggest thing is time with my kids and I guess taking care of what needs to be done. at home. Okay. Well, very similar to your strategy for this team member transition. I want you to put those things on your calendar. Now, I know this sounds silly, but that tactical step will make it that much easier for it to actually happen. So, and maybe you start by cooking one night a week. It's not every night, but it's one night a week where you're able to integrate this into your life in a way that gives you joy, makes you feel peace, makes you feel proud of how you spend your time. And it's not the

pressure of I've got to maintain this new standard of cooking from scratch seven nights a week. So I would love to see you start to take some of these things, time with kids. That's one of those things that we don't put on our calendar. We just hope it happens, right? Like the only thing on our calendar are meetings, but we just hope that happens. I want to challenge you, Alice, to put that on your calendar to where anything that you want to happen actually goes on your calendar, even at bedtime. If you're like, man, I want to go to bed early, put it on your calendar.

Just try that for a week or two and see if that doesn't. take some of the overwhelm out of it and give you a greater sense of control so that you're able to prioritize those most important things and actually be present for it. I hope this helps, and I really appreciate you calling. Thanks so much, Alice. All right, y'all. We've got a call from Daniel in Washington, D.C. Hey, Daniel, how's it going? Great. How are you? Good. What's going on? How can I help today? Working through how do I delegate tasks to my team, which I've always done without just dumping those task on them, but setting them up for success. Yeah, it's hard, right? Delegation is so hard.

Absolutely. It's been a struggle for me. Okay. Tell me, let's unpack why it's been hard. Is it, I want to dig to the deeper issues here of what you might be feeling, what you might be thinking. Is it a lack of bandwidth on your team? Is it a lack of trust maybe where you're like, I don't know that they could do it. Is it you've never done it before and you don't know how? I want you to unpack for me, what makes it hard for you? So I'm out of a really tough period of time. And with COVID, our business is shrunk. And now we're like exploding again. And I have a great team. Absolutely like they're just amazing people. But I've had to do so much to kind of get through that time. And now I can't wrap around at all. So I think there's definitely some like, I don't know,

post-traumatic COVID disorder going on, where we're, like, winning, but, like, I'm still a little scared. Yeah. Yeah. But I also really care about them and don't want to put them in a spot where they're, like, failing. Right. So when you say you're a little bit scared, what do you mean? You're scared that business is going to take a downturn again, and you're going to have to let people go. Like, let's kind of name that a little bit, name that fear. Yeah, I think that's definitely in the back of my mind. But honestly, like, we're doing everything right and we're killing it just like we're supposed to be. So I don't, I think some of that's an unrealistic fear, but it's there. Yeah. Yeah, I totally get that. I think a lot of people are coming out of last year,

some scars, some bruises, and some things, it's like, okay, I learn from that and I'm stronger, and some things I learn from that, and I never want to do that again, right? Right. Okay, what size is your team? How many team members do you have? Seven. Seven. Okay, and what's your business? I own a specialty, grocery, and ice cream shop. Oh, cool. Okay, awesome. If you could get rid of them today, what are the main buckets of tasks that you would want to delegate?

Lower, simpler aspects of managing. Okay. So ordering, managing, like making ice cream, like all that stuff that is, it's pretty straightforward, but also takes a lot of my time. Yeah. Do you have team members that know how to do that stuff already? Some of it, but most of it not. Okay. All right. So it would take a little training time to hand this off. Correct.

Okay. So here's what I want to challenge you to do. You're going to be doing this stuff anyway, right? Like you're already doing it. You're already doing these things that you want to delegate. So what I want to encourage you to do is over the next, let's say, two, to four weeks, I want to challenge you to incorporate your team, whoever's right for whatever jobs, based on what you know of them and their skill set and their desire and what's a good fit. I want you to integrate them into these activities with you. Essentially, I want them to shadow you. I want them to participate in these with you. It's going to be on-the-job training,

and then you're not taking more time to train them in something that has to be done at some point. They're training while watching you while being in the trenches with you. It's going to take a little bit of scheduling, obviously, on the front end to say, okay, who's the right fit for what and so on. But if you do that, then you're training while doing the job and you're also working on a plan to work you out of these tasks and work them into it. The other thing that that's going to do, Daniel, is it's going to give them a sense of ownership, it's going to build trust in teamwork as you guys do it together and they see you doing these tasks. It's going to give them a sense of vision and it will give them this buy-in to what they're doing. To your point, initially, you don't

want to just dump tasks on them, and no one would like that, right? No, no leaders should want to do that. No people would want that to happen to them. If you transition this way, it builds this sense of camaraderie, teamwork, and trust while you're getting the job done and they're learning the job for it to be a gradual handoff over the next two to four weeks. Does that make sense? Yeah. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Because you're busy, Daniel. That's why you're busy and you're tired and you're selling ice cream. Listen, that's going to be one of those things that you just need to put it on the calendar, talk to your team, and invite them into it.

It's not this. You have to do this, and that's not your heart anyway. But say, hey, guys, I'm maxed out. We're growing like crazy because y'all are rocking it. And in order for us to keep growing, we've got to divvy up some of these tasks. So I'm going to start bringing you into some of the things I'm doing so you can learn it so we can all be able to do these jobs together, are you in? And I think they will be very much on board and excited.

And I think that'll help you get to where you want to be. I hope this helps, Daniel. Thanks so much. And definitely call back and let me know how it goes if you're able to transition out of those tasks that you need a little bit of help with. Thanks so much for calling. Appreciate Christy taking those calls. And special thanks to Alice and Daniel for calling in. Like Christy talked about, you need to focus your time on what is truly the priority.

And to do that, you can download our free Time Tracker worksheet. Take this next week and list out everything that you're spending your time on in time blocks on the sheet. At the end of the week, you'll rank each activity and you'll have a picture of how you spend your time and what needs to be delegated. To get this free worksheet, click the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And if you're a small business owner with 2 to 200 team members, we'd love to hear your feedback on the show and ask you some questions. Click the link in the show notes to fill out a brief survey to schedule a call with Tim, our producer.

You can follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.