Finding Balance

What does a balanced life actually look like and is it even real?

This week on Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence, Josh and John dig into the idea of balance beyond the usual “work-life” cliché. FThey examine a practical framework for living well, exploring what it really means to take care of all the parts of your life.

Using the “Dimensions of Wellness” as a guide, the conversation moves through physical health, intellectual curiosity, emotional regulation, relationships, purpose, work, money, and even your environment, yes, your messy house might actually be part of the problem.

Along the way, you’ll hear:

• Why some are afraid to compliment their teams (and why that’s a problem)
• A more honest definition of balance.
• How small, intentional decisions shape a healthier, more meaningful life
• Why deep relationships, not success, are the real indicator of happiness
• Practical ways to improve your life without blowing it up completely

This is a grounded, thoughtful, occasionally humorous conversation about how to live better...not perfectly, but intentionally.

• Email us: awesomelifenotes@gmail.com
• Learn more about John: JohnSpence.com
• Familiar Wilsons Media: FamiliarWilsonsMedia.com

About John Spence: John is a globally recognized business thought leader, former owner/CEO of five companies, and advisor/coach to organizations from startups to the Fortune 10. He’s lectured at more than 90 universities and was named by the American Management Association as one of “America’s Top 50 Leaders to Watch.”

About the show: Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence focuses on personal growth, happiness, clarity, and the everyday habits that compound into an AWESOME life.

Credits: Hosts John Spence and Josh Wilson • Produced by Josh Wilson for Familiar Wilsons Media • Special thanks: Amanda Wilson (writing and production), and Domingo Jimenez (writing and marketing).

Transcript

John’s Week And A Culture Lesson

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is a familiar Wilsons Media Production. John Spence is recognized as one of the foremost business thought leaders in the world, a global top 100 business thinker and advisor to companies from startups to the Fortune 10. But it didn't start that way. In college, John hit rock bottom, kicked out of one university and rejected by another. That's when he made a decision to change his attitude and take a systematic approach to building the life he wanted. Through hard work and relentless learning, he went on to create a life full of meaning, joy, and connection. I'm Josh Wilson, and this is Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. We invite you to join us in conversation as John shares with us the lessons, habits, and tools that he used and that you can use to build an awesome life. Welcome to Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. I'm Josh Wilson.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I'm John Spence. What do you know? Funny how that works out that way.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Every stinking week I come back and it's still John Spence. So something must be going right.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Or wrong, depending.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

John, how have you been this week?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Been excellent. Just came back from my favorite engagement of the year. I was at the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia for a week with uh groups of exec executives of financial industry flew in from all over the world. It's uh a three-year program, very advanced and challenging for me because the I don't want to call them students per se, but the attendees are all very, very bright. So I have to be on my A game. It was a blast.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Any uh particular experiences that you'll learn from during that time?

Why Praise Feels Risky

SPEAKER_00 1:52

It's in a three-year program and the year ones, which I expect them to be like little kids, freshmen, you know, and they're all in their 40s. Um, I realized this year, I used to think, oh man, why do you even listen to this kid up at the front of the room who has no idea what he's doing? And then I looked up and realized I'm older than everyone there, except for a few of the other instructors. But you and I were chatting about this before we started. I taught a class called Culture Matters and on how to create a great culture in an organization. And I I referenced the Gallup organization's research on this with millions of people around the world. And one of the factors was uh, did I get some sort of praise in the last week? And so the research shows someone they need some sort of genuine, sincere, honest, timely praise about once every seven to ten days. And it was one factor in all the stuff that I was teaching. But when I finished that class, several of the executives came up to me and said, I can't do that. Uh the first excuse they gave, which was, you know, stupid is I don't have time, help me with this, please, make time. But the other one, which was a little scary, was uh if I do that, people will want to raise. And uh I I can't give them raises, so I'm just not gonna praise them because I don't want them to have an expectation that praising equals increased compensation. And that was a little scary to me. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to work for someone who never gave you praise.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Also, that can be very easily applied to our personal lives as well. Yeah. Me having kids, clearly, I need to make sure that in in between the times where I'm saying don't do that, don't touch that. If you keep doing that, it can uh severely hurt you. That I need to say, you know, good job. You did something well, you are, I appreciate that you're studying in school.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

And that was the sort of stuff I said. It doesn't have to be earth shattering. It's hey, I, you know, I I appreciate you uh coming early to the meeting and chatting with me. Or I heard you dealing with that uh unhappy customer and you did a great job. I appreciate that. Uh, but these folks were scared to death of even doing that. So um who knows? It's uh it it'll be challenging for them to build a great culture around them or on their team or in their organization if they're gonna resist giving anyone praise.

Redefining Balance With Boundaries

SPEAKER_02 4:15

So it makes for a very unbalanced workplace. We are gonna talk about having balance in life today. Work-life balance is a thing that people talk about all the time. And I don't just want to talk about that. In fact, I'd rather not just talk about that. There are so many other factors that contribute to leading a balanced life, a healthy life where all of the different parts of you are being sufficiently tended to. Do you have a balanced life?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Because this is a great question. It depends on how you define balance. I had someone in my class this week ask me about that. You know, what is your life like, John? And how do you create balance in your life? And I'll I'll give you another story that I had years ago. I was doing a presentation to a group of very high-level executives. And a woman in the class said, you know, how do you have a balanced life when you're trying to be an executive in a global organization and you want to be home and, you know, make dinner for your family and hang out with your kids and uh, you know, have a hobby and be involved in your community. And she listed four or five other things in front of a whole bunch of their folks, I went, you don't. It doesn't exist that way. If you want to be, if you want this global executive, you're not having a balanced family life. And my answer this week was, you know, you have to, it's called boundaries. And I I saw Warren Buffett quote, but it it adds a lot of stuff is the most successful people are the ones who say no the most. So no to things. So my class, because I was teaching strategies for success to this group as well, uh, was you've got to align it with your values and your purpose. And if you're clear about your values and what your purpose in life is, which again, this this year I asked people what their purpose in life was. 600 people total over the week go through that class. Every single one of them said to be at some level to be of service to other people, my family, my community, whatever. But the whole thing came down to you know, what do you say no to? Me personally, I I don't watch TV, I don't watch movies, I don't have kids. Uh that frees up a lot of time to do the things that match my values, and I'm really good at saying no to anything that doesn't add value to my life that would be a not in good investment. So I'm pretty good about being able to shut things off and do important things in my life. Does that make sense? I'm kind of wandering around there, Josh, save me, help me here.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

I'm enjoying the fact that you're doggy paddling. No, of course it makes sense. What I really hear you saying is, or a part of what you're saying, because you're saying a lot, is that we determine what balance is.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Unless, of course, we've determined something is balanced and we find ourselves falling into ill health or picking up bad habits or finding ourselves in a situation where we're striving after this and that at work. And one of our blind spots that we talked about last week is that whatever it is that you're doing to do that is killing you. So it can be self-defined, sort of, but I also think that there's just a definition or a matrix that we can look at and measure ourselves against to see are we really living a balanced life or really addressing all the things in our lives so that all of them working together are making us the best that we can be.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

You mentioned that you have, I think, a framework or a process for this that I'm I asked you not to explain it to me before we went on because I'm interested in learning it myself right now and showing the genuine reaction I have to this earth-shattering idea you have that will totally change every listener's life and their family, the community, potentially the world. So I don't want to set the bar too high there, but you can't My God, what have you just done?

Physical Wellness That Sticks

SPEAKER_02 8:04

This is not reinventing the wheel. It is something that I stumbled upon as I was actually doing my job in senior engagement. So I work in a retirement community, and my job is to make sure that I provide events, activities, lectures in order for the folks who live there to have full lives. And this framework, I originally saw it was called the six dimensions of wellness. In further research, I see that some organizations include seven, some include eight. So the one that I'm looking at uh these days has eight dimensions of wellness. And you could probably guess what some of them are, but let's do go through it. And what I'd like to do is for both of us to take a little time to assess how we're doing with each of these dimensions. Excellent. So the first one is probably the most obvious one when we think of wellness, and that is physical wellness, caring for your body to stay healthy now and also to enable you to stay healthy in the future. Now, you have mentioned, and we've talked about this dimension a lot in this podcast, particularly when it comes to making sure that we maintain a healthy weight, exercise, eating, all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Well, for me, the biggest secret has been don't keep anything in the house that I'm not supposed to eat. Make it easy for me to win. And then, you know, I I um again, I got to spend some time with some super high-achieving people this last week. And one of them pounded into my head that you always make time to exercise. That that's if you don't take care of yourself, you won't be able to take care of anybody else. Because I find myself saying, I I gotta, and it to me it's not such a have to do the work with I get to work on a really cool project today. I want to get to the office and start on that immediately. And then I have to back off and say, no, the priority has to be to get around and move my body around and do some exercise and walk the dogs. But um, so for me, it's part making it easy to win, and number two, being disciplined enough to change my mindset to say, no, this is a priority. And even if the other thing's going to be fun, it comes after we do this.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

I have been become much more intentional with what I eat, doing research into what's good for me, what portion sizes are ideal, ordering meal kits instead of just going to um the grocery store and grazing, you know, just buying. Never go shopping when you're hungry.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Hungry, yeah.

Intellectual Curiosity Without Burnout

SPEAKER_02 10:36

This is a problem for me because we live across the street from a grocery store. So I'm driving home and I'm like, oh, I want all the things. So ordering meal kits has been super helpful for that. And then also I'm very invested in fasting right now, intermittent fasting, uh, allowing my body to recover and recuperate and heal. Of course, doing it safely and in a healthy manner. And that's intermittent fasting during the day, where I have a window in the day where I eat, and then the rest of the time I just don't. Not eating after 7 p.m. Um, and then every now and again taking longer fasts, like three-day fasts. So that's really what I'm concentrating on right now, is just making sure I pay attention to what I eat and how I eat. So let's look at the next one intellectual. So physical and then intellectual. So growing intellectually, maintaining your curiosity. I know that you have all of those books that you love to consume, both behind you and then the ones at home. So by and large, I I know that you maintain, you try to maintain razor-sharp intellectual curiosity.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

I well, I think one of the things that's that's helped me a lot is I have made a mental rule for myself that I refuse to read any business books or business stuff at home.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah. Yeah. If and I read every evening, uh, and it's philosophy or poetry or uh maybe a biography, something like that. But I pick things that are that are a whole different intellectual realm than what I'm normally focused on. So I I'm because I and this is sort of the mental wellness, health wellness, because I don't have a lot of those distractions, I spend a good solid three hours a day reading. Uh, but I switch it between work reading and intellectual curiosity. I for a while I was studying physics and cosmology for the simple idea of I didn't understand it. And it would challenge me to try to think about something that was so far out of the realm of what I normally would look at. So that's that's how I kind of keep things going. And, you know, uh I've learned that I'm a visual learner. I have a I can't really learn something very well if I'm not reading it, but I do have a couple of podcasts I enjoy listening to, uh, also to just keep coming from different types of information.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Well, and let's not forget that the type of job you do specifically automatically lends itself to needing to be intellectually sharp because you teach, you advise, you counsel. So clearly you've got to take the material that you're reading and that you've earned from experience, and you need to put it into a framework that helps people. And of course, that is a tremendous intellectual exercise.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Agree.

Emotional Regulation As A Skill

SPEAKER_02 13:24

I love listening to podcasts. I listen to podcasts whenever I'm in the car. I love learning what's going on in the world, what's happened in the world. But one thing that I really love to do, and that I've done quite a bit of this past year, is writing poetry. And that is both an emotional exercise, it's a bit of a vocational exercise, and we'll get into that. But also, obviously, it's an intellectual pursuit. And again, the idea is I want people to read my poems. In fact, I'm going to a poetry reading tonight. You should come. And I want my poems to benefit the world. And so that's that's kind of how I'm trying to use my intellect. Let's look at our next one: emotional. So obviously, understanding your emotions, being self-reflective enough to recognize them, but then also the more mature uh manifestation of emotional wellness is regulating your emotions.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

That is what the philosophy is for in the evenings. You know, it's interesting. I've I've been taking all the underlining from the different philosophy books and things like that that I've been reading and creating. And you've seen it, Josh. I've sent it to you, sort of my the AI is calling it the human operating system. I wouldn't use something that uh profound, but it's helping me get an idea of the ideas I keep focusing on from a philosophical and life philosophy standpoint. And I read a lot of stuff to remind me about staying calm and centered and understanding it's not what this is a big one for me uh from stoicism. It's not what happens to you in your life, it's how you choose to respond to it. And I'm a big fan of choosing to be happy and choosing to be kind and choosing to be understanding and choosing to be uh, I think I might have said it already, relaxed, calm, kind, low-key. Uh so that's a practice I have to do all the time. And I actually, you know, I had some, I actually enjoy challenging conversations because it gives me an opportunity to stretch that muscle of how do I handle something that someone else might be pretty perturbed about uh and use it as a chance to make them smile. So from that standpoint, I'm constantly trying to, like you say, be self-reflective and then self-regulate. And and by the way, I have not been good at this for parts of my life. I've been extremely bad at that, uh, very young in my life. So it's for those listening and watching, it's a skill you can develop. Absolutely a skill you can develop.

Social Wellness And Real Friendship

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Uh, it's a skill that you need to develop. The emotions they come unbidden, and we don't know necessarily where they're from. We don't know whether to expect them. Developing tools to be able to handle these things, very important. Very important. You don't all of a sudden decide that you're gonna have smoke alarms in your house while the place is engulfed in flames. So same, same thing here. You know, it's funny because I do approach my emotional state a lot differently than you do. I mean, I do a lot of studying on philosophies and and understanding the synchronicity of religions. I do do that. A lot of the things that I've done to learn more about my emotional state and to regulate my emotions have to do with the arts and creativity. I like to paint, I like to write songs, I like to write poetry. And these things, yes, they are an intellectual pursuit, but all of these dimensions, they are interconnected, they are interrelated. You know, a lot of the things that you talked about just now with the philosophy, yes, that addresses the emotional dimension, but we will also talk about the spiritual dimension coming here in a few seconds. So um, so how I approach regulating my emotions is through the arts. And it's very therapeutic for me. Very therapeutic. I did some journaling. I started journaling probably three years ago, and through that writing, I've had done a lot of self-therapy, you know, and through that way of expressing myself. So, really the way I deal with emotions is a lot of creative expression. Excellent. It's working so far, I would like to think. Next dimension is social. So healthy relationships, being with others, friendships. And then, you know, the more mature manifestation of that is through relationships, improving the lives of the people in the community around you.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

This has been an interesting one, and it's kind of one I I've I picked up during the pandemic. I think I've told people is uh I have chosen a group of people. We share the values of honesty and and respect and you know dignity and all those things. So they're nice people to be around, but they're also very bright. And I've gone out of my way to make sure that I spend time with them. And some of them are on other parts of the world. Uh I have I'll be on a phone call today at about four o'clock, four thirty with um my friends in New Zealand on their Sunday morning. Uh, and my buddy, while he's walking his dog in the morning, calls me and we catch up for about an hour. Uh, and I make those things a major priority. So I've got people that every, and then the, you know, that I make sure that I stay in contact with. And I spend quality time, although it might be on Zoom in my community. Uh and you and I just did this the other day. I pick the people I really, really like and make a make a uh habit of getting together for breakfast or lunch or spending time and making sure it's quality time.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Uh that we're not just hanging out, but we're we're enriching each other's lives in positive ways when we spend time together.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

The pandemic really did a number on us, and it really turned us, meaning my family, into a bunch of ostriches. First of all, we were compelled to be so. But second of all, when lockout was gone, we had fallen into this habit of not pursuing friendships and relationships, of just continuing to be in our home. I'd beg to say that there are several people listening now who are nodding their heads and saying, Yeah, that I did that and I got out of it, or I'm still in the midst of that. So we had to intentionally and are still uh being very intentional about climbing out of that, having people over, meeting our neighbors, making uh contact with friends that we've lost touch with, and really intentionally doing everything that we can to nurture those relationships. Because look, the old saw is you don't make best friends when you're a certain age and above. I don't know how true that is or not. I'd like to disprove that because the alternative is that you reach a point where you look around, you're saying, Well, where are my friends now? Well, they're all gone. Oh, and I've not invested the time into making new ones or whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

The famous Harvard study on this that you know lasted generations, they just updated it last week. And I it's over a hundred years now they've been doing it. And the answer is still exactly the same. The happiest people in the world are the ones that have a few very close, extremely important relationships with other people. So long-term relationships are the single biggest indicator of having what people would consider a happy life.

Spiritual Meaning Through Service

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Yeah, and the thing that I've always said, and I didn't come up with it, but the most important thing in life is the deep connections you make with other people. Period. Okay, so let's look. There's three more now. We've got, or no, four more. There's spiritual. Now, you talked again a little bit about this when you're talking about digging into uh the philosophy and all these different things. And this is just the idea of with or without organized religion, finding purpose, value, and meaning in life, particularly meaning in life.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Well, it that ties back to what I told you this week uh of every single person in all my classes said that their meaning in their life was to be of service to others. For me, yeah, and I don't know if we discussed this. Yeah, we did. One of the other ones is the for some reason, the philosophy I've been reading, which has been Stoicism, Buddhism, pragmatism, a few, a bunch of isms. Uh, I seem to fall right in the middle of all of them are about death, uh, right now, contemplating death. And, you know, that sounds oppressive, but actually it's enlightening because, you know, I I figured out, and I think we we mentioned it, but I I'm proud, you know, happy to say this again because I think it's important. The little phrase I came up with is be today what you want them to say when you die. And I talked about it in the class this week. It's kind and generous. I just want to be kind. Kind to other people, respectful, generous of my time, my ideas, my money, whatever I can do. And to me, spirituality comes through me trying to live that every day and continue to explore how I can be of service to other people.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, and I grew up in the church. I grew up in organized religion. And one aspect of spiritual wellness that I think that's missing in a lot of people who are quote unquote religious is the idea that their activities, what they do, their actions are consistent to what they say they believe and what they say they value. To me, that's real spirituality. You know, whatever flavor it is that you subscribe to, that you are subscribing to it in a way that's honest and that is consistent with what it is you say you believe.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Beautiful.

Vocational Fit And Purposeful Hobbies

SPEAKER_02 22:49

And as I mentioned, I'm I'm really uh, you know, like I said, I grew up in in the church and I thought I was going to be a pastor at one point. So I'm really still intrigued by studying the commonalities of all of these different religious systems because therein, I think, in the Venn diagram, the exact center of that, therein lies the truth, I believe. And so that's what I'm searching for. Excellent. Okay. Vocational, participating in work that provides you with personal satisfaction and again with enrichment, with engagement that is consistent with your values, and then taking those gifts and those talents and those skills and the things that you do as work, whether it's paid work or community work, and making a difference in the world.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

I'm one of the lucky people, and I don't know when I figured this out, but um I want quote-unquote work to be fun. Uh, when I graduated from college, I had a little bit different view of this. Um, my goal was to get paid to travel around the world, play golf, drink rum drinks, and lay on the beach. And believe it or not, the first job I had, which was doing research on billfish and other palegic species, I traveled around the world to islands, played golf, laid on the beach, drank rum drinks, and did something important to be sure. I mean, we were helping save fish species, but I've tried ever in my whole life to get paid to do what I would have paid to do on vacation.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Um, and uh in the podcast I've been listening to, and a lot of the people I've met that I would consider quote unquote very successful, every one of them says, I'm doing something I love to do. Uh and uh I listen to a podcast now of some of the most famous founders in the world. One I'm just listening to James Dyson from Dyson Vacuums and everything else. He's like, I've just pursued curiosity and having fun and experimenting, and everything else has fallen into place as far as making money and things go. And he's gotten a point like, and of course, people who've made a lot of money say this usually is it's not about the money.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Yes. Easy for you to say, pal.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yeah, when you've got it, you know, three jets. But on the other side of the corner, uh, there are plenty of people I've met that are not massively wealthy, but say if you just spend your life trying to be of service to people, help them support them, and do it in a way that you enjoy and you're passionate about and love, it's probably gonna work out okay in the end.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

But I do also want to stress that not every job that you have is gonna provide that for you because that's just the nature of reality. I I think that that hobbies and avocations and things like that are so very important. I will tell you, I get a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction in doing podcasting. You know, these these podcasts with you, and then I've got one with Amanda, my wife, that as far as podcasting go, that's my first love. To me, I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of doing this and also, you know, doing my my art and doing my paintings and writing. And so all of these things, they're not just hobbies because I don't think there's such a thing as just a hobby. I think that they are important to give you that wellness.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

You know, you said something important, and I I I've seen this in feedback from people I've gotten is I'm not really in love with my job, but it's a good job. It's not that stressful. I like the people I work with, but I'm I'm not passionate about my job. And I've often told people that's okay then. What are you passionate about? And do it the rest of the time. Be involved in your community, pursue a quote unquote hobby, you know, do whatever you want to do. So maybe the time at work isn't the most fulfilling part of your life, but it's it's a good job, it's a stable job, you get paid well, it's enjoyable. Do the other stuff on the off hours or the weekends, make a major difference after work and when you're not working. So that's my thought on that.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Oh, absolutely. And when it's a hobby, then that's the where the passion is, you know. And and oftentimes you'll see people where they are just doing the job, but their hobby, their their avocation, their volunteer work, that's where they're really affecting the community.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

They're side hustle.

Financial Wellness Without Regret

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Yeah, that's right. Well, again, the word hustle, I think, then now takes the little bit of the passion out of it. All right, a couple more here financial, managing your resources so that you can live within your means, making informed financial decisions, and then also being able to benefit others, your family, and then others around you with the finances that you earn.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Uh, someone in my class, because it uh this week was the financial industry I was actually with, said, What advice would you give your younger self financially? I would have, and I did a pretty good job of this, but I would have done better is is pay myself first, put aside money, take the first 10%, maybe it's sort of tithe to my own future, uh, which I did pretty good job at. Uh so pay myself first, put the money away. And then number two is as soon as I got a little bit of money, get a financial advisor that knows how to take care of it for you. Uh so that that worry is it's well invested, it's well done. I've had the same financial advisor, guy in town here in Gainesville, John Fisher. Uh, strong relationship with my financial advisor. I carry his do not resuscitate, and he carries mine. So a lot of trust there. Yeah, I don't have to worry about all that. Somebody else has it for me. And then the last one, this is I'm now I'm giving advice here, is and I've told this to my team, buy insurance while you're young and it's and it's life insurance while you're young and it's inexpensive. Uh because in my own family, when my mom died, it was the probate and everything and clearing up bills and stuff was pretty damn expensive. And if it had not been for the insurance she bought, it would have, it would have wiped us out, or it would have wiped out, it would have wiped out every single thing she'd saved. Uh, and we wouldn't have had anything. Um, so I think that's an important thing. And you as a father, you know, you've got kids and stuff like that. Um, I don't think a lot of people think about that, but I'm a happen to be a fan for make sure the people are taken care of after you're gone.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Sure. Yeah, and being a father, the first thing that that we think of is making sure that we have to college taken care of. And so that's we got one that's through college, one and two that are in college right now. And then, of course, the nine-year-old, which is screwing everything up. But you know, you know, making sure that they are are taken care of so that they can reach a point where they can take care of themselves. And then the other thing is just for the rank and file of us, just don't make stupid credit mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Don't credit is so important. So educate yourself on that and don't screw yourself. It actually is a lot easier to do if you pay attention, but the problem is it's so easy to swipe the card or tap the card as they do these days. Not dealing with paper money was a tremendous obstacle for me when I was younger because it made it so easy just to like I didn't have to go to the bank and withdraw. I didn't have to actually see the numbers on the bills, you know, which again makes you aware of what you're spending. Nah. Swipe done. Oh, that's magic, younger me thought. That's amazing. I'm gonna do this a lot because that feels really good to just swipe. Well, that was a problem. Um, so just be very aware and intentional. Be aware, as I said earlier, of what you eat. Be aware of what you spend and how you spend it.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

And there's a phrase that I I like don't buy things that you don't need with money that you don't have to impress people that don't care.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Yes. You know, that would short circuit a lot of our problems if we didn't try to impress people who at the end of the day just don't care.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I had my big lesson when I in the hurricane when I lost everything I owned, uh, and realized there was a lot of stuff I didn't really need to replace. Yeah. Uh so it it's it's made me a little bit more focused on where do I spend my money. And I do ask myself a lot, do I really need this? And the answer an awful lot of the time is no, not really. No, it's not not gonna help. It's not important.

Environmental Wellness At Home

SPEAKER_02 31:05

There is shocking little that we actually need. Agreed. All right, lastly, environmental. This is one that I hadn't really considered, but understanding how not just the earth, you know, not just nature, but also your social environment um and your the built environments that are around you, how they affect your health and wellness. And I know for me, and more so for my wife Amanda, if we have a messy house, then it mentally weighs on us. You know, it it makes us on edge, we can't relax, we can't be calm. And so the thing that we're doing right now towards addressing our environmental wellness is just making sure that this place is neat, that we get rid of the things that we don't need, that every room looks like how we want it to look. I think I told you a couple of episodes ago that it's an exercise that we're doing right now, where we'll take uh a journal page and we'll say, okay, how do I want this room to make me feel? Write that down. And then what things in the room right now don't lend themselves to that? And then what new things might we put into this room to make sure that it achieves that goal? And it's going to be revolutionary when we finish doing it.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Excellent. Um, I I'm both my wife and I are big art lovers. And we we buy and you know, not expensive stuff, but most of the stuff we have is now pretty much everything in our house is painted by or created by someone we know. Uh almost everything. And it's usually tied to a memory. So every we've got my house covered. So every time I walk past a painting, I can think of, oh, that's when Sheila and I got married in Crested Butte. We found that guy that had a pretty painting. And he, like when we were there, the guy we told him as our wedding went back, oh, let me change it. He painted some new stuff and put some new things. We like landscapes a lot. Uh, so every time I walk through my house, I see something beautiful that reminds me of something special and important. And we moved that artwork around quite a bit so that when we're walking in different rooms, there are different feelings that come from that. And we have something really interesting in our house, and I don't know that many people do. Almost every wall in our house has painted a different color. Oh, interesting. I didn't realize it till I looked around one day and said, but we have a palette that's sort of um, we have a craftsman style home, and a palette I would call sort of a desert palette with uh olive drabs and like brick red or thing like that. And my wife was really cool. And each room, our dining room is chocolate cutter, uh, our living room's a different color, and all the lines just sort of hitting her painted down the middle. I didn't realize how cool it was that every room has its own sort of vibe because it's a different color to the room right next to it.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Uh so yeah, I when we go to sell our house, someone's either gonna walk in and go, This is really cool. They go, shit, we have to repaint the entire place. I thought, like, do we do we patch, even worry about patching the walls when we pull the artwork down? Because somebody's gonna probably come in and go, put the whole thing eggshell.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Oh, yeah. Now that will be a nightmare for someone moving in. And if they want to touch up a thing, it's like, okay, well, this is not that shade of eggshell. This is the other shade of eggshell.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

We have all of it written down. Yes, good, all of it written down with uh little jars of it saved, yeah, so that someone can take it and go get a copy. Because we have to do that all the time too. But yeah, looking at it going, someone's either gonna love this or they're gonna go, these people are freaks.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Very good, very good. And probably I would assume it sounds like you've got a wonderfully calm house that it really just feels safe and secure and just a nice warm feeling when you when you're there, especially if you're like maybe coming home from traveling.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Well, the big thing for us too is our yard.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I I don't collect cars, I don't have a boat, I don't have any really expensive stuff, but we we do invest a lot in our yard, and that is my sanctuary when we come home of going. I mean, we've got a yard that people take wedding pictures in or baby pictures or graduation. I've we actually had two wakes there because that's the magnificent calm, and it's not a huge yard, but it we it's something like today. I'm gonna go to Home Depot and buy some seeds and some other stuff to get ready for the spring, and that's a hobby for me, but it's also a hobby that when I come home after a week or two, I'm doing it this week. It's oh my god, the art's coming back. This is gorgeous. There's starting to be flowers everywhere. Yeah, that's another part of creating a great environment for us.

Homework And Closing Links

SPEAKER_02 35:40

I love it. Well, that's great. Yep, there you go. Can't forget, you know, it's so important for us as human beings to go touch grass sometimes. Yep. We've talked a little bit about balance, we've talked through this framework. If you would like to look it up yourselves, those of you listening, just look up dimensions of wellness and you will see probably some with a little bit of variation, but basically all of these things. And again, the dimensions of wellness that we talked about today are physical wellness, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental. You have to be intentional about these. And we could probably fill up an entire podcast series about how we can um address each one of them, and maybe we will going forward. Who knows? It's all everything is content. But John, for today, do you have any homework for us?

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Uh well, I I think I just said it without realizing it is picking a couple of these areas in Santa Rite. If this is, I'll I'll give the example for me, like the paintings and stuff, which are again are nothing special, is we're very intentional about making sure the surroundings in our home make us calm and comfortable, and everything has a nice memory attached to it. Uh, and that's something we've done, you know, intentionally. And then we talked about health, uh, rem not buying anything else, not buying anything food-wise that you shouldn't be eating. It's very intentional, and once you get used to it, it's very easy. So there is no cheating on your diet because there's nothing there to cheat with.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we will endeavor to continue to address these things. All right, John, that's about our time today. Um, I would like to thank you for your time. As always, I really appreciate this. Um, anything uh uh that you're thankful for or anyone that you want to thank today?

SPEAKER_00 37:37

I'd like to thank the team that runs the event I was just at. It's um my favorite event of the year, I mentioned earlier, but this is my 27th year there, and a lot of the people have become family. It's a lot of fun and they treat me great. So it's it's like going home to visit a happy family of nice people that love each other. So the whole team at the Securities Industry Institute gets a big shout out from me.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Excellent, love it. All right, folks, thank you for joining us. If you want to know a little bit more about John, then go to johnspence.com. He and his team have a whole bunch of different resources there so that you can live an a more awesome life. A lot of it is business focused, but all of these lessons, I think, um, that that he teaches, because he grounds everything in love and compassion, are applicable to your entire lives. Wouldn't you say, John? Absolutely. If you want to find out more about me, uh, and I don't know why you'd want to do that, but you know, there is the option to do that after you click off of johnspence.com after spending hours and hours and hours there. Spend a couple minutes over at familiarwilsonsmedia.com. Find out about me and the podcasts that I release into the world. Um, so until next week, John, uh I just want to have you join me in encouraging all the folks out there to live an incredibly awesome life.