Rejecting Work-Life Balance Bullsh*t: Finding Sanity Beyond the Scale, Part 1

Rejecting Work-Life Balance Bullsh*t: Finding Sanity Beyond the Scale, Part 1

Eric Deschamps:
What if my life was more integrated? What if there was a better blend? Right. What if there was better harmony?

Rob Dale:
It’s not that long ago that we didn’t have cell phones. Right. Right. Right. There was a time when you left work, you left work. Right. They couldn’t reach you.

Kate Beere:
So I’m checking all the boxes. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And then for me, like, over time, it has just completely shifted to how do I feel?

Wendy Dodds:
So a lot of people think that there should an equal fifty fifty split where there should be, you know, 50%, you know, my personal time, 50% my work time, but all of that just creates, really unrealistic expectations and can absolutely lead to burnout.

Eric Deschamps:
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Living Richly podcast. We’re so excited that you’ve joined us again this week, for another great conversation. And today, we’re gonna be talking about something, that I think most people struggle with. And Not us. Not us, but other people.

Rob Dale:
And Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.

Rob Dale:
Never. Never. Never.

Eric Deschamps:
Never. We’re gonna be talking as master gurus to the subject matter of something we feel we’ve completely conquered. But the the title of the episode is actually rejecting work life balance bullshit, finding sanity beyond the scale. And I wanna jump right in to say if there was one major myth you could bust about the whole notion of work life balance, what would it be?

Kate Beere:
That it’s balance. I mean, it’s

Wendy Dodds:
And show’s over.

Eric Deschamps:
Thanks for tuning in.

Rob Dale:
But that’s it.

Kate Beere:
It’s never balanced. There’s never your life is never in this perfect harmony. We all picture the scale when we hear that, and it’s it’s just never like that. I used to always call it work life blend. So how how do how does it weave in? You’re just never gonna be perfectly, evenly spending your time with all the places or all the people you want to. Right.

Rob Dale:
Yeah.

Wendy Dodds:
Yeah. I think you I think you explained that really well because a lot of people think that there should be an equal 5050 split where there should be, you know, 50%, you know, my personal time, 50% my work time. But all of that just creates, really unrealistic expectations and can absolutely lead to burnout.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. Totally. I think one of the myths that, and I I actually just heard this with a, I was doing a team training recently, and one of the guys that was in this team training, an older gentleman, probably my age. So,

Eric Deschamps:
what do you mean you mean really?

Rob Dale:
He was like he was like, kids these days. Right? And but he made the comment. He said, you know, he says, this is a new thing. Like, we never had to worry about work, life balance. Like, it’s it’s and he wasn’t looking at it as it was an issue with society. He was basically saying kids these days, that it’s a problem with millennials or whatever. They’re making up this notion of that it is even an issue. And and I I challenged him and said, you know, you go back to the fifties, the sixties, this I mean, it’s not that long ago that we didn’t have cell phones.

Rob Dale:
Right? And Right. Right. There was a time when you left work, you left work. Right. They couldn’t reach you. They there was no email. There was no you know, unless they phoned your house number, they couldn’t reach you.

Eric Deschamps:
Remember landlines? Anybody here remember landlines? I remember. I

Rob Dale:
Rotary dial. Rotary dial. Oh my god. I lived in a community where I had a party line.

Eric Deschamps:
All party.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. Greg, you could listen to me. You could listen. Yeah. But, you you know, to where’s to, for today, the reason why this is such a, a relevant topic is because we don’t shut off. We we are always available, 247 for our workplace, for our friends, family, everyone, you can’t get away from it unless you choose to. I shouldn’t say you can. You can, but unless you choose to.

Rob Dale:
I think that’s a big myth.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. Absolutely. I I often talk about, work life harmony. I love the work life blend. I’m actually moving towards work life integration because I I I like the word integration much better. But harmony, there’s a sense of balance. Again, it’s gotta be perfectly both my personal life, my professional life have to be in perfect sync. Right? I I have always get this image of the the guy who used to walk across Niagara Falls on a high wire with the pole and, like, one wrong move, and he could fall to his death.

Eric Deschamps:
Like, that how that’s how it feels to me. And yet harmony, you think of an orchestra, where, they’re playing this beautiful piece of music, not all the instruments get to play all the same notes and have equal playtime. Think of the poor guy on the triangle who might get one moment of hurrah right when he hits his triangle. But when all those instruments are coming together the way they’re meant to, there’s harmony. You can tell. And when something’s out of harmony, you can also hear it, and you can adjust it. But there’s this notion here.

Rob Dale:
I’m glad you didn’t use the example of cowbell.

Eric Deschamps:
Oh, cowbell.

Rob Dale:
We always need more cowbell. I thought I made that pretty clear

Eric Deschamps:
on Saturday live years ago.

Rob Dale:
To to just continue on that thought for a second. You said something, before the show when you and I were talking, which I thought was brilliant. We used the example of balance with the person, you know, in the in the doctor’s office where you’re standing on that scale, and they’re and they’re and they’re literally tapping that to get it just perfect and just 1 pound off Right. And the scale starts to tip. And and would you tap that? What a horrible way not doing that. Not going there. What a horrible way to live your life. Right.

Rob Dale:
Where if you’re trying if you’re aiming for balance Yeah. It takes just one little fraction of something happening, and you and you’re off balance,

Eric Deschamps:
and you’re you’re you lose your grounding. The other thing I would say is, when we’re if we’re busting myths here is that not all hours are created equal. 100%. Not all days are created equal. Totally. Not all weeks, months, seasons of our lives are created equal. So to think that we can achieve balance is actually we talk about unhealthy expectations. The language itself sets us up for failure and frustration because it’s actually not achievable.

Eric Deschamps:
When we start to reframe it, all of a sudden, we start to say, what if my life was more integrated? What if there was a better blend? Right. What if there was better harmony?

Wendy Dodds:
Well, and I think the expectations we put on ourselves, you know, when we get frustrated, it’s often because our expectations are that it should be this. It should be 5050, where some days, it’s gonna be more of a personal life, you know, where you’re spending more time on your personal life. And and other days, it might be more work. So maybe it’s 70, 30, maybe it’s 60, 40, and it doesn’t have to be the same. But in our heads, you know, we constantly think that, no, it has to be 5050 or it’s not balanced. But balance might be 70 30. Right.

Eric Deschamps:
Exactly. Right. Exactly. Well, can you guys share perhaps a personal story or or something you went through that made you start to question traditional model of work life balance as we know it?

Kate Beere:
Yeah. COVID.

Eric Deschamps:
Right. That changed everything.

Wendy Dodds:
What was that? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Rob Dale:
Right? COVID. When was that?

Kate Beere:
Yeah. COVID. I mean, when COVID hit, I was already working from home Monday, Friday. So I was only in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and I had asked for that because my commute at that point was over 2 hours a day, and I was getting exhausted by it. So I I had already started to kinda lean into that more, but when COVID hit and we’re all working from home, for me, it was just eye opening to be like, okay. Like, we can all work remotely. We can all get our jobs done. In fact, we were working even harder being at home.

Kate Beere:
Yeah. But what I my eyes got open to was, oh, I can throw a little laundry in, and I’m home. I was regaining those 2 hours a day in my commute. I was able to spend more time with my kids. I could prep dinner. We were eating like, there were just all these benefits where I because I wasn’t spending all of this time in my car. So for me, that was, like, I would say a big one where it’s like, oh, okay. I can do things differently, and I really like this way a whole lot better.

Kate Beere:
Right.

Eric Deschamps:
And yet for a lot of people, during COVID, when we were working, many of us were working from home that could work from home. Yeah. Many describe the fact that now that they had lost the commute, they didn’t have an automatic off switch or there’s no now, oh, the day’s over. Now I’m heading home. It was like the days and evenings would just blend in together, And so that caused a lot of people to actually be more out of balance and harmony, than before. So it’s interesting how the same set of circumstances can have a different impact. Absolutely.

Wendy Dodds:
I would say so in in my HR days, I supported a a very large organization, and 2 of my main businesses were the biggest parts of the the business, and they were both 247 operations.

Rob Dale:
Mhmm.

Wendy Dodds:
And so I distinctly remember, you know, when you’re asking, you know, when did I question, you know, this I remember this like it just happened yesterday. I was sitting at the dining room table trying to fix payroll issues at, you know, 8:30 at night and deal with an employee that had a lot of personal issues and mental health stuff.

Eric Deschamps:
Wow.

Wendy Dodds:
Meanwhile, you know, my my husband at the time was reading stories to the kids upstairs for their bedtime, and I’m getting an, you know, an email from somebody very high up in the organization saying, I don’t care what you got going on. This is a priority. Like, this needs to be fixed. It needs to be done now. And I’m like, what is happening? Like and I can’t go back and get story time with my kids again.

Rob Dale:
Right.

Wendy Dodds:
But I can obviously show up differently now, but I remember that. Like, what the fuck am I doing?

Rob Dale:
Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. It’s coming up against the extremes of work encroaching too much, into important moments of our lives.

Wendy Dodds:
Right? And not having boundaries.

Eric Deschamps:
And not yeah.

Kate Beere:
Yeah. It feels

Wendy Dodds:
like a great podcast, and I think that podcast did a show on boundaries. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
I think it’s called if not, correct me if I’m wrong. I think it’s called the Living Richly podcast.

Rob Dale:
Oh. That’s Amazon.

Eric Deschamps:
You know what? It has these two couples on there.

Rob Dale:
They’re the, like, the Right.

Eric Deschamps:
Hosts with the most. Right.

Rob Dale:
They’re just the best.

Wendy Dodds:
And some Steve guy?

Eric Deschamps:
Some Steve guy. Steve.

Rob Dale:
Hey. Hey.

Eric Deschamps:
Always that sucks.

Rob Dale:
Oh, wow. Oh. A little bit of self promotion. It it for me, it was you and I, of course, very similar backgrounds. Like like, our work life balance, we are competing with God. Right? Like No. We were working for God. But but the balance part was competing with God in the sense that

Eric Deschamps:
Can I just say and and at the the risk of offending every religious person who’s listening to the show, he wasn’t a very good boss?

Rob Dale:
No. He wasn’t. Yeah. It’s because it was this notion of the idea that you would even say, well, I have to be here for my family when there’s a greater your greater call Saving the world. We’re saving the world. We’re and and so this notion of, I was you were on all the time. Mhmm. You were out you know, I can remember like, again, I never went to parent teacher interviews.

Rob Dale:
I never did you know, my kids would be doing some performance and maybe I’d get there, but maybe there was a God thing I needed to do. Right? And and this and I remember I remember even 1 year, somebody had brought something over, kinda given a a bit of a donation to us as a family, some, some treats or something like that. And I was giving them to the kids, and I said, you know, this is the burden you carry is as a pastor’s kid is dad is out doing things for God and you get sometimes these special treats because that’s how God blesses you for that. What a warped idea that’s out. Right? Like, what a warped idea that They’re

Eric Deschamps:
they’re in therapy now, aren’t they?

Rob Dale:
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. They are. You talked about of any kind of thing. Right? So I think for me, when that that realization didn’t happen until I stepped away from the church and I looked back and realized how fucked up was it that I believed that so genuinely because of a belief system.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. I mean, I mean and I can still relate to that. I mean, I was, I would say if we’re if we’re using the word harmony over balance, I was sort of out of harmony, I think, most of my adult life until a few years ago. You know, we used the model that emerged that model that emerged for me after my great awakening in 2022. I talked about this model of radical self acceptance, you know, that we have really have to start there. And once we make some headway there, we never completely cracked that one. But once we make some significant headway there, then all of a sudden radical self care becomes within reach. For me, I don’t know how many times people told me over the over the years, Deshaun, get a hobby.

Eric Deschamps:
Like, slow the fuck down. And I’d look at them, like, confused saying, there’s no time for a hobby. Like, there’s people to say. There’s people to help. Like, and, of course, the religious piece on on top of that about self sacrifice and and dying to self and crucifying the self. Like, it’s all this language that any self, at all, is is, like, a a a major sin. And so I was completely out of balance. And and, but radical self care then, when you begin to invest more into that, then it allows you to, experience radical self actualization Mhmm.

Rob Dale:
Being

Eric Deschamps:
the best version of you. Right? But but my story was, like, instead of radical self acceptance, it was, like, deep self loathing. Right? Instead of radical self care, it was like running on fumes. And instead of radical self actualization, it was more like partial activation. Yeah. And and so this need for we’re not we’re not arguing on the show today that we don’t need to have proper boundaries and make sure that we have harmony in our lives. What we’re trying to dispel is this myth of balance that, again, sets us up for frustration and failure because it’s actually really, really hard to achieve. But right?

Wendy Dodds:
I was just gonna say how interesting that you brought up get a hobby. But it’s so when you when you create or when you’re immersed so much in what you’re doing, we’ve all kinda shared that, I’ve had so many people say to me, hobby?

Rob Dale:
The fuck do you want me to do?

Wendy Dodds:
Like, well, a hobby? Like, what do I do? Because people just don’t know and they can’t wrap their head around

Rob Dale:
Yeah.

Wendy Dodds:
Okay, Finding something. How do I find something? What do I like to do? And they it I think it takes a long time to kinda go back to the roots of when you were a child to really sit and figure out, what are your passions? What makes me it’s hard for people. And then when you start to do things, to learn to turn your mind off on actually enjoying that and be able to so it just I love that you mentioned hobby because I think there’s a lot of people that are like, I I don’t know what that means for me.

Rob Dale:
I don’t

Wendy Dodds:
know what to do.

Kate Beere:
Or they think a hobby is a waste of time versus, like, recharging. Yes. People see it as Or guilt. Right. Or, like, what? What what am I gonna do over here? What’s that serving? What’s that giving me? Right? Without thinking about what it can recharge you with, people are like, I don’t have time for it. I should be doing I should be. Right?

Eric Deschamps:
And all those shoulds I would say even the the hobby language is problematic. Like, I I and and in in my own journey and my work with leaders, often, if I I I’m sensing a leader is spending way too much time investing in their leadership and business and and their life is suffering, I’ll explore more. What are some things you love to do? Right. When you say you need to find a hobby, that’s like you you’re saying to someone, you need to get married. K? Like, it’s it they this notion of you want me to decide on a hobby, and I haven’t even tried it to know if I like it or not.

Wendy Dodds:
Right.

Eric Deschamps:
So rather than finding a hobby, which is this big commitment, I say experiment with things that you enjoy or might enjoy. And some of those things might turn into a hobby, But but using that language again is problematic. Like, language is everything. It really does shift the the narrative.

Rob Dale:
Well, and you use this language in the past around, again, that idea that, yeah, the getting the hobby, right, it’s the it’s the checklist. It it becomes another thing to do versus when you change shift the language, shift the narrative to what are things that you really enjoy doing. Now it’s not a it’s it it takes it out of the I have to do this or it it takes it out of the this is another task that I have to add to my list. No. This is now just this is passion. This is enjoyment. Yeah. And you’re able to change how people shift and how they see those things.

Rob Dale:
Right.

Eric Deschamps:
Let let’s talk about, shift, the conversation a bit. Let’s talk about where this, a traditional approach to work life balance came from, which is actually based on the traditional work week, right, that we have come to know and accept. And and I know a lot of that is shifting and changing. But the 5 day work week, the 40 hour work week, like, that has been with us. I was surprised to find out that its origins is actually you have you have to go back to Henry Ford over a 100 years ago, in in the, 19 twenties.

Rob Dale:
Yes. Yes. Wow. I know. I was math is

Eric Deschamps:
hard for me

Rob Dale:
to math.

Eric Deschamps:
In the 19 twenties. So before Yeah. And his notion or his work week. It was a 6 day work week. Yeah. And his notion or his idea was that if we give people more time off, if we reduce the work week to 5 days 40 hours, one, they’re gonna be more productive because they’re more rested. And 2, they’ll have more free time to actually take their dollars, invest them back into the economy. Right.

Eric Deschamps:
And it turns out it was a game changer, but it was resisted at the beginning big time. Right? You were talking about an article you read recently.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. Well, you you’re right. It was resisted. It took about and it took about 10, 15 years for most companies to replace the model. Mhmm. And then in the states, it became law. In the in the late thirties or the mid thirties, they actually because of the resistance of some who said, you know, again, they they no. They have to be here.

Rob Dale:
They have to work. We have to produce produce produce produce, and not looking at the stats and not looking at the numbers. They finally had to make it a law in order to force people to do it. Interesting that we see if we fast forward to today, we’re seeing what’s one of the laws that is being pushed through a lot of governments right now is the the turn off technology law. Right? The the idea that we’re that you can’t expect your employee to answer an email at 8 at 8 AM or or 10 PM.

Eric Deschamps:
Fix a payroll

Rob Dale:
issue to 8:30 PM. Right. To say this is the priority over your kids, reading your kid’s bedtime story. That that we’ve come now to where we’re now instituting those laws. We’re also seeing a lot of countries. We’re seeing it in Switzerland, in New Zealand, a number of these countries that are now moving to the 4 day work week. We all know that and enjoy it, but moving to the 4 day work week because they’re recognizing the power of that. I was thinking when we were talking about this earlier, the notion of when you think before the industrial revolution, when the 20 you know, in the twenties, when we went to Henry Ford and all of this stuff.

Rob Dale:
People were whether they were farmers or whatever they were doing. You talk to somebody in the 1910 about work, life balance or whatever, and they would they would look at you like you’re a crazy people. Right? You know, you you like you just you managed things, you did your stuff, Your hobby. Right? You’re if you’re a farmer, the middle

Eric Deschamps:
of the day farmer, you probably didn’t have hobbies.

Rob Dale:
Well, yeah. Well, but but they did, though. They did. They were they I did in the evenings. It’s set out by the campfire, you know, wood, whatever. Is that what they did? Rob is totally making this shit up right now on the fly. This is Absolutely. Enough.

Rob Dale:
We’re gonna have to start putting disclaimers

Eric Deschamps:
on the show. The opinions expressed by the following participant.

Rob Dale:
If you say it enough, it’s true. All I can picture now is, like, people whittling. I’m gonna make that fun at

Eric Deschamps:
work like balance. If you’re not whittling, you’re

Rob Dale:
not doing it right. I do that. I sit on my front porch. You do it all the way. It’s like whittle a new whistle.

Eric Deschamps:
But but the point is, like, like, we’ve built this notion around or this this belief around what work life balance looks like, and it’s based on a model that is over a 100 years old. Right, it’s over a century old, and yet we continue to try to, like, create these, artificial Chinese walls between our personal professional lives. Like, if we if if the 2 ever come into contact with each other that somehow we’ve committed the cardinal sin. And now with, 4 day work weeks, I mean, I know you guys do that at at, Bold Lip. We do it at, Rap. You guys instituted that recently. In

Rob Dale:
the fall. We implemented in September for

Kate Beere:
everyone, and it’s been like, we used to have quiet Friday, so no

Rob Dale:
meeting Fridays, focus Fridays.

Kate Beere:
A lot of organizations do it. And then we did a pilot, and we launched it. It’s been

Rob Dale:
a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,

Kate Beere:
very, very, very, very, very, very A lot of organizations do it. And then we did a pilot, and we launched it. And we’re it’s honestly, it’s working so amazing like well. We are more efficient. But I will I always say this. It’s we’re very busy Monday to Thursday. Like, our days are full. We do not put in 40 hours in 4 days.

Kate Beere:
That’s not what we all signed up for, but our days are full. And it’s amazing how much more productive you are because when you know you have Friday, often on a Thursday, you’ll be like, oh, I’ll just get to it tomorrow. Yeah. But instead, you wrap up your day on a Thursday, and we take Fridays off, and then we all come back on Monday, that extra day to recharge to like, a lot of us, what do we do? We get our stuff done. We’re running errands. We do appointments. It has just made such a difference in our mental health and also just how how productive we are.

Wendy Dodds:
So how did that start? Like, did because I’m just thinking there’s probably people listening that are like, well, that’s great for you guys. But how do I do that in my organized? So I’m just curious. Like, was it somebody or a group of you that said, like, hey. Let’s try this out.

Kate Beere:
Yeah. We actually did a whole, we have, like, a couple of blogs on why and how and how it’s working for us. And I think, when I joined, part of me joining was I was working a 4 day work week. That was part of my agreement. When I signed up, they were already on focus Fridays, and then we just started talking about it. And as a as a team, some of our our junior staff were like, you know, we’re really interested in maybe working a 4 day work week.

Rob Dale:
Mhmm.

Kate Beere:
So it got brought up, but they were also thinking about it. Terilyn and Joe, my business partners, were thinking about it as well. And so we’re like, why don’t we try it? Like, what have we got to lose to try it? And we all agreed it would be a pilot. That was the to see how it went, and we talked it out. Like, don’t get me wrong. There’s some bumps and things you gotta work through. We had to revisit how we schedule meetings and when we schedule meetings, when is focus down, when is creative working time, and how we went and we sourced feedback from clients. So it was a it was a group discussion, but definitely, there wasn’t one person who wasn’t.

Wendy Dodds:
No. Like, well, I love that. And I think for people that are listening, like and all it takes is for one person

Rob Dale:
Yeah.

Wendy Dodds:
To go first and be like, hey. Have we explored this? And instead of just, well, that don’t know, but, you know, that’s not gonna work here.

Kate Beere:
Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy Dodds:
How do you know until you actually start having discussions about it and coming forward to your organization with solutions and options?

Rob Dale:
The research is there. The research is absolutely there. There’s there’s experimenting. We we know it works, and we know people are more productive when it when I mean, the

Eric Deschamps:
crazy crazy those crazy Icelanders. Right? Right. What I Yeah. Oh, yeah. Last year, I read the stat. This was so it’s probably changed since since then. But I think 83% of the workforce last year in Iceland was either on a 4 day work week or was transitioning

Kate Beere:
Amazing.

Eric Deschamps:
4 day work week. And they’re seeing all kinds of benefits as a result. We’re it doesn’t work for everybody. But whether it’s a 4 day workweek, we instituted it, what,

Rob Dale:
3 years ago? No. We I remember exactly when it was, and you led the charge on this. It was right as we’re as we’re coming out of Duh. We Duh. Yes. It was it was in 2021, the summer of 2021. Yeah. We had come out of COVID.

Rob Dale:
Yes. And our team was had compassion fatigue. Yeah. Right? We had dealt with so many heavy conversations, and we were recognizing and and just like you guys, it was a trial. It was Yeah. Let’s try let’s do it over the summer. Yep. And September came along, and we’re like, let’s not go back.

Rob Dale:
Alright? And so we made the decision. And we and, again, we have independent coaches that work with us. So we we just said to them, this is what we’re doing. The office is doing this. So just whatever you wanna do. What’s radical now, and it’s messy when we start this stuff Yeah. Is now it’s people are challenging even the traditional 9 to 5.

Eric Deschamps:
Sure. Right?

Rob Dale:
Right? Because again, that made sense when you were on a, you know, you’re building a car and you were on this industrial line. It doesn’t make sense so much today with with a lot of organizations, and you there’s a lot of pushback. I want you to be available when I need to right? Trying to figure out meetings and all this. Yeah. But we’re starting to see more and more companies contemplate the idea of saying you can work whatever hours work. If if you’re a night person, you wanna work till 3 in the morning. As long as your work is done, we’re good.

Eric Deschamps:
I saw a great post on LinkedIn just yesterday, and the guy is standing there holding a sign of things he no longer wants to hear from his employees. Right? And it says, I need to leave early because my child’s got a concert.

Rob Dale:
I need

Eric Deschamps:
to Yeah. Run out to to a medical appointment. And this list of all things that are just normal life things. And at the so at first, you think he’s being a real asshole.

Rob Dale:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
Right? But, actually, at the bottom of this poster, it says, because I fundamentally trust you. I hired you to do a job, and I fundamentally trust you to do it. And I thought that was brilliant because, beyond the 4 day work week, that’s certainly a model that’s emerging more and more. The hybrid model, of course, I don’t think if it wasn’t for COVID, we wouldn’t be embracing it the way that we have it.

Rob Dale:
Not this quickly. Not this quickly.

Eric Deschamps:
I think COVID probably fast tracked that by 10/20 years.

Kate Beere:
Agree.

Eric Deschamps:
Even the wide ad adoption of things like Zoom and Teams Yeah. Microsoft Teams and everything else, Most people didn’t know how to do that, and and, that technology certain took off really, really fast and was embraced by most of the population because we had to. But this notion of working, it has to be a traditional 9 to 5. Like, at the end of the day, it doesn’t actually respect people’s productivity. It doesn’t respect people’s flow. I get that it’s hard to mobilize an entire workforce when everyone’s kinda doing their own thing. But this it there is a movement away from the traditional model. Right? And it’s it’s interesting to watch the I don’t know if you guys are seeing I know we certainly are seeing it, that the battle between trying to reinstate what the workforce look like or the workplace look like pre COVID, and, you know, employees resisting, being pushed back to work 5 days a week.

Eric Deschamps:
It’s a it’s a real thing.

Rob Dale:
Well and it’s it’s the some

Kate Beere:
of the decisions you question, like, I’m happy to be out of that space and able to carve out my own schedule, but I see it with friends of mine who work for the federal government in particular who are now going back 3 days a week, and it’s going up. I think it’s going up even more. More. And there’s a lot of pushback. And a lot of pushback is I go in, and there’s no one around me. So why am I here? So it’s those conversations of pushing people back. I think if if it there was a good why, and I’m not suggesting it’s every department everywhere, but, I do think if people understand explain to me the purpose of me being in the office. Is it to collaborate? Great.

Kate Beere:
Is it to have meetings face to face? But if you’re going in or you’re going to remote location and you’re sitting at a cubby, what’s the difference from that? Are you being home? So I think people are just questioning what’s the value of me necessarily having to be in the office.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. And there’s certainly lots of pushback, especially, we we are in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and, of course, have a a huge swath of population work for the feds. And right now, there’s a push right from from, pushing everybody back to 3 days a week at the office. In September, I think executives are gonna be required to go back 4 days a week. So there’s a lot of battle going back and forth. The dust has yet to settle, but the point is the workplace has changed.

Kate Beere:
Yep.

Eric Deschamps:
And we need to adopt our view of how, integrating work and life goes. There’s a great model. I read a book, probably going on a couple years ago now by Dan Siegel called Mindsight. And he introduces this great model of imagine yourself on a on a river, and you’re floating on a river on this raft, and you’re in the flow. And you’re on rocks.

Rob Dale:
I’m imagining I’m imagining rocks. On the rock. Rolling down the river. I’d like to be on a river. Oh, there we go.

Eric Deschamps:
There we go. A little there is Clearwater Revival. Let’s, let’s, maybe we can get that playing in the background while I’m I’ll explain the rest of this, but, this whole notion of being in the flow. And for him being in the flow, that word stands for flexibility, love, openness, and wholeheartedness. Right? So he says that’s how we wanna be living our lives. But on either side of that river are river banks. 1 of the river banks is chaos, Complete disorder. Okay? The other side is rigidity.

Eric Deschamps:
It’s it’s everything is too set in stone. It’s too any one of those riverbanks is a problem. And what I loved about his approach is it kind of freed me from this notion of I have to have it all figured out and has to look work life balance or work life harmony has to look a certain way all the time. I’ve come to actually it’s it’s not about how much time am I spending somewhere. It’s more about my internal state. Am I am I feeling flexible? Am I living with love? Am I more open? Am I wholehearted, or am I halfhearted, or am I partially hearted? Those are the things that are, signs to me that I probably something is off that I need need to adjust. But what do you guys think about this whole notion of rigidity versus chaos? Too much freedom, too much, lack of boundaries or whatever. And like he says, that’s unhealthy.

Eric Deschamps:
Whereas on the other side, too many boundaries, and you might be setting yourself up for failure.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s it’s tricky. Right.

Kate Beere:
It’s tricky. I mean, I look at, you know, you talk about the younger generation coming into your workforce and what they’re looking for. And they’re looking for a whole lot of things that, you know, even with my I don’t feel like I’m that old, but there’s times where I’m like, wow. You’re like what you’re looking for to me doesn’t doesn’t exist. Right? And they’re not wrong for thinking it or wanting it, but they’re wanting that flexibility. They’re wanting to work whatever hours they wanna work. They wanna take as many vacation days as they want. They wanna take as many 6 days.

Kate Beere:
And the old school person in me is like, well, you gotta go work. He’s like,

Rob Dale:
what are you

Kate Beere:
talking about?

Rob Dale:
Oh, that’s gonna stick. I know. Yeah. Go to work. I gotta go.

Kate Beere:
Like, I just I’m like, what? And then and then part of me is, like, like, loves it because I’m like, what an incredible way, like, to live your life, to be able to work and enjoy work, but also live life and not have work be, like, this huge burden. But for me, I’ll be honest, it’s been, like, a really interesting dynamic when you’re hiring younger generation to come to work. There’s always, like, I’m I get in this dichotomy of really supporting in it, and part of me has this weird old school, old person reaction.

Eric Deschamps:
Right. Well, I mean, we haven’t even talked about that. We talked about how the workplace has changed. We’ve talked talked about how the work week has changed. We have let’s like, generationally, like, I think I I believe the stats support this. About 75% of the workforce currently are millennials. And part of the millennial pushback has been they watched how hard we push ourselves and how hard we work often to the point of be it being very unhealthy and unbalanced or out of harmony. And they said, don’t want that.

Eric Deschamps:
Right?

Rob Dale:
I think it’s it’s Yeah. Like anything we see this often in culture, the pendulum swing. Right? And so we we at some point, we’re gonna find that middle ground. I agree with you that we are seeing right now with a lot of younger people this pushback saying, no. I want everything on my terms, and that’s just the pendulum swinging from what it was where you had no options. You just went to you don’t wanna work 9 to 5? You don’t wanna You’re fired. You’re fired. Exactly.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. To now the the

Eric Deschamps:
I tried to fire you this morning. Yeah.

Rob Dale:
Where yep. Good luck up. You’re still here. Curious. I keep showing up. Hi. It’s me. Hi.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. It was a little awkward the other day at 2 in the morning looking over your bed. Hi. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. More awkward than you know.

Rob Dale:
But that pendulum swing Yeah. And and at some point, I think there will find that. But I think it’s a good pushback because it’s forcing, employers to ask those we look at the we know why the federal government is pushing people back to work certainly here in Ottawa because our down and this we’re seeing this across many places. The downtown has been decimated with people coming out of it. And we also know that, the downtown of every city, it’s it’s the heartbeat of a city. And if your downtown falls apart, it doesn’t take long for the rest of the city to follow-up. Yeah. So I get why they’re doing it.

Rob Dale:
They’re not explaining it well, and the logic behind it is sometimes a little bit flawed. And I think that’s what’s happening is the millennials are pushing, not just millennials, but younger people are pushing against the notions and forcing employers to go, why does it make sense that I expect you to work 9 to 5, or I expect you to work in the office when you’re like, it’s getting us to rethink the logic behind why we do these.

Eric Deschamps:
And talk about pendulum swing. I was listening to a podcast yesterday where there what’s being reported now in the workplace, and it’s happening more and more, is when, talk about, like, from the younger generations going way too far with it is, like, going for performance evaluation and getting perhaps some feedback that you need to grow in some areas, and, like young people calling their parents and asking them to talk to their boss. Like, it’s it’s right? Like It’s

Rob Dale:
a tall

Kate Beere:
person back here. I guess.

Rob Dale:
Alright. Yeah. What? We know what?

Eric Deschamps:
Well, so we know who our demographic is. Our demographic is mostly people our age when we look at all the statistics, but there are there there’s always that pendulum swing, and it often over rotates at the beginning. And then eventually, hopefully, it finds that more central place. But I think what I’m advocating for is, embracing fluidity, embracing flexibility. I think I I like the term boundaries because we do need to to set some clear boundaries in our relationships, in our personally, professionally, like, that’s important. But the the word boundary itself is very rigid, and it it we it we can it can encourage a rigid approach to life. And, I I think, what was it? We talked about, we all know about IQ. Right? IQ is your intelligence quotient and how, you talk about how things have changed in the workforce.

Eric Deschamps:
It used to be your IQ was everything. Right? You’d get hired for your IQ. And then they discovered that there’s really intelligent people who are really bad with bad with people. Right? They’re really smart, but they’re not very good at managing people. And it was Dan Goleman who created the whole model around emotional intelligence

Rob Dale:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
Which is now called EQ oftentimes. Right? Referring to your ability to self regulate, manage your emotions better, connect, show empathy, all those things. And that’s been part of the workforce now for I know a lot of leaders that will hire for EQ over IQ any day. Yeah. But in the last decade or so, what we’re seeing is now a push for AQ Yeah. Which is your adaptability quotient, your ability to flex with the situation, your ability to adapt why the workplace and the world is changing so fast compared to how it used to. Yeah. Even that the we we’re just talking generation like, generational differences.

Eric Deschamps:
Do you know that earlier on, like, when we talked about the builders, which would have been, like, our grandparents’ generation, and to boomers, which would have been the generation that followed, there’s a 40 year gap between those 2 generations. Now we’re talking about the difference between millennials and I forget what is it gen z? No. It’s not gen x or gen z maybe. Gen z.

Rob Dale:
I don’t know.

Eric Deschamps:
I I don’t know. I’d have to I’m not remembering in this moment, but we’re talking now a decade. So the difference is now, everything is speeding up. Everything is shifting faster. And I think a rigid approach to life I’m not advocating for chaos because chaos is chaos. But I think there’s some of us and maybe some folks that are listening that could benefit from learning to embrace a little more chaos in their lives and learning to flow with it as opposed to fighting it. I I don’t know what you

Rob Dale:
guys think about that. Again, without boundaries, the river has no focus. Right. Right? It overflows. It becomes a it It becomes a swamp. It becomes a swamp or or it becomes a disaster. Right. Right? And we see flooding happen and everything.

Rob Dale:
When the when the river overrides the bound the boundaries, the banks Yeah. All of a sudden, there’s destruction. And so I think finding that really that flow between the rigidity and the chaos is what key the path there’s so much that we can lean into when it comes to the what a what a river is. I think that’s absolutely right. You have to embrace both. Yeah. It’s it’s the not one or. It’s right.

Rob Dale:
It’s the both and when it comes to chaos and rigidity and finding how you flow with both of those putting pressure on you.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. It’s and even in Dan Siegel’s model, because if you’re flowing down a river and there’s river banks, well, you’re not always perfectly in the middle of the river. So, again, he’s blowing out of, the water literally flowing out of the water. The notion river is flowing out of the water.

Rob Dale:
Did you guys catch that? Oh, yeah. We got it. We got it. Let’s move on. Have to it. I made myself laugh. Oh, everybody knows. I know.

Rob Dale:
I do know.

Eric Deschamps:
But he was blowing out of the water literally the whole notion of balance. Right? Because it’s never. You’re kinda you’re doing this as you’re going down the river. So sometimes you might be edging closer to rigidity. Sometimes you’re edging closer to chaos, but it’s embracing that. I love the, I remember first being introduced years ago to the concept of, the Buddhist concept of impermanence, right, or everything is impermanent. And they will literally Buddhist monks, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, they make these beautiful, draw well, they’re not drawings, but they make these beautiful works of art out of sand, different colored sand, and they arrange it. And it it takes them forever, to to to do this and they create these very elaborate designs with grains of colored sand.

Eric Deschamps:
And when they’re finished, they just blow it all away at to remind themselves that everything changes. Nothing stays the same. I love it. Everything’s impermanent. And I think we try to, there’s there’s a lot of control behind oh, let’s talk about control for a moment, shall we? There’s a lot of control, I think, that goes into work life balance, unhealthy control of trying to control the world around us. Fight me on it.

Rob Dale:
Well, I think I think

Kate Beere:
one dynamic we even talked about when it comes to control is, like, the 2 parent working families scenario. And you think about I’m thinking about your river and I’m thinking about there’s you know, if you if you have a 2 parent household and there’s 2 of you going down this river, you’re bouncing off each other, let alone, like, left and right. Right?

Eric Deschamps:
Right.

Kate Beere:
And so I think, like

Eric Deschamps:
You’re sometimes pushing each other into chaos or rigidity.

Kate Beere:
Are. And I think finding work life balance in that context is really hard too. So it’s not the traditional model of, you know, a woman staying home, taking care of the kids. Husband goes off to work. That has shifted so much, and that has shifted the dynamic and also pushed us to need more of that work life blend and how that looks. I but I think control can come into that too where it’s like, k. What’s my role? What’s your role? Are you taking the can you take the kid to the doctor? Can I can am I going to the dentist? Okay. Are you doing like, so it’s not just, like, the work life balance necessarily for yourself.

Kate Beere:
It’s also that work life balance and how does that affect your partner if you have a partner

Rob Dale:
at home?

Kate Beere:
Like, figuring that out, there’s control that flies through that constantly.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. Absolutely. And then there’s also the notion of, again, when we’re not clear on what we value, what we stand for, we’re we’re gonna get tossed around an awful lot. Right? We we get pulled along by the musts, the shoulds, the have tos. We refer to that a lot on this show about showing up as your most authentic self. I think it’s very hard to to show to find any kind of harmony in life if your inner world is out of harmony. I actually think most of what we blame the external world for when we say we’re out of balance or we’re out of harmony is because of internal disharmony. We’re not in harmony with ourselves.

Eric Deschamps:
We’re we haven’t gotten clear. We’re not sure who we are. We don’t know what we stand for. We’re not sure what we value. We’re just living life according to somebody else’s blueprint

Rob Dale:
Mhmm.

Eric Deschamps:
And wondering why we’re unhappy. Right? And I think true resilience. If a person is more grounded and grounded is a word that I like a lot more than balanced. Because grounded means my 2 feet firmly planted on the ground, and I can stand firm. Right? Right. As opposed to this backseat act where I’m maybe standing on a I don’t know. I I I always the other image I get is of a clown at a circus, you know, and they would stand on a board that was on a ball. Yeah.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. Do you

Eric Deschamps:
ever see that? Right? And they’re trying to balance on this. Right? Well, I’d rather be grounded because that just sounds dangerous. And given how clumsy I am.

Kate Beere:
I was gonna say you’d be the first to

Rob Dale:
go there.

Eric Deschamps:
I am a menace to myself and others, but this notion of getting clear on who I am, what I stand for. So and and that leads us to our first set of questions that in, as we’re preparing for the show. And, folks, this is gonna be a 2 part show. We we, as we were preparing and discussing, we just realized we wanna take our time with this, because there’s, there’s just so much great content. And there’s a list of questions that we came up with that we’re gonna kinda throw back and forth here, and we’re gonna get just into a few of them, and the rest of them will belong in part 2 of this, which will come next the next week. But this first notion talking about what who we are and what matters most is the question of how do you define success in both your work and in your personal life? Like, we we have society’s version of what success looks like, but how do you define it?

Wendy Dodds:
Yeah. So I think, having that feeling of both fulfillment and contentment.

Rob Dale:
Mhmm.

Wendy Dodds:
So am I fulfilled? Am I content? And how do the 2 blend in together? So in my work, for me, it’s about making a positive impact. I’m breaking this up.

Rob Dale:
Sorry about that. Kate’s just She’s like, shh.

Wendy Dodds:
In my work, it’s about creating positive impact.

Eric Deschamps:
Right.

Wendy Dodds:
Being able to feel very passionate about what I do, serving others. In my personal life, success is about nurturing relationships that are, you know, irreplaceable to me, valuable to me, taking care of me, prioritizing that self care, and being able to have a mix of both of those things.

Eric Deschamps:
Yes. I love that definition because you talk about in your work feeling impact, feeling like you’re making a difference. And I think there’s an awful lot of folks that are going to a dead end job, going nowhere, and they look for all of their fulfillment outside of it. And I get they’re all we’re all gonna go through seasons. Most of us, especially in the earlier stages of your career, you know, there is something about paying your dues and and air and earning sort of a a a bigger platform to pursue the things that are more important to you. I think that gets taken too far. But I think a lot of folks are in unhappy jobs. How many people do we know that, I’ve heard this time and time again? I remember meeting with one leader who was, like, 20 years away from retirement from the federal government, and he hates his job.

Eric Deschamps:
And he’s miserable, but he’s hanging on for this future date of his, pension, and yet is living miserable in the meantime. We spend on average again, if we go back to the traditional work week. Right? We spend on average 40 hours a week, 5 days a week or or 40 hours a week, 5 days a week on the job. Was it Tiffany West Westerman who was here not long ago? That was a phenomenal interview.

Wendy Dodds:
Great interview.

Eric Deschamps:
What what she opens with if you’re if you don’t like your job, like, quit and find a new one. And her notion was don’t be irresponsible about that, but don’t stay in a job where you’re unhappy. Because how can you find balance if 8 hours of your day or a significant part of your week is spent doing something you don’t love

Rob Dale:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
Or that you don’t enjoy or you’re not getting some level of fulfillment out of. Right?

Kate Beere:
Yeah. Yeah. I know for me, I think if if I think how it used to be to where I am today, like, success for me was always around the accolades. It was always, like, doing really well, getting promoted, and I think about the work environment. And then at home, it was like, oh, you’re a great mom. You’ve lost the baby weight. How do you manage with 3 small kids? Like, just all of that used to be like that 6 oh, I’m checking all the boxes. I’m doing

Eric Deschamps:
what I’m

Kate Beere:
supposed to be doing. And then for me, like, over time, it has just completely shifted to how do I feel.

Rob Dale:
Right.

Kate Beere:
So if I’m in a job, how do I feel? To your point, staying stuck, if I don’t feel good in this job, if I’m not feeling fulfilled, why am I still here? It’s the same at home. Like, if I’m not feeling good about how I’m showing up for my kids, I’m not feel okay. Why are you not feeling good? It’s not about, like, rushing them to get them to every sports event to check all the boxes that I’m doing everything. How are we all feeling? So for me now, it’s turned to how do I feel.

Wendy Dodds:
Well, and you’ve talked before about the gut check and really getting in tune with your, you know, your inner gut and, you know, even evaluating yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 and how do I feel? What am I feeling? For for my

Eric Deschamps:
gut check is have I put on any weight?

Rob Dale:
Yeah. Yeah. No. And and the answer is always Yep. Yes. You know? No. I I do I love that. I and and probably goes along with that.

Rob Dale:
For me, success is, in everything I’m doing, whether it’s professional, personal, am I in alignment with my values? And if I’m in alignment with my values, then I am living successfully.

Eric Deschamps:
Right.

Rob Dale:
And Right. Yeah. As soon as I am in, when that I’m in misalignment, I’ve gotta now look and go what’s going on here, whether that’s at work, whether that’s at play, finding those ways. And that’s why I think it’s so critical that we undo the inner work Yeah. Because the inner work is gonna help us define what we want to see outside in the in the our day to day lives. So so for me, that’s a really big one, and it’s that’s only in the last couple of years.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. I I mean, it really comes down to, I think, you you talked about the checklists and

Wendy Dodds:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
Right. These were these were all external expectations that somehow society has sold us on that a successful life has all these things. And I think of the world of social media today and the pressure that our kids are under, because now the you wanna talk about, external pressure. Well, now you have daily images and videos and programming that’s telling you you ought to look a certain way and show up a certain way. You even need to do your vacation a certain way. It’s gotta be an instant. Everything’s gotta be an Instagram moment. Talk about external pressure to conform and to meet external standards.

Eric Deschamps:
I don’t think you can ever achieve true harmony or balance or integration or flow when you’re not living your life, but you’re living somebody else’s. Getting clear on that, I would add to a core values. I would say, like, it’s also getting clear on what does make you happy. Mhmm. What makes it it’s not gonna look the same for everybody. I remember hearing years ago a definition of success that I’ve kind of adopted and modified slightly, but my my modified version. And it’s under currently under review because this show and prep preparing for the show made me say, okay. I think I still believe that, but I need to spend some time thinking about that because, how we define success will determine how we live our lives.

Eric Deschamps:
Right? And and are we making progress towards it or not? But for me, it’s doing more of what I love with the people that I love. And that is both at work Right. And at home. Right? It’s it’s an integrated it’s it’s an attempt at a more integrated approach, to say, like you, I love what I do. Right? I absolutely love helping leaders. I I love working with organizations. I love sitting across a Zoom call from someone or face to face and watching the penny drop as we have conversations and helping them untangle some shit. And, I I I feel like most days I’m not working, and then there’s days I feel like I’m working.

Eric Deschamps:
But alright. But finding that integration for me is

Rob Dale:
Well, and and I don’t wanna let let’s talk about this for a second because I’m sure there are a lot of people listening who will be thinking, oh, that’s great, you guys.

Kate Beere:
Like, you

Rob Dale:
guys you guys all have it so good for that. Like, I’m stuck in this 9 to 5 job or Yeah. Other people dictate my work life balance, all of this. And and perhaps it’s, yeah, I know for me, making, like and we all went through this season where it was a choice to live the life that we’re living now. Mhmm. And it was fucking hard. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Dale:
Like like, we all took a step at some point Yeah. Where we left Yeah. Whether it’s corporate, we left you know, for us, the church world, we left a world, an environment, and into the unknown, into the darkness of what the future holds. Right. And so when somebody says, you it’s so easy for you guys to talk about this, it’s this just didn’t happen. Right. And so for people listening who are 20 years till retirement and a job they hate, that’s a choice you’re making, and there are other choices you can make to to live that to be able to live a life of of that you’re enjoying, that you’re welcoming, that that aligns with your values, all of those things.

Eric Deschamps:
I love that. So so what would you and let’s spend some time there, because I think it is crucial to say, again, we’re at a stage where we this has been a series of decisions and actions and choices over time that has led us to be in a a a better place from a work perspective. I would never give up, the the deal that I have now. Right? Right. My commute is literally 10 steps, down to the coffee maker back up to my office. Right? Like, it’s and so the the the the regaining of freedom, the the the extra time that I have in my where I would be I would actually I’ve been free pretty much. I only only had one a couple of real jobs

Rob Dale:
in my You and I have never had a problem. Right? So Yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
I would make a I tell people I tell my leaders all the time, I would make a horrible employee. Yeah. I’ve I’ve had some of them say, you should come work for me and all this. I’m like, no. No. You don’t understand. I’ve been free way too long. Right? So you there’s no way I

Rob Dale:
can this line. Oh, yeah.

Eric Deschamps:
You you could never

Rob Dale:
like, I’d

Eric Deschamps:
be so unhappy. But but what is, what would you say to someone who is in that, let’s say, unhappy state from a work perspective, or they’re bored or they’re unhappy, they’re looking for more fulfillment, quitting your job may seem like a huge step. But what what what would you say to folks to take a step towards finding greater integration at at, like, in the workplace.

Rob Dale:
Well, I think it’s

Kate Beere:
just like, if you’re thinking of doing a big career jump I’ve said this before. It doesn’t be this massive leap.

Rob Dale:
Right.

Kate Beere:
There’s so many things you can do without necessarily leaving your current job. You can ask for you might move into a part time role. You can maybe ask for more flexibility. There’s a lot of things you can do where you are to maybe bring more harmony into your space. I think one thing for me is, like, it’s what I always say to people. It’s not it’s scary. Okay? It’s scary as fuck to make a big leap out of corporate and to leave, you know, stability. You know, as a single mom, what I did a year ago, I would argue most people won’t do.

Kate Beere:
Yeah. To leave all of that stability knowing I’m really unsure what’s gonna be over here. But for me, it was like the fear of staying Yeah. Got bigger than the fear of

Eric Deschamps:
the The cost of staying.

Kate Beere:
Right? It’s just well, it no. And even that fear of, like, oh, what am I like, who am I becoming, staying, living in this world? I’m, like, not happy. It’s I’m not living for what? For a paycheck. And I don’t want my kids to see me doing that. I want my kids to see me living my dream, being happy, but it’s scary. And you have to embrace that fear

Rob Dale:
Yeah.

Kate Beere:
Because you have to move through it, or you’re not gonna get through to the other side.

Eric Deschamps:
Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I love that.

Wendy Dodds:
I mean, I don’t have a ton of of, you know, extras to add other than what you said, but, you know, it’s a lot easier for people to complain and be miserable and unhappy than really sitting down and getting clear. You know, so people say, like, hey, you’re unhappy in your marriage. You’re unhappy at work or whatever. Have you actually sat down? It’s a lot easier to complain than it is to, okay. I need to get crystal clear on what sacrifices am I willing to make? What are my nonnegotiables? And to everybody’s point Yeah. It is fucking hard. Yeah. I left the corporate world, and then I was laid off.

Wendy Dodds:
2 weeks after, I signed papers for a new freaking home Yeah. Right. Based on my income. Right. I had nothing.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. I mean,

Wendy Dodds:
I had a severance, but I don’t care what anybody says. Your severance is, yes, you can live off it a little bit. But, you know, that’s that’s scary.

Eric Deschamps:
It’s a temporary cushion.

Rob Dale:
It’s not

Eric Deschamps:
just right.

Wendy Dodds:
But I had spent time prior to that really getting clear on what was I passionate about, what makes me happy. You know, you wanna be responsible about it, but at the same time, nothing changes if nothing changes. Yeah. And sometimes you need to get to that point where you’re having that breakdown in order to experience that breakthrough.

Rob Dale:
Yeah. And and no one’s gonna do it for you.

Eric Deschamps:
Right?

Rob Dale:
No. No one is gonna do it for you, and that’s where it’s again, it’s at some point, if you’re going you’re making a choice, and it absolutely is a choice to either stay in the chaos Yeah. Stay in, someone else’s control, or take control of how you live your life.

Eric Deschamps:
Right. And taking control, again, even, what we’re talking about sometimes making a move where you have to leave your current context. But sometimes it’s it’s asking to to do work that is more aligned with your your passions. Maybe it’s asking to take on a project that’s gonna help you grow and stretch and and get out of your comfort zone a little bit. Maybe it’s taking someone under your wing, at the office and mentoring them. There’s all kinds of ways of infusing more purpose, more fulfillment, more meaning into your work, but I think it begins by getting clear on who I am who I am, what I stand for. Because no attempt at doing anything will work if it’s not aligned to your true self, which I think most people aren’t.

Wendy Dodds:
Or asking for help. Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s a lot easier for us to just sit in our bubble and be miserable, but asking for that support, clarity, help with clarity, help with feedback. I mean, you guys are amazing coaches and and and how many times you’ve probably had conversations with your leaders on helping them gain clarity on navigating whatever direction they’re in. I’m a big believer in people, you know, asking for feedback and, hey. I just wanna, you know, help me kinda navigate through what’s going in my head. But a lot of times, we don’t ask because we’re ashamed and we’re embarrassed, and it’s just easier to not to just be to sit and just be unhappy.

Eric Deschamps:
Sitting, in your misery is hard. Making a change is hard. Mhmm. Choose your heart.

Kate Beere:
There you go.

Eric Deschamps:
Right? Both are hard, but one has hope built into it. The other, just more of the same. Guys, this has been an amazing conversation. I am so glad we decided before we even, started, recording today that we were not going to try to cover all the material We

Rob Dale:
got question 1 done.

Eric Deschamps:
We got question 1 done. We got 9 more. So make sure, for those of you listening, tune in next week. You don’t wanna miss part 2 of, rejecting work life balance bullshit, finding finding sanity beyond the scale. We hope you’ll join us for part 2 where we continue this really great conversation, about finding your footing in life. And, I I would say probably closing words for me are, it’s an inside job. It it’s not about external circumstances, but so glad you’ve joined us. Remember to go to our website, living richly dot me, where you can find all kinds of great information about our, Living Richley Nation, our exclusive private Facebook group.

Eric Deschamps:
It continues to grow, and it’s just so great to watch like minded people come together online. You’ll also find great information about the 15 day life vision challenge, which if you’re not clear on who you are and what you stand for, this is this this free online experience is for you. It’s gonna help you do just that. It’s helped hundreds of people already, and we’re getting such great feedback. You don’t wanna miss it. Finally, make sure to like, share, subscribe. Let’s get the Living Richly message out there. And until next week, get out there and keep living your best

Rob Dale:
life.

 

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