I think you can remain balanced internally, but not externally.
These are two different.
I absolutely believe that for an entrepreneur, you will always have somebody who wants your attention.
You’ll always be needed.
Somewhere the family will want you and you’ll go. The business will want you and you’ll go.
You will always be pulled in a direction.
Your life is probably spent counterbalancing.
I’m never really been balanced as an entrepreneur.
One muscle is relaxing, one muscle is contracting to keep me counterbalanced.
And that’s what we do as an entrepreneur.
The job is to consciously recognize when you’ve gone too far.
Don’t take life too seriously.
But if it’s all fun, you’re probably going to be in a bit of trouble and equally, if it’s all serious, you’re going to be a bit miserable.
And what was the point?
So, I think your goal is to recognize that you will always be pulled apart externally for family, for business, and you’ll always find an excuse not to see your friends.
I think you’ve got to start building into a habit, where you just go, right? Have the courage to just go.
There’s no bias anywhere.
What there is, is a habit and a way of living, and you take that habit to every area of your life.
The kids need you for six weeks. They need you for six weeks, but they can’t need you for 52. That’s just not normal.
There’s other areas of your life that need to be served. You’re setting a standard for your kids, right?
I remember having this conversation with somebody once. And this person said, “I just live for my kids.”
I said, “do you think your kids are going to do the same?”
He said, “what do you mean?”
I said, “well, if they’re seeing you living for them, guess what they’re going to do? They’re going to live for their kids. Then their kids are going to live for their kids.”
We’re all just setting precedence for the next generation to absolve them of having to do anything in life or tackle any big problems, or be courageous enough to do something.
And instead of going “actually, I want to be in control of my own life, and do my own thing,” I’ll just have the judgment and the discernment to say I need to flex over here this weekend, or I need to flex back over there next week.
What everybody does is just something that’s easy. It’s convenient, it makes them look good.
It just becomes a simple lazy habit.
And you’re not necessarily living the life that you want.
But I do think the fight of your life is whether or not you can control how you feel about all of that.
You can’t.
As I stand here, I don’t think you can control the time thing. I think you’ll always be sucked out.
But I do think you can control how you feel about that, but you can stay calm.
You can stay balanced. You can stay comfortable. You don’t have to live with guilt.
You don’t have to live with fear you, don’t have to live with regret.
It’s your choice. Choose wisely as to what you want to do.
The three things I think I could pass on to my kids would be to figure out how to live a life without fear.
Fear, guilt and regret. And as you can eradicate those three things from your playbook, you’ve got a chance.
Easier said than done, right?
But we live in a world where everybody promotes it.
Whenever you talk about balance and about an entrepreneur being balanced, you’ve got to separate the two.
You’re absolutely in control of how you feel about being unbalanced.
And if you have that awareness to say, “it’s time to go back over here. And under no circumstances am I out of sync. I’m not going to work on the weekend. I’m not going, I promised I’d go home.”
I must do this. I must do this. I must do this.
Separate the two internal from external.
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