Living The Red Life - Debunking the Myth of Work/Life Balance

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Bienvenido a Miami! Our Man in Red is coming to you live from his new Miami office – and things are popping off if you’re Living The Red Life. Today host Rudy Mawer is talking about how to achieve a Work/Life balance – which can be challenging at the best of times!Rudy is challenging the blanket assertion that a 40-hour work week is what is best for you. If it’s doing a job you don’t enjoy just to pay the bills, then what you have is a fulfillment issue rather than a work/life balance one – and you need to find ways to follow your passion and work on something where the hours won’t matter. Input equals output, and we can’t always look at the 40-hour work week in isolation. Rudy is opening our eyes to the bigger picture of what else we need to consider before letting other people tell us what is healthy in terms of a work/life balance. What do you need to do right now for the season of business that you’re in — in relation to the goals that you have set for yourself? Game-changing advice and insights are just inside the doors of Wonderland. Come on in and join us!“I’m always against blanket statements because they don’t account for individual variability, right? And they don’t account for – probably like you – individual passion.” ~ Rudy Mawer The first 1000 to click here and send the promo code from the podcast can claim one of my courses for FREE!  - https://m.me/rudymawerlife In This Episode:How do we define work/life balance? Is working 25% of your time a fair amount?Addressing the fulfillment problem of doing something you loveAppreciating how input equals output Understanding diminishing returns if we work for too longWhat we can learn from the GOATs in sportHow to tune out negative opinions Being dynamic and flexible with your working weekWhat does a work season look like for Rudy?And so much more!Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/rudymawer/Instagram - www.instagram.com/rudymawerlifeFacebook - www.facebook.com/rudymawerlifeTwitter - www.twitter.com/rudymawer

The point of entrepreneurship for many of you is having that flexibility in life. It's important you have that flexibility in life because when you do, you'll have more happiness, you'll probably have more success as well. My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of living the red life. This is one of my first episodes from our new Miami office and Miami home. I am setting up a whole new studio here too. So right now I'm coming from my main desk here in the new office. I'm excited

for you to hopefully come visit one day and see how we hang out here in the Miami vibe. But let's dive into today's episode. So today I'm going to talk about work-life balance, a controversial hot topic, right? How do you find it, right? I'm going to talk a little about fulfillment, a work-life balance, how you find that right balance, and is work-life balance a bunch of BS, right? I'm going to address that and give you my opinion. And remember, these are my opinions. You're entitled to your own. So let's dive in. What does work-life balance mean? Let's define it first, right? So it means the ability to get a balance between your personal life and your work life, okay? And a lot of people argue that work-life balance is 40 hours. I have a very, you know, maybe polarizing or different point of view, which I'm going to share today. And I hope maybe you're like me and my perspective and what I'm

sharing today is just going to kind of resonate with you. So you get permission because a lot of times you hear all these external factors, you hear complaints or you hear outside things from other people and it puts you down. It makes you question, are you doing the right things in life? Are you on the right path? Are you maybe working too much? Are you maybe ignoring other parts of your life? So I hope this episode will give a lot of you clarity, confirmation, and permission that you are okay, right? And for some of you, maybe it'll question the norm. That's what I want to do here too is I'm always questioning the norm. I'm not normal, right? I'm wearing my big fluffy

coat here in Miami and it's I think about a hundred degrees outside. So I do everything differently. That's what the red life's about, right? Living in wonderland, taking the red pill, not living the norm, not being a sheep, right? Firstly, we define work-life balance. Most people define that as 40 hours a week is a working life, right? And one thing I would pose right away when people talk about that is where did the 40 hours come from? Were there tons of scientific studies years and years and years ago

that go 40 hours is the optimal time someone should be working? The answer is no. And if you go back 100 years ago, people were working a lot more, right? People that owned farms or whatever they were doing, they had to work a lot more. And the way I like to look at it is how many hours are there in a week? Okay. How many hours of that is 40, right? That's going to be working was about 25%.

So I think 40 hours by definition and using that as an argument to say any more is out of balance is totally stupid because firstly, it's 25% of your week. And granted, you're going to be sleeping for, you know, maybe seven hours, right? A night or eight hours or whatever it is. So you're sleeping for a third of it. Okay. But to say that working only a quarter of your, you know, waking time, you know, a quarter of your life is anything more is out of balance doesn't make sense to me. It's a blanket statement. And I'm always against blanket statements because they don't account for individual variability, right? And they don't account for probably like you, individual passions. And something that's really important is if you're miserable in your job, you hate your job, and you love your family

and you love your hobbies, then you probably don't wanna work more than 40 hours. But that's a fulfillment problem, right? That's a problem with you having fulfillment in life, you being on your journey in life and having the perfect path in life, and you're not on it right now. That's not a work-life balancing. That's a fulfillment

or what you're currently doing problem. And you need to go figure that out and figure out how can I find something that actually fulfills me, something I enjoy, something I love, something that I want to wake up for in the morning, something that on a Saturday when I'm not supposed to be working, I sneak a couple of hours in because I had a great idea or I'm passionate about finishing a project. Not only is it giving a random number that's been created from society, but then it's also going a lot of people's counter arguments for work life balance and working 40 hours is because they're in a miserable job. If you're an entrepreneur like me, many of you watching this, right? You love what you do.

Okay. You just like, I love playing basketball. I love going down to the beach. I love spending time with my dogs. I love going out for dinner. If I love what I do, then I want to spend more time. And then also there's very clear, very clear laws around input equals output. For example, if I work 40 hours, I can achieve X amount.

If I work 50 hours, I can achieve 20% more if my productivity, right, stays the same, which it should between 40 and 50 hours. Now, there is a counter argument that, hey, there's a cutoff, which I do agree. When you get to maybe 70, 80, 90, 100 hours, then maybe those next 20, 30 hours aren't as productive as the first 20 or 30, okay? It's called diminishing returns. That is true. However, when you're going from 40, 50, 60, 70 hours, then productivity can coexist at a similar level and the ability to still stay hyperproductive if you have multiple things going on will remain the same. For example, if I run six businesses, people look in isolation and go, you know, 20, 30 hours, you should be able to do most of it. Yeah,

maybe in one business, but what if I have six businesses and I do 10 hours on each, right? Or I do 30 hours in my main company that I'm running. And then the other five companies I only do five hours on. That's an hour a day, Monday to Friday, right? So for me, you can't look in isolation and go, you should be able to do everything in 40. Because it's like saying, hey, you should be good at basketball going four times a week. Now, yes, that's true. But if you go five or six times a week, you're probably going to be better than the same version of you going four times a week. And if you look at many of the greats in any sport, they're there early, they stay late and they train on their off days and they still stay active on their off days. And that's why they are the greats. The GO goats, is because they're there when the lights are off. They're there

before practice starts and they do their own practice. Then they show up and do another practice too. Now, most people don't want to put in the work. Okay. Let's talk about that for a second, because most people will hide behind the whole work-life balancing because they don't want to put in the work. Okay. Now they're now attacking people that have fulfillment, that want to put in the work, that want to do extra saying you don't have work-life balance. That's cancerous. That's toxic. And you can't allow that. You're going to make it stop. You got to tell those people to shut up. You got to get rid of those people out of your life. And you've got to tell them to not share their opinion anymore because it isn't the same as yours. It doesn't resonate.

And while they're allowed to be entitled to their own opinion, you don't need to hear it, okay? So you've got to get very clear on who you're spending your time with. And I've shot another episode all about that. And you've got to understand that people will put their own impressions and their own points of view on you because it's often a reflection of them. Like I said, if they're not happy, not fulfilled, maybe running one small business that's

automated, great. You can do all those things in 40 hours. What if I'm trying to become a billionaire? You think I can work the same amount trying to become a billionaire as someone that's trying to earn a million dollars? Absolutely not. Say you're launching a new product right now. You might have to work way more hours and not have work-life balance're launching a new product right now you might have to work way more hours and not have work-life balance to launch the new product okay and then when it's launched in eight years time and you have a c-suite 400 employees you sold half the company a new company came in and is running it can you have more work-life balance yes okay which leads me to my next point of looking at linear paths. OK, work life balance is never going to be linear if you're building something big.

OK, so you define if you try and say, hey, you should only ever work 40 hours. Well, that's kind of stupid, too, because let's think about it. Some weeks you're really busy, whatever job you're in. OK, if you clean the streets, when there's a big festival for a week, are you busier than maybe a week where it's freezing cold and no one's out? Or a week when there's a new virus and everything's shut down, okay? Or a week where there's a big vacation and everyone's out of town, okay? So nothing in life, right, in business or in life is linear. So there's going to be busier times and there's

going to be quieter times. So instead of starting to try and box yourself in and say, I'm working these hours, I should only work X amount, try and actually be dynamic. Successful people are dynamic in life, just like pro athletes. Again, they will train more in certain seasons. They'll have an off season, right? Well, they'll train a little less. It's called a deload, okay, in the sports science world, where they might take a few weeks and train less. That is logical. When it's coming up to a finals, they're playing, they're practicing, they're doing drills, they're running plays, they're going to be playing more. So you have to understand the work-life balance shouldn't be linear. And again, if you're trying to make it linear and say, hey, I should only work these amount of hours, you're actually not optimizing success because success is going to vary

throughout the time of the business. You're going to have busy periods, quiet periods. And what I do is I stay dynamic. I don't put rules on myself. I don't try and put on these, well, I'm going to work nine till four. Then I'm going to have four hours off to spend time with family.

Then I'm going to do an hour. It doesn't work like that. Some days I finish earlier. Great, I'm not as busy. Yesterday, I was not always, but yesterday I was on calls from 9 a.m. all the way till 6 p.m. because I did my monthly performance reviews with my whole exec team all afternoon. It took four hours, but I only do it once a month. And it's my one time a month with my entire exec team one on one. OK, so for me, that was a busy day. Then I went for dinner with my wife, came home, then I had to finish work. I had to plan a bunch more content ideas and scripts.

And then I also had to finish a RSVP invitation workshop style sheets and info page for our legacy members. There are members that spend $100,000 a year plus at one of our highest tiers, apart from our investor tier, where they get to work one-on-one with me. And they're actually all flying into Miami in a couple of weeks to spend two days at my house, in my office, on yachts, working one-on-one with me and the exec team. So that was something important I wanted to get done, not for me, for the members. So they had an agenda and they were ready to go. Okay. And that was a busy day. However, some days my calls might finish at two or three.

I might go home earlier, spend some time with the family, the dogs, go for a walk on the beach, maybe go play basketball, go then go out for dinner. So that's a nicer day. Again, it's not about being too boxed in. Okay? The point of entrepreneurship for many of you is having that flexibility in life. It's important you have that flexibility in life because when you do, you'll have more happiness. You'll probably have more success as well. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second.

Before we go into the rest of this episode, I'm gonna interrupt abruptly and just ask you one big favor. I hope you're getting a ton of value, a ton of knowledge. I hope you're getting some breakthroughs from myself and the guests. And I want one thing in return. What I would love is for you to subscribe and leave a review. The reviews and the subscription grows the podcast. It allows me to bring you even better guests. It allows me to invest even more time and money into this podcast to bring you the latest and greatest, the best entrepreneurs from around the world that are crushing life, crushing their business and giving and money into this podcast to bring you the latest and greatest, the best entrepreneurs

from around the world that are crushing life, crushing their business, and giving you all the tools, the mindset hacks, the knowledge, and the environment you need to be successful. So do me a favor, if you've got any amount of value from today's episode so far, or any previous episode, or any of the content I've done, it would mean the world to me if you hit a five-star review, give us your feedback on the show, the episodes, and subscribe and download. Plus, if you do that and send me a screenshot on Instagram at rudymorlife, I will send you a bunch of my free training, marketing courses, sales courses worth $499. Yes, $500 worth of courses for a simple 30-second review.

It would mean the world to me. Send me that screenshot. I would love for you to leave that review, and I would appreciate it very, very much so we can keep growing this show and make it awesome. So let's get back into the episode. I appreciate you guys, and let's dive back in. So far, we've talked about the whole definition of work-life balance. How many hours should we work?

It's hard to define. I wouldn't allow anyone to define that for you. What I encourage you to do is figure out what do you need to do right now for the season of business you're in, in relation to the goals you have set. Okay. If you have really big goals and you're growing right now and you're driving and you're pushing forward, it's very important you put in the work, okay? And also what's very important to understand about putting in the work is you might put in the work for five, 10 years, and for the rest of your life, you sell a business and you can work however much you want. You can work five hours, 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours, 40 hours. To me, that is better work-life balance

than a normal person that spends 40 years working 40 hours a week in a job they hate. Okay. What would you sooner do? Work 10 hours in a company you love, grow it, sell it for $50 million and then retire for the rest of your life and be an angel investor, an advisor, speaker, author, doing it part-time whenever you want, because you've invested your $50 million in a bunch of real estate and stuff that's now paying you cashflow to live your life, okay? So again, you can't listen to these people trying to tell you work-life balance, right? They're not entrepreneurs often.

They don't get it. They don't understand your goals. They don't understand business. They don't understand the scale of growth and economics. And there's periods of times they're gonna be fast and aggressive and you've got to go all in. And then there's periods of times where you can relax a little. Maybe you've built a new team, right? Or you've just came off a big product launch and you need to, like an athlete,

deload for a couple of weeks. You need to relax a little. You need to kind of rest a little. So you come back energized for the next product or the next launch. So all these variables come into defining work-life balance. The other thing that's important is having flexibility within this routine, like I said. Don't be rigid and figure out what you need to do right now to achieve your current goals in the current business state. There'll be busier times and there'll be slower times. The next important thing I think of work-life balance is expectations and communication. Often you're getting problems with spouses, family members, friends, staff members when you don't

communicate expectations really well. And it's super important. Most of the arguments in life are because of expectations. So if you're going through a busier phase of the business, you want to tell the staff that as well. When we have big live events, we tell everyone, hey, this weekend, this next two weeks, a little crazy. We're all going to be tired, but it's once a quarter. It's an amazing time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We set good expectations. When I am working like crazy, doing a new launch, maybe it's a new celebrity.

Maybe it's a new big product launch for me, a new division launches. I tell my, you know, friends, my family, my spouse, I go, hey, look, you know, this next few months is going to be a little crazy. And then we've seen that, you know, you know, my family, my spouse have seen that where, you know, one year is crazy. Next six months aren't too bad. Next four months are crazy. And that's kind of how

life's been right for me over the last 10 years. And I'm used to that. And when it's go time, I'm there. I'm showing up. I'm there to, you know, if I'm working till midnight to get stuff done, I'm working till midnight. OK, now I have a team of 100 people, so I don't have to do that as much. But I've put in those what, you know, those years, right, 20 to 30, I worked pretty much all day, every day, okay? And I maybe took Sunday off or lighter days at the weekend and a couple of evenings off, but I enjoyed it. No one made me. I got to where I am today because of that work ethic. I don't regret it. I had probably a better 20 to 30. My life between 20 and 30 was better than 99.999% of people. I traveled the world for two years.

I went to college and did all my partying in my early 20s. Obviously, I met my wife and I've got an amazing group of friends, family, amazing businesses. I've achieved a lot. I've experienced a lot. I've grew a lot. So it's not like I sacrificed what I did. But what is the important denominator there is I had fulfillment in what I was doing. So when I was working 60, 70, 80 hours, it wasn't a problem.

It was something I was motivated and inspired to do because of the fulfillment I had around the cause, right? Around the goal or the thing I wanted to achieve at that time. And that thing changed, whether it was a revenue goal, whether it was a big launch, whether it was a certain amount of clients, certain amount of recurring revenue, I always had landmarks and goals that kept me aligned to that. Okay. So in summary, guys, work-life balance. Firstly, it's a bit of a myth, okay? And it's very contextual to the individual. You are in charge as an individual to figure out work-life balance for you. You are not there to listen to other figure out work-life balance for you.

You are not there to listen to other people, not there to listen to society, most of which are unsuccessful and unhappy. Remember, you are there to figure out what work-life balance is for you. It is also your job and responsibility to find something that fulfills you. If you are not fulfilled or in a career path or a job or a company where it is in line with your goals of life and or at least this stage of life and it does not fulfill you, then no amount of work, whether it's 5, 10, 20 hours a week, 50 hours a week or 100 hours a week will make you happy or unhappy. OK, what will make you happy or unhappy is your alignment to your path in life, to where you are right now in your life, and what you class as fulfillment. I know people working 80 hours a week way happier than most people working 40 hours a week, okay? Me, when I worked 80 hours a week, I was way more motivated, excited every day, and happy than most people I know in a job that they do not enjoy. And then the last thing is set clear

expectations, okay? If you're with a husband or a wife or a girlfriend or a boyfriend, they only want you to work 40 hours a week, that is an internal decision you have to make, okay? I won't make that. I'll tell, I was straight up when I met my now wife, okay? And when I dated other people in the past, I was straight up with them. Hey, this is how much I work.

This is what I do. These are my goals. You can either join me, be alongside it, be part of it, but you're not gonna interfere with it. I set clear expectation. And guess what? Every time we get in a bit of an argument about it, I realign those expectations. I say, hey, remember what you signed up for? Don't blame me. You signed up for this, right? If you sign up to go to a water park, don't get upset when you get wet, right? You went to a water park and it was very clear you were going to get wet today. Now you're getting wet. Don't

cry about it, okay? So you have to have clear expectations, set clear expectations. Then also with friends, family, spouses, if you are serious about your goals, keep them accountable to your path, your vision, and the expectations set. If you didn't set expectations and you fail to keep doing that and you end up in these arguments, well, that's kind of on you too, right? You've got to set expectations and you've got to align people, including your staff, your friends, your family to the bigger vision, okay? So they understand the work that's going into it and why, and also they need to understand that you are an individual and if you enjoy and get fulfillment and you're still, obviously I'm not saying ignoring

family, like there's got to be some level of a balance where you're doing your duties in life, right? If your duty as a father, a mother, as a dog owner, right? You know, to see your parents, there are duties in life, but as long as you can fulfill those in a realistic and reasonable amount, then you need to define what work-life balance looks like, okay? So a big part, as you know, of living the red life is building your dream life, okay? Your dream life, not someone else's, your dream life. So I hope this episode helped you figure out what your dream life looks like. I hope this episode helped debunk one of the biggest problems in our entrepreneur life today, right? And the conversations and the arguments we have, whether it's with employees, family members, friends, spouses, partners, okay? Work-life balance is this woo-woo term, okay? It can't

be quantified because it's at the eye of the beholder, okay? You, as an individual, with the people around you, you have to work on this, you have to work on anything else, and you have to define it for yourself, but you have to know how much you work, okay, to some extent will dictate the results you get in life, okay? And I've touched on that. As long as you stay productive and you don't have diminishing returns, then it will have a correlation. So understand you can make the decision where you work 20 hours, 40 hours or 60. But I guarantee if you are productive at the same level, they will have different outputs for those three tiers. And you have to just accept that reality and make the decision. There is no right or wrong decision. There is a decision that only you can make for your own life. Okay.

And as always, keep living the red life, build that dream life, work hard to build that dream life and keep living in wonderland. Don't listen to normal people that are miserable, upset, broke and unhappy because they will try and put that on you. You define your dream life and keep doing it. Keep killing it. Keep living the red life. Until next time, guys, I'll see you very soon. Take care.