Speaker 1: That's the part where we go wrong. We try to
Speaker 1: divide our time equally. We try to divide our money equally,
Speaker 1: We try to divide our attention equally. Right, It's impossible
Speaker 1: to equally divide your time between work and family. If
Speaker 1: you're working at eight to nine hour job and then
Speaker 1: you're spending three hours with family in the evening, it
Speaker 1: can feel like it's not equal. It can feel like
Speaker 1: you're always working. Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,
Speaker 1: the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to
Speaker 1: each and every single one of you that come back
Speaker 1: every week to listen, learn and grow. Now, whether you're cooking,
Speaker 1: whether you're walking your dog, whether you're at the gym,
Speaker 1: whether you're catching a sunrise or a sunset, or you're
Speaker 1: driving in your car, I'm so grateful to be with you,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate you so much for letting me into
Speaker 1: your world, for letting me into your life. I love
Speaker 1: the reaction when I bumped into one of you on
Speaker 1: the streets or at an event or wherever we are,
Speaker 1: and you give me a big hug and let me
Speaker 1: know that you listen to the podcast. And this happened
Speaker 1: last week where someone said to me they said, Jay,
Speaker 1: I feel like I know you, but you don't know me.
Speaker 1: And I said, you do know me. You do know me.
Speaker 1: I share so openly and vulnerably and honestly on the podcast.
Speaker 1: You do know me. And I can't wait to meet
Speaker 1: you too. So thank you so much to everyone who's
Speaker 1: leaving reviews on the show, who's posting on Instagram and
Speaker 1: TikTok and Twitter. I'm seeing more and more posts about
Speaker 1: the show all the time. And today we're talking about
Speaker 1: something really important, something that I feel a lot of
Speaker 1: people are striving for, a lot of people are chasing,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are pursuing. And the statistics
Speaker 1: show this as well. People are stressed. Sixty five percent
Speaker 1: of employees who now work from home say they are
Speaker 1: working longer hours. And so the thing that we're all
Speaker 1: chasing is work life balance. What I find really fascinating
Speaker 1: about this is that it's often our pursuit of an
Speaker 1: incomplete belief that creates more challenges in our life. Let
Speaker 1: me break that down. When we don't define or understand ideas,
Speaker 1: words and concepts clearly, but then we still pursue them,
Speaker 1: we often end up somewhere we don't want to be.
Speaker 1: It's almost like going somewhere without being really clear on
Speaker 1: the coordinates, or you go somewhere but you don't get
Speaker 1: the zip code spot on. This happened to me probably
Speaker 1: about six months back. Now. I was going to meet
Speaker 1: one of my friends at his new office building, and
Speaker 1: my team had popped his address in my schedule, and
Speaker 1: so I went to that street. What I didn't realize
Speaker 1: is that they hadn't placed the exact number of the building.
Speaker 1: They had the building name and the street name, and
Speaker 1: it took me to the street, not that particular building.
Speaker 1: I ended up being still thirty minutes away, because supposedly
Speaker 1: that street runs from La all the way to Calabas's,
Speaker 1: right from West Hollywood to Calabas's. And so what I
Speaker 1: find in life is often that we pursue words like success,
Speaker 1: We pursue words like wealth, we pursue words like security,
Speaker 1: we pursue words like stability, we pursue words like excitement,
Speaker 1: but we never took the time to define or understand
Speaker 1: what those words actually mean. And I believe that work
Speaker 1: life balance is one of those terms. It's a term
Speaker 1: that we've been saying for a long time. It's a
Speaker 1: term that we've heard for a long time. It's a
Speaker 1: term that seems to make sense, but I think the
Speaker 1: way we think about it doesn't always stack up. So
Speaker 1: I want to read for a second some of the
Speaker 1: definitions of the word balance and how I think we
Speaker 1: interpret this word incorrectly, which leads us not finding balance.
Speaker 1: So balance is defined as an even distribution of weight,
Speaker 1: enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady, and
Speaker 1: even distribution, that's where the challenge comes in. We try
Speaker 1: to evenly distribute our time. We try to evenly distribute
Speaker 1: our money. We try to evenly distribute our energy, and
Speaker 1: the truth is that you can't evenly distribute it because
Speaker 1: there are enough hours in the day. Now. Another definition
Speaker 1: of balance is a condition in which different elements are equal,
Speaker 1: and that's the part where we go wrong. We try
Speaker 1: to divide our time equally. We try to divide our
Speaker 1: money equally. We try to divide our attention equally, and
Speaker 1: you can't do that right. It's impossible to equally divide
Speaker 1: your time between work and family. If you're working at
Speaker 1: eight to nine hour job and then you're spending three
Speaker 1: hours with family in the evening, it can feel like
Speaker 1: it's not equal. It can feel like you're always working, right,
Speaker 1: And that's where those terms come about. You're always working,
Speaker 1: You're never at home? Are we always working? Are we
Speaker 1: never at home? That's not true, but because it's the majority,
Speaker 1: it feels like it. So because it's seventy five percent
Speaker 1: of the day, it becomes one hundred percent. Because we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to fifty fifty, we're trying to get
Speaker 1: to equality. Now, here's where the definition of balance actually improves.
Speaker 1: It says a condition in which different elements are equal
Speaker 1: or in the correct proportions. That's the part I want
Speaker 1: to focus on correct proportions. We can create proportionate distribution
Speaker 1: in our life. We can't, or we will struggle to
Speaker 1: create equal distribution in our life. And sometimes as we
Speaker 1: strive for equal and even distribution, we end up feeling
Speaker 1: really upset and disappointed. Right, We end up feeling really,
Speaker 1: really like we're struggling. Now, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about five states that we need on any given
Speaker 1: day or any given week. Throughout the day, throughout the week,
Speaker 1: throughout the month, throughout the year, we will need a
Speaker 1: different state at different times. And there's two things to
Speaker 1: note here. The first thing is you won't always have
Speaker 1: access to that state at that time, but you want
Speaker 1: to create space for that state. This will make a
Speaker 1: lot more sense as they start walking through it. So
Speaker 1: if you think about any activity you need to do,
Speaker 1: any task, you need to do, anything you would like
Speaker 1: to do in a day, you need one of these
Speaker 1: five states in order to do it. Sometimes you need focus.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a work task, right, Maybe it's a big project,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a new product, you're working on, a new
Speaker 1: service you're creating. You need a high level of focus.
Speaker 1: That's one state. But you don't need focus to do
Speaker 1: everything in your life. You don't need to be focused
Speaker 1: on everything. Focus can be draining. If someone said to
Speaker 1: you need to be focused throughout the day, that could
Speaker 1: be highly exhausting, and maybe you're experiencing that. The second
Speaker 1: one is sometimes you just need high energy, which means
Speaker 1: you just need that raw enthusiasm and energy to get
Speaker 1: stuff done right. The third state that you need is presence.
Speaker 1: This is a lighter form of focus, often in relationships. Right,
Speaker 1: you don't need to be focused in a conversation. You
Speaker 1: need to be present in a conversation. Focus is a
Speaker 1: slightly different energy. Presence is a softer, more easy energy
Speaker 1: of being alert and aware. You then have planning. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you need to be in a planning state. You need
Speaker 1: to be in a state of thinking about the future,
Speaker 1: building for the future, trying to craft something for the future.
Speaker 1: And the fifth state is rest, relaxation, calm. We all
Speaker 1: need in our life a state of rest, a state
Speaker 1: of refuel, a state of rebuild. So instead of trying
Speaker 1: to divide our time equally, which often creates many many issues,
Speaker 1: instead of trying to divide our money equally, which also
Speaker 1: doesn't always work, we have to start thinking in how
Speaker 1: do I create schedules and plans that are focused on
Speaker 1: the state I need to do that in. So, for example,
Speaker 1: this comes with a level of awareness that we may
Speaker 1: not have if we haven't done this exercise. This is
Speaker 1: an activity that comes from the book When by Daniel Pink.
Speaker 1: He's been on the podcast. You can listen to his
Speaker 1: episode as well. We talked about this book and it's
Speaker 1: a book about the art of timing, and he talks
Speaker 1: about this exercise that we're about to do right now,
Speaker 1: and this exercise helps us find out what tasks we
Speaker 1: should do at different times of the day. The first
Speaker 1: thing you need to do in this is you need
Speaker 1: to write down your general bedtime and your general waking
Speaker 1: up time. So my general bedtime is ten pm and
Speaker 1: my waking up time is six am. I try to
Speaker 1: sleep for eight hours, So I want you to write
Speaker 1: down yours. Now, you may work late, you may work early.
Speaker 1: What are yours? What's your bedtime? Write it down? And
Speaker 1: what is your wake up time? So mine's ten pm
Speaker 1: and six am? Write there down. Now write down your midpoint.
Speaker 1: What is the middle time in between those two Mine
Speaker 1: is two am? Yours could be two thirty. It could
Speaker 1: be five thirty, It could be one thirty, it could
Speaker 1: be any of those. What is yours? What is your
Speaker 1: middle time between the two times? So two am is
Speaker 1: four hours from ten pm and four hours from six
Speaker 1: am to two am. Now write that number down and
Speaker 1: listen very carefully. If your midpoint of sleep is three
Speaker 1: thirty am or earlier, you're known as what's called a
Speaker 1: lark l a r K A lark. So I'm a
Speaker 1: lark because my midpoint is two am, which is three
Speaker 1: thirty am or earlier. So if your time is three
Speaker 1: thirty am or earlier, you're a lark like me. Now
Speaker 1: if your midpoint of sleep is five thirty am or later,
Speaker 1: you're probably an owl. That's the name given to So
Speaker 1: if your midpoint was five thirty am or later, you're
Speaker 1: known as an owl, And if your midpoint is somewhere
Speaker 1: in between, you're known as a third bird. So I
Speaker 1: want you to write down, are you a lark like me?
Speaker 1: Because your midpoint is three thirty am or earlier? Are
Speaker 1: you an owl? Which means your midpoint is five thirty
Speaker 1: am or later. And if you're between those two, then
Speaker 1: you're a third bird. And now I'm going to share
Speaker 1: some really interesting information about when you're able to do
Speaker 1: certain tasks better. And I think this is the balance
Speaker 1: we're looking for. The balance we want is how can
Speaker 1: I be at my best when I'm with my family
Speaker 1: and when I'm at work. That's really the balance we're
Speaker 1: looking for. What we don't want is I spend an
Speaker 1: equal amount of time at work and an equal amount
Speaker 1: of time at home, but I'm not at my best
Speaker 1: neither of those, and I'm stressed out during both of
Speaker 1: those times. I'm sure no one wants that. We want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we have time to refuel. We
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we have time to give
Speaker 1: our best energy to the people we love. We want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we're doing good at work, right,
Speaker 1: So I think the challenges we think balance means I
Speaker 1: spend an equal amount of time at work at home
Speaker 1: and that's what's going to make me feel good. But
Speaker 1: that doesn't make a lot of people feel good, right.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make people feel good. So when it comes
Speaker 1: to analytical tasks, for the lark, early morning is the best.
Speaker 1: For the third bird, early to mid morning is best,
Speaker 1: and for the owl, late afternoon and evening is the best. Now,
Speaker 1: if you ever a partner who's always working in the
Speaker 1: late afternoon or evening, chances eides because they're an owl
Speaker 1: and that's the best time of day. According to Daniel Pink,
Speaker 1: to do these things depending on what we've just deciphered
Speaker 1: as your chronotype. What we've just discovered is your chronotype.
Speaker 1: So for analytical tasks, lark do it best early morning,
Speaker 1: third bird do it early to mid morning, and the
Speaker 1: owl does it late afternoon and evening. Notice how that
Speaker 1: slight shift could change how you feel about your partner,
Speaker 1: how you feel about yourself, stress, anxiety, overwhelm, burnout. What
Speaker 1: do all of these have in common a lack of
Speaker 1: perceived control over your time, thoughts, and tasks. But what
Speaker 1: if I told you fixing all of these problems is
Speaker 1: as simple as fixing your mindset towards them. I know,
Speaker 1: not simple at all. Everyone's busy, everyone's stress, but we
Speaker 1: could all use more calm in our lives, and learning
Speaker 1: to stay grounded and grateful is truly a daily practice.
Speaker 1: That's why I've partnered with Calm dot com to bring
Speaker 1: you the Daily j. If you've ever wanted to meditate
Speaker 1: with me and take back control over your busy mind,
Speaker 1: join me on the car map for the Daily J,
Speaker 1: a daily guided meditation where I'll help you find calm
Speaker 1: in the chaos, plant beautiful tensions for a happy, abundant life,
Speaker 1: and simple steps for positive actions to get you closer
Speaker 1: to the life of your dreams. Meditate with me by
Speaker 1: going to Calm dot com forward slash jay to get
Speaker 1: forty percent off a Calm Premium membership that's only forty
Speaker 1: two dollars for the whole year for daily guided meditations.
Speaker 1: Experience the Daily jy only on Calm Now. Insight tasks
Speaker 1: tasks that require you to provide insight and this could
Speaker 1: be being present with your partner, listening to them. It's
Speaker 1: more presence analytics focused. Insight is presence. For the lark,
Speaker 1: it's late afternoon early evening. Right late afternoon or early
Speaker 1: evening is the best time for a lark to do
Speaker 1: insightful presence based things. For the third bird, insight tasks same.
Speaker 1: It's late afternoon and early evening. But now for the
Speaker 1: owl it's the morning, and al does insight tasks best
Speaker 1: in the morning. I'm hoping you're listening to this and going, oh,
Speaker 1: and now I realize why I don't have energy for
Speaker 1: that at that time. Now I realize why I'm not
Speaker 1: in the right state for that at that time. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're trying to do things at times when it's harder
Speaker 1: to do them the way I describe that, and that's
Speaker 1: what we struggle with. Balance is what I love about
Speaker 1: nature is that things are not always balanced, but the
Speaker 1: seasons always flow, so things come and go in seasons. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe you're like, I want to grow apples earlier around.
Speaker 1: I want to grow ex fruit earlier around. That puts
Speaker 1: things out of balance, and sometimes we do that, we
Speaker 1: go I want to do this for the rest of
Speaker 1: the year. I want to do this every single day,
Speaker 1: and that puts us out of balance because we're trying
Speaker 1: to grow something that you can't grow at that time. Right,
Speaker 1: there's certain things you can't grow in the winter. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you don't have another version of it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you don't plant new seeds, or doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you don't take care of the land. You can do
Speaker 1: lots of things. You just don't expect something to grow.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the challenge. We are expecting perfect
Speaker 1: balance all year round when we're going through a season
Speaker 1: that doesn't allow for balance. What's needed more as a
Speaker 1: priorities approach. A farmer or someone working in agriculture has
Speaker 1: a different priority in different seasons. They're still working on
Speaker 1: the same patch of land. You're still working on yourself,
Speaker 1: You're still giving love to your family. You just can't
Speaker 1: have a view that it's going to look the same
Speaker 1: every day. We have to start thinking of our life
Speaker 1: in seasons. We have to approach our life in seasons. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: when you need energy, making an impression your state of energy.
Speaker 1: Larks are best in the morning and making an impression.
Speaker 1: Third birds mourning is the best time to make an impression,
Speaker 1: and we then have owls mourning as well. That's when
Speaker 1: the owls will make their best impression, when you need
Speaker 1: that energetic expression of yourself, and finally, when you need
Speaker 1: to make a decision, which is more about planning as
Speaker 1: a state. Larks early morning, third bird early to mid morning,
Speaker 1: and owl late afternoon and evening. So what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to share here is that there are different times of
Speaker 1: the day when we're better at doing different things, and
Speaker 1: we have to realize that we can't just force ourselves
Speaker 1: to do everything all of the time, and balance can
Speaker 1: often feel like that, where we just feel exhausted because
Speaker 1: we're trying to do everything all at the same time. Now,
Speaker 1: there are habits that create more balance in our life
Speaker 1: and habits that create more imbalance in our life. For example,
Speaker 1: a habit that truly has unhealthy impact on us and
Speaker 1: our balance is a lack of sleep or sleep deprivation.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting because a lot of people will sacrifice
Speaker 1: sleep to watch a show or to feel like they're
Speaker 1: decompressing in order to feel balance. Right, It's like I've
Speaker 1: worked all day, I now need to balance myself by
Speaker 1: doing something mindless like watching my favorite show, And here's
Speaker 1: what happens when we don't get enough sleep. There's a
Speaker 1: lack of alertness. Even missing as little as one point
Speaker 1: five hours can have an impact on how you feel
Speaker 1: impaired memory. Lack of sleep can affect your ability to think,
Speaker 1: remember and process information, relationship stress. It can make you
Speaker 1: feel moody, and you can become more likely to have
Speaker 1: conflicts with others. So one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: raise the idea of rest is rest is one of
Speaker 1: the great way of causing balance, creating balance. And we
Speaker 1: do want to rest, but then we push further on
Speaker 1: days when a little bit more rest. So we say,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I'll ly in on Saturday. But the one
Speaker 1: hour you missed every night from Monday to Friday was
Speaker 1: more impactful on your health than the extra one hour
Speaker 1: or two hours you got in bed on a Saturday morning. Right,
Speaker 1: Notice how that happens to so many people where we
Speaker 1: miss out or we struggle because we don't grab that sleep.
Speaker 1: So I want to share with you how do we
Speaker 1: get these states right? How do we improve these states
Speaker 1: in our lives? So what gives us focus? Meditation helps
Speaker 1: us develop focus. And when we're talking about meditation, I
Speaker 1: want to give you really simple practice. I want you
Speaker 1: to light a little candle in your room, or you
Speaker 1: could have a diffuser pouring a beautiful essential oil. And
Speaker 1: what I want you to do, whether you have the
Speaker 1: diffuser or the candle, I want you to first breathe
Speaker 1: in the scent. To sit in the presence of the
Speaker 1: candle or the diffuser without anything else around you, and
Speaker 1: I want you to breathe in the scent and notice
Speaker 1: how it changes how you feel. The next thing I
Speaker 1: want you to do is look at the flame and
Speaker 1: in the diffuser, look at what's coming out. Take a
Speaker 1: moment to observe this deeply, every flicker, every movement, every
Speaker 1: time the diffuser lets off steam. Just taking a moment
Speaker 1: to observe the colors, the frequency, the shapes. And the
Speaker 1: third thing I want you to do to improve your
Speaker 1: focus is go outdoors and just observe nature. But a
Speaker 1: sixty second timer on your phone. What's the leaves, Watch
Speaker 1: a squirrel, watch the sun, Just to be really focused
Speaker 1: on what is happening. Those simple habits will improve your
Speaker 1: focus drastically because you are narrowing in on one activity
Speaker 1: every day. If you were to do one of those
Speaker 1: things every day. Your focus will start to improve. There's
Speaker 1: a beautiful quote by Bruce Lee where he said that
Speaker 1: I'm not scared of someone who's practiced ten thousand kicks
Speaker 1: one each time. I'm scared of the person that's practiced
Speaker 1: one kick ten thousand times. Right. It's not the variety
Speaker 1: of things we do that impacts our life. It's the
Speaker 1: specificity and the quality of things that we do that
Speaker 1: improves our life. How deeply have you done something is
Speaker 1: more important than how many things have you done right.
Speaker 1: It's not about the variety, it's not about the number,
Speaker 1: it's about the depth. How do we get energy? We
Speaker 1: all know that energy comes through exercise. There's a great
Speaker 1: study that the researchers at the University of Georgia found
Speaker 1: that sedentary, otherwise healthy adults who engaged in as little
Speaker 1: as twenty minutes of low to moderate aerobic exercise three
Speaker 1: days a week for six consecutive weeks reported an increase
Speaker 1: in energy levels and feeling less fatigued. Pete McCaul, the
Speaker 1: exercise psychologist at the American Council of Exercise, said if
Speaker 1: a sedentary individual begins an exercise program, it will enhance
Speaker 1: the blood flow carrying oxygen and nutrients to muscle tissue,
Speaker 1: improving their ability to produce more energy. When they did
Speaker 1: this study on two groups, they found that both exercise
Speaker 1: groups experienced a twenty percent increase in energy levels by
Speaker 1: the end of the study compared to the non exercising group,
Speaker 1: with the lower intensity group reporting a sixty five percent
Speaker 1: drop in feelings of fatigue, while the more intense exercises
Speaker 1: reported a forty nine percent drop in fatigue. The idea
Speaker 1: that we can move for simply twenty to thirty minutes
Speaker 1: a day can make a huge difference to our energy
Speaker 1: at the end of the day. Now, how do we
Speaker 1: get presents with the people we love? Well? When we
Speaker 1: don't sleep, we've fail irritated. When we don't work out,
Speaker 1: we don't have the energy. When we don't have focus,
Speaker 1: we're not able to be present. Sometimes, how do we
Speaker 1: really be present with the people we love? We're present
Speaker 1: by knowing that we give the amount of time that
Speaker 1: we can be present. Often what ends up happening is
Speaker 1: we want the ego of saying I'm free all of Saturday,
Speaker 1: I'm with you. How fun is it going to be?
Speaker 1: But we're stressed by that over commitment. Often we overcommit,
Speaker 1: we overpromise because we want to feel and seem and
Speaker 1: be viewed as someone who cares. We want to show
Speaker 1: our partners and our families that were present and that
Speaker 1: we care. But then what ends up happening is we're
Speaker 1: on our phones for the rest of that day. We're
Speaker 1: stressing out, we're anxious, we're nervous, We're not really there,
Speaker 1: and people can sense it. It's so much better to
Speaker 1: be honest and maybe even be perceived as not caring
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, I'm going to be half the day
Speaker 1: and Saturday, I'm there, but I've got to work there
Speaker 1: other half the day. That honesty is more powerful because
Speaker 1: for those four hours you will be the best person
Speaker 1: you can possibly be, because you know you have that
Speaker 1: to truly be present. Too many of us are overpromising
Speaker 1: and under delivering. Now, what gives you the ability to
Speaker 1: plan its ideas, fueling yourself with ideas, books, thought processes, systems,
Speaker 1: and what gives you rest Spending time in nature, listening
Speaker 1: to nature sounds if you can't get out to nature,
Speaker 1: putting on a beautiful calm meditation, allowing yourself to be
Speaker 1: in true stillness and true silence, even if you find
Speaker 1: it uncomfortable in the beginning. I want to thank you
Speaker 1: for supporting and listening to On Purpose. I hope this
Speaker 1: episode really really helped today. I hope it's going to
Speaker 1: help you think about balance differently. I really don't want
Speaker 1: you to think of balances like this equal distribution, even
Speaker 1: breakdown and then feel bad and sad that you can't
Speaker 1: live up to it. None of us can. But what
Speaker 1: we can do is proportionately divide eye time. Often one
Speaker 1: to two hours of personal habits a day can actually
Speaker 1: improve how we are throughout the day. There's one to
Speaker 1: two hours can impact the other twenty two hours. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening to On Purpose. I'll see you
Speaker 1: again next week for more exciting episodes with guests and
Speaker 1: our Friday workshops. Thank you so much, See you soon.