The Master Mix (Episode 23)

What if work-life balance is the wrong goal? Using the analogy of a recording studio mixing console, Kyle and Kim explore how life's most important areas require constant adjustment, not equal attention. Discover how becoming the master of your own mix can replace guilt with intention and help you make better decisions about where your energy belongs.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Here we are with another episode of Legacy Live. I'm your host, Kyle Hosick.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And I'm your host, Kim Fitzpatrick.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

And we're talking about gymnastics today.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Yeah, we're talking about gymnastics, balance, and calibration.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Okay, we're back. Gymnastics, that was stupid. We're talking about it. But I mean, like the balanced beam. Yeah, it's okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

It's perfect. Okay, balanced beam. Okay. And it's so interesting when you think about a balanced beam because can you ever you're you're always shaky on the balanced beam. So I like this analogy.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I would fall right with the beam between my legs, and then I would scurry off back to the change room, never to be seen again.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

And I have done that. And it's awful. It's terrible. Um, but yeah, we want to talk about balance. And and I remember we chatted a couple times about the pendulum, right? And this whole idea. But today we wanted to take it a little bit of a different angle because we do. We we talk, we coach students, we coach business owners, we are business owners, we are coaches, we are people that are we're we're parents.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

We're there's so many different hats that yeah, the balance beam you fall off to the left or the right, but in life, you can fall off in like 16 different directions.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Literally, because you're we are all holding 16 different things all at the same time. Like anyone that's listening or watching, like think of the things you have on your priority list right now that used to be a priority list and now it's priorities. My key priorities are this. So, really, we want to talk about that. It is a bit of a this like I was I was talking to some of my uh young group of a young group of friends, one of my kids, and they were talking about balance. And at one point I remember saying, you know, I don't really, it's not that I don't want to say I don't believe in it, but I don't live by balance. Okay. Because I don't have a balanced life. I don't have a balance life. This is what the kids said. No, this is what I'm saying. So I was trying to say to them, I was like, in my head, I was like, when they're like, I have balance, I have such a healthy balance. I do this and then I do this, and I do this, and I feel so good because I got this balance. And in my head, I just was sharing with them. I was like, that's so awesome that you feel that way. I said, I don't really operate with balance. I've never really felt like I have balance because then I would get into like when I this, and I'll say this, okay. When this is over, I will relax. And I caught myself in this pattern. And then I was like, Well, I'm gonna say that every day till I die because never is it going to ever be a light load as a founder, entrepreneur, or whatever that is, put your titles in. But I like the idea of rhythm. And I ended up sharing it with this, this, this young, this young guy. And I said, you know, I I love that you have this balance, but I like to think about the thought of rhythm because there's a season of your building or you're doing this or you're doing that. So this rhythm might be, oh gosh, I'm gonna be working harder and I might be getting that walk-in and the lift might be. I have to have a rhythm knowing that I can't be fixed.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yeah. Okay. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Because then I'm not failing. Like if I if I think of balance and I think of I'm gonna stop doing this and I'm gonna do this, and then actually that's where the anxiety comes in for me because I'm okay working on a Sunday afternoon at two if it sets me up for the entire week that I can be so productive.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Is that where this whole thing started? Because the first time I heard balance was work-life balance, those three words together. And it makes me wonder like, I think that sounds like a disgruntled employee came up with that term where they're like, hands off, employer, it's 459. You've got 60 more seconds of my attention, or else I'm gonna say, I need work-life balance. Do you think that's where that originally is?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

I think it could have been, and I think we're conditioned to think that we need that. And if you don't want that, then you're not normal.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah, because the employer would never insist on work-life balance, yeah, at least in the early days. I know there's a lot of employees, uh, excuse me, employers that want you to check out, they care about mental health. That's been a tide change recently. But that was the first time I remember even considering balance. I never even thought about it. Yeah, and I think But that's a left and a right work life. You're either falling off on the work side or falling off on the life side. Right. And I think that's the misnomer.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

It is the misnomer because there can be rhythm or balance if that's your favorite word. It depends on what it is. But like you're not gonna have that. If you're say you're a professional athlete, you have to train at such a different caliber. There isn't balance. There's, you know, you might have flow where, you know, and I remember, I remember one time I said you we'd had a we'd had a super full week, and I was like, I know what I need. I need a date night with Jamie, I need a great night's sleep, and I'm gonna be amazing in the morning because that rest and recovery got pocketed into this a beautiful experience and then deep rest. And I was ready to roll the next day. It wasn't like if I take a week off, I'll come back good as new. Not to say that's good or bad. I'm just saying for me personally, I'm at a point where we we can't do that. And it's like, at what point do would people look at us and say, well, that doesn't you don't have balance? It's not up to somebody else to tell you you don't have balance. It's up to you to say, I feel really good at the way that I'm showing up in all these different areas, but giving yourself permission to know that some days you can't do it all. Like there's that misnomer of you can have it all. Can you? Do you think you can?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Balance is up if I feel balanced and I'm doing 80% work and 20% life, I'm about that you can't tell me what balance is.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

I love that. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So I think uh go back to 459 when life balance is supposed to be 60 seconds away. What I don't like about that definition is if I can respond to an email at 7 o'clock PM to make sure the next day goes a little smoother for me, that's still balance. Like because if I put that off and I'm thinking about how I didn't respond to that email and I let that carry through till I go to bed at 10 o'clock, I've just screwed up the life balance I have by not letting a bit of the work get done in the middle of my pocketed area for life balance. And then I have both sides screwed up.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yep. And that's where I think a lot of people will struggle with, whether that be inner conflict or feeling like they're behind or they're not good enough. I'm trying to do this thing, you know, I'm trying to do this. But it is really, really important to figure out what is that for you? What do you actually need?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Because it's not black and white, it's not left or right, and it's not work or life.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Right. The other thing that I really, and again, uh this this one gentleman that I was talking about with rhythms, he's he met, he circled back with me the next week. He's like, I need to tell you. He goes, That was life changing. I was like, How? Tell me. He's like, because it's true. He's like, because what if I didn't have that balance? Would I not then would I not be satisfied with my life?

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

And I was like, well, that's deep. But it's true. I said, you're right. That's what I was running into because I didn't take that time. I remember one time I would always pride myself being like, Oh, I remember like I have amazing, amazing friends that would be like, you need to watch this Netflix series or whatever. And I was like, Huh, must be nice. They have all this, and I'd be resentful, almost judgmental of, and I actually think I was coveting some of that because I was like, gosh, I didn't have the luxury of that. I didn't have the luxury of just unplugging. My life is totally different now. I'm not the same person, I'm not the same business owner, I'm not the same how I show up, even and I am and I'm a different season with my kids. They're not but different. Everything's so different. So I think we can blanket ourselves of I don't, I don't do it that way. But what if you change? And what if you do it this way now? You can change your mind any day. You can say, actually, balance really relates to me. And this, I feel in balance because I'm doing this. But for me, it's I love the idea of rhythm. And you brought up something really amazing, and it's interesting because this is talk about like presence, talk about awareness, talk about curiosity. But you showed me that knob on the Yeah, a martial amplifier.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Uh what tells me.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

It's weird how I use music so much in like the I have another one that actually just popped into my head now. Like, you know, when you go to a concert, say you were at the Air Canada Center, there's a mixing board, right? And there's 64 what they call faders across the mixing board, and they look like this, right? You see the sound guy, he's the bass drum needs to be a little louder, the bass guitar is too loud, so you pull that fader down. Do you know why they do that before every show? Because the room they play in is dictating how the sound is gonna function, and that professional sound mixer has to move all those faders to suit that room perfectly, and that's balance. He doesn't just go how much do I want on the left or how much do I want on the right? It could be time with my kids, emails I'm responding to, and it one day to the next, you're playing in a different venue, you have a different headspace, and all those faders need to be brought to zero, and then you slowly bring them up to create a balanced sound in your life. So when you were talking about calibration, I was like, I wonder if I can use a guitar amplifier here because maybe some of you have noticed like there's a bunch of knobs across a guitar.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

I actually never noticed that. That's my point. Okay, I've never paid attention.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Like, there isn't just volume. Yeah, there's all there's bass, there's treble, there's mids, and on a marshall from the 70s, which is an amplifier I have. I realized there's a there's a knob there called presence, which I've never even I've never even thought to show Kim this knob, presence. I think we're gonna make like a coaching industry t-shirt coming out of this. I love it. That's just a big Marshall knob and the presence on that gold front panel.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

What does presence do? I really appreciated when you taught me that.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

So when you dial in the bass and you have the mids happening and you get the sound that you want, presence will actually kind of move this the entire sound from front to back to make it feel more present to your ears. It's a very subtle knob, it's not like volume, it's not like gain, it's not like bass or treble, but it's a knob that they put on there for a reason. And I want everyone listening to picture like, where are all of your faders? And just because your family fader isn't pinned at 20 and redlining, you know, like at the top of those faders, they've got the little needles. Yeah, the red line is bad. The red line is bad, and that maybe this speaks to balance is like it's gonna distort, and everyone's probably thinking they need all their faders up at 10. Yeah, and that's gonna be the worst sound you've ever heard when you got everything cranked, and the best thing the bet they always start at zero, yeah, and then they slowly bring them up. Yeah, they're not bringing them up so slow that the show is delayed, but they're choosing one at a time what sounds balanced here, and you can do that every minute of every day where you go, you know what, I'm bringing this fader to zero. This sounds like noise, and it's making me feel anxious or unbalanced. And I'm gonna start again tomorrow because we're playing a different venue. Yeah, my to-do list is different.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

That's exactly what was resonating with me when you were talking about, and maybe some of this will land for some of you that are listening, is that every day's different. Yeah, so if you're going in trying to have the same structure, but yet you're like, no, I'm I didn't, I missed my workout at 6 a.m. that I had scheduled. I missed this, I missed this, I missed that. Oh, I oh, I'm behind my day. Well, what if it's, you know, I yes, I believe, and I used to be one that was like, it's time management, you time block. I I like to do energy blocks where it's like if I know, and maybe this will relate for some of you, but it's like, uh, I don't have a bedtime. I envy and I'm excited for one day when it's not summer with teenagers, where you're not like, okay, are they alive? Have they okay? They're yep, okay. Location, why are they running?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

It's 11:30 at night, and you're trying to so there's gonna be I but that's a fader that you're dealing with with teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

And I love that fader because that is a value. And I love it. So I could spend my time, oh, can't get up. Yeah, no, yeah, I'm going to the gym at five today. I'm pumped. That's the that to me is rhythm. It now it's dictated, and I don't want and I never do that. What I love about coaching is now it's not here, let me give you my schedule that works for my life. It's giving you autonomy to say what does work for you. And if you're following someone else's path, because you know, I think there's a lot of models that are out there and planners and things like that. I love them. I love a good planner, but right now I have a blank notebook, I've got my iCalendar, and I've got a list and I know exactly what the key priorities are, and I know where we're moving them at what point. And then everything's scheduled from, you know, and I used to do theme days and we've chatted about this. Should we do blocks for this? Should we do blocks for this? We're like, oh, hold on. Let's just what do we need right now in this season? And it's like, where's the flow in the schedule? Because that day of calls might not work because you actually need to do one on a Friday morning because of the pressing. But that takes it out of that. Like, I'm locked in this. This is sorry, this is the only day I do a call. You know, I just had a one of my one-to-one private clients message me and she's like, Hey, I'm off. Can we do a two calls that I'm like, yeah, totally. This is for you.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

But if I was so locked in to nope, this is when I only do this, nope, this is when I only do that, that would cause conflict, that would cause conflict with the autonomy that I have. So the whole point for this is, and it makes me feel actually breath right now, even just talking about it. Cause I'm like, think I just that is how I want to be coached. That's how I coach. Is what does that feel like for you? What does it feel like for you to have rhythm in this day today? What's on your schedule today that you need to first highlight? And you know, I were you gonna jump in there?

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Um, I I just say you can't live by what somebody else tells you balance looks like. And I'm gonna go back to my music venue because if they say, Here's my mixing board, follow this, and they go to your venue and you don't touch any of the faders, and you just set up in there and you're a completely different person, it's gonna sound like shit. Yeah, that's why you move the faders to suit the venue. So your faders are your faders, your mixing board is yours. Don't let someone tell you, like, oh, that's too heavy on the base because they don't know you. And to like have like a blanket program that's like, sign up for my seminar, I'm gonna teach you to live a balanced life. It's like, how? You how do you don't know anything about me? You're you're telling me how your life is balanced, which is great. I love hearing stories of other people's balance so that I can properly frame mine, but this is all in your control. All these faders, you have to decide when they go up and when they go down.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

And and this applies to business, this implies to your life, this implies to relationships, this applies to your sleep schedule. Yes, you know, I I used to get up at early. Now I'm like, well, if I'm in bed at midnight, there isn't a chance that I can survive how much we have to be on. Yeah. And it's a beautiful different pace. Yes. And again, where at what point do you give yourself that cadence and that calibration of like, oh, today's this perfect? Okay, yep, tomorrow. Whereas there's some mornings where I'm like, oh my gosh, I got rustled awake. It's 5 a.m. fired up. Poor Kyle's got like nine texts by nine P or 9 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Phones vibrating and it's still dark. Great.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

But you know, it's like, where do you have? So, how do you have flow? How do you have rhythm? What is your word? Because for some people you might be like, but that's balance.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

And that's okay. You there's no argument here. It's just what's the word that aligns for you? And we wanted to pique your interest today and your curiosity when you do look at something that's working for someone else. I loved that lens of your own fader and mixing board because it's like, what's it gonna look like each day? And that's the thing where it's the pen, it's the whole thing about the pendulum. Where is it going? Is it you might be a parent with a brand new baby? That's a completely different season than someone that's got teens. You might be someone that's an empty nester that doesn't even relate. You have empathy for my tired bags. And I God bless you, because you're like, please hold on to those next 24 months of tiredness because you will be very wishing you had those. So it's like living in the moment. And I go back to that button and that dial as well. I love this analogy where it's like, you know, I heard someone once say, if I were to turn down the volume, the data, the presence on your life, would I be able to watch how you move and see that everything you do in silence is moving you towards the goal you want.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

And that is what I believe rhythm is. Doesn't matter how my day looks, it's how it feels for me. And if I know that I'm checking these boxes and I'm balanced here, then the next day I recalibrate and I look in my morning and and it's like I walk in with my journal of like, today I will show up as. Today I will, and this is how I'm gonna be, and this is how I'm gonna feel because that's the only thing I can control is how I show up. You know, there's stuff sometimes. You're gonna have dumpster dump dumpster fires to the dump, right? To coin our dump. You're gonna have dumpster fires going on in your life, but you need to show up with presence. How are you gonna compartmentalize that? How are you gonna do that? You do that by being where you are and getting it out and then being able to go back into life where you need to be, you know, totally. But I just yeah, it's I think it's an important topic about do you believe in balance?

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Well, and also, you know, sort of in closing, I would say balance isn't a template. And I think everyone maybe thinks it is, and you feel like you're unbalanced if you're living outside the template. And that's the thing where you could just feel better right now because it's not a template, it's unique to you. And that's my take.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

I like that. We did write down some questions, okay. Um, and it was all about the personal and business calibration. So these are a couple things. It's like really asking yourself what season am I in? And you can ask that in the week. Your season can change. Oh, I'm gonna sing again. Winter, spring, summer.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Okay, well, so this whole season thing, I'm in summer because it's summer. Matt, are you in summer? Yeah, I I don't get this season.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

No, but that's it. No, but but but your summer season might be lighter. Yeah, but and that's okay. I wish right, but it's like that's it, or where's most of your energy going right now?

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Uh is this intentional or reactive?

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

You know, um, what's the biggest constraint in my life or business? Like, I like though asking yourself those things because it's like, where are you gonna move the needle in that? Yeah, and it just gives you a little bit of reflection and where do I want to be and how do I want to feel? And you we ask ourselves these questions each day. And when we meet for our business huddles with our team and with ourselves, we ask ourselves these big questions of what's the outcome of this?

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Where are your faders at?

SPEAKER_00 19:32

I I feel like this is it. It's the that's what we've discovered through this. It's like, where are your faders? And that's such a cool analogy. And maybe we can like mix in because we've got this awesome. Now you're DJ scratching human Matt. Can we like, wouldn't it be so cool to like just the faders, like putting that? Maybe on our volume, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

He could mute us and pull our volume up. Like, that's exactly how faders work. What a neat there's a balance happening right here where your volume is one volume and mine is one volume, and you gotta get them just right, and then you have a good may not be a good podcast, but it'll sound good.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

But I hope what we leave you with is a bit of peace. That your volume and your mixtures and your rhythms don't need to look a certain way. They're the only way that they can look for you.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

As long as you feel balanced, who gives a shit what the faders look like?