Work-Life Balance- Is it Possible for Entrepreneurs?

So today I'm going to do my best to answer one of the toughest questions I get asked and that is, Pat, can I live a balanced life? Does it exist? I get asked that every single day. And listen, before I get into all my points, I have a whole argument I want to make for this on how to think about it, I want to make a point to you and here's what it is. When you say, I want to live a balanced life, you forget that we are not machines. Let me explain what I mean by this. You see, a machine is a single-minded job. This here, his job, it's job is to light up the room. This camera's job is to either take pictures or video record. This audio has a job of recording my voice. They usually don't have a million different things they're thinking about. They're single-minded and they get the job done. They don't have a million other things. You and I, we're not machines. And when we're not machines, our brain, right now, think about the last five minutes before you watch this video, what have you been thinking about all day today? Let me give you a few of them. Tell me if any of them is yours. You're thinking about who won the game yesterday. The argument you got into with your wife, your husband, your girlfriend, your boyfriend this morning. You're still texting, going back and forth. You're not answering her call. That 877 number you got on your phone, you're wondering if it's a creditor that's trying to collect money from you. That ticket you got two weeks ago, you still haven't gotten the amount. You don't know how much the speeding ticket's going to be, if it's going to be over $200, and if you're going to get your license suspended. You don't know what you're going to work out tonight. Is it back, shoulders? Am I doing arms? I did arms. When did I do arms? I don't know when I did arms. You're wondering that Facebook notification you just got right now, why did that person friend me? I just posted a picture on Instagram. Why hasn't Mary liked it yet? She's supposed to like it. She always likes it. My mom is upset at me right now because I forgot to call her on her birthday. And I forgot to call her on this other day. And my dad is upset. My brother and sisters are getting into a fight. What do I do? You have so many things on your mind. And our mind wanders. It drifts. So when it does that, we can't be a machine. It's all over the place. So to live a balanced life, that utopian perfection balanced life doesn't exist. However, are there hacks out there for you to figure out ways to try to do your best to have a balanced life? Yes. I'm going to do my best to explain it to you here on what things have worked for me. And by the way, before I get into this, if you haven't subscribed to this channel, click on the subscribe button. At a million subs, when we have a million subs, we're going to put the first live value ten minute event together 90 days later. And if you have any questions, thoughts, comments about what I covered, comment on the bottom. So here's why even a person starts thinking about, do I live a balanced life or not? And this is what it is. The reason why we think about it is because someone in your life, a spouse, a mom, a dad, a brother, a sister, a boss, someone made you feel guilty. What do you mean somebody made me feel guilty? Let me explain. You could be sitting there at a dinner table, okay, or having a conversation with somebody, and someone says the following. Here's what they say. You know, in order to have a happy marriage, you have to be home at night at 6 o'clock every night. And you don't do that. You just feel guilty. Your spouse is sitting there and you're saying, maybe I'm not a good spouse. Maybe I'm not a good husband. Maybe I'm not a good father. You just feel guilty. You'll have another situation. Somebody will say, you know, it is not healthy to live an unbalanced life. Again, you feel guilty. Maybe I'm not living a healthy life. Maybe I'm not a good person. Maybe I'm not doing it the right way. Maybe I'm supposed to be doing it in a whole different way. Here's another one. They'll say things like, nothing matters more to me than family. Listen, John, nothing in your life should mean more to you than your family, right? And what does that statement really mean in the first place? Think about it. So nothing means more to me than my family. Okay, if nothing means more to me than my family, why am I spending time on my job? I should be home with the kids. I shouldn't have a job. I shouldn't do anything else. I should just be around my family. Because nothing matters more to me than my family. Do you know that single statement right there? Do you know how many people get confused over that single statement right there? Do you know how many people feel guilty over that statement? Nothing should matter more to you than your family. So now somebody could say, well, it is true. Pat, what's your argument? Look, my dad is 75 years old. Okay? And I'm a selfish human being. I am. I want my dad in Texas with me. My dad's in LA. He lives in LA. All his friends, his family, everybody pretty much is in LA. In Texas, he only has me. Right? Selfishly, I can pay him all the money in the world to want to come and move to Texas. And I can say, hey, don't you love your kids? Don't you love your grandkids? I can make him feel guilty. Right? I can do that to him. And make him feel guilty. But here's what happens. Say if I move him over here. He has nothing to do. So throughout the day, he has nothing to do unless I come home on the weekend and we spend time together. Selfish, right? In LA, he's still a chemist. He still does exciting jobs. He has a whole life of himself. He has a routine. I got him a nice Mercedes. He has all this stuff to do on a daily basis. I'm robbing him of his life and his routines if he comes to Dallas. So does that mean he doesn't love his family? And nothing's more important than his family? I can tell you, my dad loves his family and the example is sick. But these comments confuse people. So Pat, what is your point? Here's my point. By far, the most important thing that you have to answer before talking about work-life balance is you've got to decide how clear you are about your vision and the life you want to live. So Pat, what are you talking about? Let me explain. So you may be watching this. If you follow Valuetainment, I think it's fair to say that you're probably an aspiring entrepreneur, or you're an executive, you're doing good for yourself, or you run a business, but you're trying to grow and get yourself to the next level. Fair enough. You're trying to do that. And I'm giving you value, and I'm sharing the mistakes and the things that I've done that hopefully give you some kind of direction on what to do with your life. Great. Let's set that part aside. If your clarity on the vision and the life you want to live is that clear, you won't feel guilty. Let me explain. Lowest level of a vision could be somebody saying, Pat, I want to figure out a way to make $100, $150, $250,000 a year. That's what I want to do. And I'm happy once I get to that point. No problem. The second one could be somebody's watching and saying, Pat, I want to be a multi-millionaire and be financially free. And that's my goal. And guess what? No problem. Somebody else could be watching this, very few of you, somebody else could be watching and saying, honestly, I can't do a lot with $250,000 a year income. And I can't do a lot just being a millionaire. I'm driven by history. I'm driven by doing something big. I want to change the world. I want my last name to be remembered. I want to do something significant that impacts the world because I've got so much flipping fire in my belly, I can't even describe it. Okay? Whoever you are, whether you're the first one, second one, third one, now you're clear. Because here's what comes after that. If you're the first one, after you have a clear vision comes your timeline. Pat, what do you mean by timeline? Here's what I mean by timeline. So timeline could be, look, I just want to make $100, $200, $250,000 a year income. Your timeline for being all out, hard work, could be three to five years. That's your timeline. Second person says, Pat, I want to be a millionaire. Your timeline may be, you have to go all out for five to ten years. The third one, maybe somebody says, Pat, I want to change history. That may be a 10, 20, 30, 40 year type of a thing you've got to do. So it ain't a short term period thing you've got to do. But now you have your vision, and you're clear on it, and now you have your timeline. And then you're clear on it. So now, regardless of what level you're in, for those of you guys that ask me the other question, which is, Pat, do you think anybody can be an entrepreneur? And I give you the answer, which is what? Yes. I believe anybody can be an entrepreneur. But there's a problem. There's a problem in that answer that is not clear enough. So let me clarify it for you. Can anybody become an entrepreneur? Yes. Is everybody willing to do the work to become an entrepreneur? Absolutely not. A lady told me one of the best things. She was talking about raising kids and all this other stuff. She said, Pat, do you know what is the closest pain you will ever go through in your life of giving birth to a child? I said, I don't know what it is, but what do you think it is? This was a 50 year old lady. She said, the closest thing you will ever experience is by you starting a company, being a startup entrepreneur, building a business. Because it's absolute painful, annoying, challenging, frustrating. It's going to suck. You're going to have to make sacrifices. You will have mental, emotional breakdowns at some point. It's going to be that painful. And guess what? Everybody wants to experience the history and all that stuff, but how many people want to put up with that? Not a lot of people. So now, for those of you guys that are watching this saying, well, Pat, I'm still trying to be curious. What do you mean by work life balance? What does this have to do with that? Everything. Because you first have to go back and figure out who you want to be. What life do you want to live? What is the formula? What is the sacrifice? What is the timeline I have? So the correlation between that, once I get clear, somebody can't make you feel guilty. You know why? Because you already know what it's going to take. You already know what your timeline is. You already know what life you want to live. You already know how big of a life you want to build. You're clear on it. It's crystal. And you know your timeline. So I can't make you feel guilty and I'm your brother-in-law. I can't make you feel guilty and I'm your dad or your mom or your brother or your sister. Or your boyfriend or your girlfriend. I can't. Because you're clear. Make sense? And no one can make you feel guilty. Now, let's go to the next part. The closest thing to wanting to become a professional entrepreneur is the following. So again, I'm trying to make this argument to you to understand this before I go and give you the tips on living a balanced life. Here's the argument. The closest thing to becoming a professional entrepreneur is the following. An athlete. Professional athlete. Think about the sacrifices they make. Basketball players, they play 82 games in a season, not including preseason or playoffs. On the road, they're on the road six months out of the year. So think about it. You're going to miss moments. You're going to be doing stuff. You won't be sleeping in your bed every night. You're sleeping in a hotel. All these other things. Baseball is 162 games in a season, not including pre, not including playoffs. You're playing for eight months out of the year is what you're doing, right? Then the other close thing to becoming an entrepreneur is a musician. Why a musician? You're touring all the time. You're on the road all the time. Or a general. You're in the field. You're in war. You're doing stuff. You have to constantly go out there and do certain things, right? A Hollywood actor. A superstar. In Hollywood. Pat, what do you mean by Hollywood actor? You know how long it takes to shoot a movie? Three to six months. You're gone. You're away. You could be in New Zealand shooting a video, and your family's back in town going to school to private school, and you're in New Zealand Skyping with them every day. That's the sacrifice at that level. Another one could be a politician campaigning. Hey, I would love to be a president one day. Do you really want to campaign for 18 months every single day, and if you don't, you're going to lose to another guy that is willing to campaign every day? Do you really want to go campaign and get rejected every day? People spit in your face. They argue. They throw stuff at you, and they say, I can't believe you believe in such and such. I cannot believe you think America should have free health care. I cannot believe you think America shouldn't have free health care. No matter what philosophy you think, you have an opposition. Do you really want to go through that? Because that's what entrepreneurship is. I believe you should own real estate. Half of people say you shouldn't own real estate. I believe you should put your money in the stock market. I don't believe in the stock market. You should invest in real estate. I don't believe in real estate. You should buy technology stock. I don't believe in technology. You should buy big. I don't believe. Everything has an opposition, and that's painful for some people. That's why sometimes it's safer to go get a regular job and say, this is the route I'm going to take. Entrepreneurship is a pain in the ass. History demands a ton, and all of these journalists that are famous for getting up and talking about balance, guess who they admire? The most unbalanced people in the world is who they admire. They admire the people who are willing to go out there and be unbalanced. They write about them. All day long, journalists talk about the most unbalanced human beings in the world. Their obsession. They have a job because there are unbalanced people out there. If there were no unbalanced people out there, media and journalism wouldn't exist because they need somebody to talk smack about. That's how they make their money. And who makes news to have people to write about? High achievers. With that being said, I want to leave you with a couple actionable items you can apply right off the bat so you can hopefully have a little bit more of a balanced life at least. So here's what the couple things are. One, do you remember how earlier I told the story of the difference between machines and us human beings is because we wander and we drift and we think about things? Here's what I want you to be thinking about. The reason why we wander and we drift, why do we? Is because we don't have a clear answer. And we're questioning the decision we're about to make. Let me elaborate. Have you ever woken up in the morning, spending 17 minutes in your closet, wondering which jeans, which suit, which tie, which shirt to wear and which shoes? Have you ever done that? That's a wasted 22 minutes. Have you ever gone on lunch, and you're wondering where to eat? I'm going to eat at Chipotle. I'm going to go over here. No, let's go over here. You know what? I don't know about this. 32 minutes was spent just deciding where to have lunch. Here's a system. Very simple system. When it comes down to your mind wandering and it's making a decision, ask yourself, what's the level of priority on this decision I need to make? Low. Let's just go right here. Cool, I'm going. I'm not spending 22 minutes. One minute, we're going right here. If the mind goes and it's saying, well, I'm wondering, I don't really know if I'm making the right decision. If it's a very, very big decision, guess what? Take your time. Because it's high priority. So pause, ask yourself level of priority, then take your time on decision based on the level of priority. Second thing I want you to be thinking about. Remember how earlier I talked to you about guilt? So people make you feel guilty. You're working too hard. You're not spending enough time with your family. If you don't have dinner right now with your family, you're not a good parent, you're not a good husband, whatever. All those things. Okay. So here's guilt. If you are feeling guilty, write out your values and principles that you want to live by. And these values and principles are going to match the life you want to live and the vision you want to live. When your values and principles are committed to your vision and the life you want to live, here's what's going to happen. There's going to be a conflict. And the conflict is, some of your current friends and family are not going to like your current value system. And they're going to make you feel guilty. They're going to say, you know, honestly, Patrick, I just want you to know that you ought to really be thinking about your current schedule and what you're doing. Guilt. I don't know if this is the right thing you're doing. See, they don't know your values and principles matches the vision and the life you want to live because you're clear. And they're not. You can't judge them because they don't know what your vision is. Now, if it's somebody that's very important to you, wife, husband, kids, you know, spouse, mom, dad, sit down and explain to them, here's my values. Here's the principles I want to live by. This is the vision. I am so clear. The next three to five years, I'm going to do this. Babe, I want to go on a 5-10 run and I need you to support me. Mom, dad, I'm going on a 10-20 run because I want to do this with my life. And expect opposition. Expect laughter. Expect people to say, what are you talking about, your vision? What do you mean vision? You've never used the word vision before. What do you mean clarity? I've never heard you use the word clarity before. What are you talking about values and principles you want to live by? It doesn't matter. Because you either have to compromise your vision that you want to live, your life, the vision that's clear to you, or you have to compromise certain relationships. And when it says relationship, you don't need to compromise mom and dad, brother, sister. They don't have to fully believe in it. But some friends, you've got a lot of them you can get rid of. I'm telling you right now. You've got a lot of them that they no longer want the life that you want. And if you don't cut it out, they have so much influence on your vision that you don't even know. They're going to prevent you from having some of your visions become a reality. So again, back to it, system, low priority. Don't take a lot of time. High priority. Take your time to make the decision. So when you're wandering and drifting, two, you feel guilty, have your set of values and principles match your vision you want to live with the timeline and the sacrifice you need to make. Then adjust with certain friends you have. Then at that point, hopefully have fewer things that you have to attend to in your life, so at least you can be a little bit more of a balanced life that matches your vision that you want to live. Again, I hope this made sense to you. By the way, if it was a lot of things, I have a free PDF for you. Click on a link below, go download the PDF, go through what I covered, the notes, and maybe watch the video for a second time so it covers certain things I said that maybe is not in the PDF. And you can take some notes, and if you've got any questions, comments, thoughts, comment on the bottom. And if you haven't yet subscribed to the channel, click on the subscribe button and join the notification squad by clicking on the alert button. Take care everybody. Bye bye.