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Is there a such thing as work life balance?

Transcript

 Today, when you work from home, what does work life balance look like?

 My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and create, or this week health, a set of channels dedicated to keeping health it staff current. And engaged. We want to thank our show sponsors. We're investing in developing the next generation of health leaders, short test and artist site two great companies. Check them out at this week. health.com/today. Having a child with cancer is one of the most painful and difficult situations a family can face.

In 2023 to celebrate five years at this week health we are working to give back. We will be partnering with Alex's lemonade. Stand all year long. We have a goal to raise $50,000 from our community. We are already at 10,000 for the year, and we ask you to join us, hit our website. And at the top banner, you will see a logo for our lemonade. Stand, click on that and give today.

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 All right. Let me give you a little update on the drive we did for February. We ended up with 20,000 a little over 20,100. Downloads. And as a team, we decided to give a thousand dollars towards Alex's lemonade stand. And we wanna thank you for driving that number. We really appreciate it for February and March. We have the captain campaign. So captain.

Is, , my producer's Service dog. Who will be going to vibe and hymns with And we have a little, , program that we're gonna be doing, and we're gonna be raising money for Alex's lemonade. Stand at both of those events. And what it is is if you see captain, if you see us with captain. We would love for you to take a picture with captain and get people in that picture with you for, with captain.

And post that. Picture to social media. And let people know that you took the picture with captain to raise money, to fight childhood cancer and to search for cures for childhood cancer. And for every post that late, that actually tags this week health. And we see we're gonna count the number of people in that post. And we're gonna give $1 for every person in that picture with captain.

, to Alex's lemonade stand. So there's an opportunity if there's gonna be. I don't know, 7,500 people at the five conference, as they say, and there's gonna. I know 10 or 20,000 people at the hymns conference. There's an opportunity to raise a fair amount of money. And we would like to do that. And we'd like to give you the opportunity to do that. So captain.

We will , be posting that sometime next week give you an idea of what we're gonna be doing. , some of our sponsors have stepped up and they're gonna be a part of helping us raise money as well. , we think this is gonna be a big one. So please search us out at the, , at the conferences and we'll give you more information as we move

All right. Work life balance. First of all, Fridays, Fridays are a time where I just talk about stuff, , stuff that I hope my kids will listen to. Stuff that I think will help you, hopefully in your career, in your life, and don't necessarily focus on a news story. So if that's not what you're interested in, you can tune out right now.

, but today I'm gonna talk about work life balance. I've worked from home a fair amount over the course of my life. . I don't believe in work-life balance. I believe in life design. Life design is very different than work-life balance. I don't separate the two, one life, one day timer, right? I am a social, being at home, I'm a social being at work.

But it's one Daytimer, it's one person, right? So I don't believe in sectioning off and I'm now at work. I'm now at home. That kind of stuff. , and. But what I do believe is in life design, right? And by that what I mean is looking at your, your life in its entirety and saying,

do I want what I am getting from this? Is my career giving me what I want? Or is it taking too much from me? A lot of times I talk to people about their career, and I'll ask them, how much of your job do you. . And if they say, well, it's about 50 50, 50% of the stuff I do, I like 50%. I don't like, I tell 'em, find another job.

If your job isn't at least 70% of things that you like and 30% of things that you don't like, cuz every job has some aspect of it that's hard, difficult. And, you just have to plow through it. , and you gotta find that balance. Is it 70 30? 70 30 to me is like the. , right? If you're, if you're at 60 40, that's a danger zone.

Like 40% of your time spent at work is on stuff you don't like doing. That's a danger zone. Now, I understand, I've had jobs in my life where I was essentially just working for a paycheck, but you wanna do that as little as possible, and you want to focus in on, , finding a job. In, in life design, you're finding a.

That fits you, that that really accentuates your skills and your abilities and highlights those and gives you the chance to really succeed. And so with life design, you look at it and you say, am I spending enough time at home? Am I spending enough time with my family? And am I making enough money to do the things that we want to do?

, am I challenged enough at work? Do I like the people I work with? I mean, these are all valid questions. I think Gen X and and Gen Z really understand this and they are asking those types of questions. And finally, as managers we're looking at it and saying, can we create an environment where people actually like coming to work?

We are having conversations with them to say, what parts of your job do you like? What parts of your job? Do you not like? And so I believe in life design and I've designed my life now. People ask me all the time, are you gonna be a CIO again? And the answer is no. , and quite frankly, it's not that I didn't enjoy the job, I loved having a team of that magnitude.

I loved working for a faith-based organization and all those things, but I look at it as a time of my life that has passed and it did not deliver, quite frankly, on the life I. It was a very difficult job. It was very demanding, very draining. I did not get to do a lot of the things that I want to do with my life outside of work.

It was a pretty all-consuming kind of thing, and maybe that's me and how I went about the job. But re regardless. I know myself now and I know that that does not give me what I want out of life. And so from a life design standpoint, I'm looking at it going, now I need to do something. . And so now I'm a business owner.

I run this business and we do a lot of different things, but it is really designed around accentuating the things I like to do, working with people I like to work with, working with sponsors who I like to work with and I believe in their products , and so we are very selective and most of that is it's life.

Right. I don't wanna work with really, really challenging people. You have to work with some challenging people. But at the end of the day, I wanna work with people. I like, I get along with, I want to interview people that I believe in the work that they're doing, and I like to accentuate that work.

So anyway, designing my life, and by the way, it hasn't always been this way. A friend of mine, Bob Perkins, , is a life coach and he started asking me crazy questions way back and questions I didn't even understand. Right. He was asking me, you know, , let me think about something. You know, house?

He was asking me that question like 15 years before my kids were gonna be out of the house. What do you want your relationship with your kids and your wife to be like, I know these are , crazy questions. But he was a great friend and he caused me to think about some things that I was doing in decisions I was making around.

So anyway, I don't believe in work life balance. I believe in life design. And so, , this week I'm actually on vacation and I'm. and you might say, oh, that's not healthy. Well, it's actually very healthy. I like my job. I like what I'm doing, I like recording these shows. It is a fair amount of work. But, , this is a vacation week.

What makes it a vacation week? Let me give you, , 10 quick things that make it a vacation week for me. , these are some of the things I do on vacation. One is I evaluate and change at least one. And so I'm not good at exercising. And this week I went to the gym three times and I feel like if I can evaluate and look at those habits a week that you take off is a good week to do that.

Because you know what, I could go at nine o'clock cuz I'm not working right? And so I was able to go to the gym three times this week. , second, , I try to do something that I don't have to time to do while I'm. and that is, , there's a group of guys that get together to play cards.

And I don't normally go to that card game, but I was able to go to that card game cuz I'm, I'm not working this week. , right? I was able to play golf with some, some people in the afternoon because I'm not working this week. So do something that I don't have time to normally do. That's one of the things I did.

, number three, let my team surprise me with what they can do without me. So, as you know, we started these 2 29 events. We bring executives together, small groups. , to again, amplify great thinking. We bring them together. We allow them to share the great work that they're doing at their health systems.

It's phenomenal. It's going really great. Well, we're doing one this week and I'm off, and my team's like, how are we gonna do this? Whatever. I'm like, you know, and we talked through it and I. You know, they, it clearly delegated correctly and talked it through with them. I found someone to replace me as the, , as the, , moderator for the event.

And it's, it's somebody who, I trust somebody who's gonna do a great job, but I am doing one of these events and this is the first event I'm doing, or that is being done by our organization without me. So I'm gonna let the team surprise me with what they can do without me, but I'm still entering the. Now they've , they actually haven't called me.

I called them once. They haven't even called me yet, so they are surprising me already. So anyway, , number four, time box might work on vacation to one hour only per day. Now I, it is a loose rule. Sometimes I'll work a little longer. Sometimes I won't work at all in a day, but I try to keep my work. During a vacation week to about five hours, it's just unrealistic for me as a business owner or as a cio, it was unrealistic to not work.

It created too much stress going into vacation, creates too much stress coming out. So I, I just time boxed it and said, look, this is what I'm gonna do. And I always did it at a time when it would not impact my family. , that's one of the reasons I get up so early in the morning. Number five, focus on my wife, who will be with me long.

You all stop listening to me, right? So I really focus in on that relationship. I love my wife and really try to make sure that we do some things that are special on weeks where I'm on vacation. , number six, , look at my life goals, , that don't involve work and see if there's something I can move forward.

You know, one of my life goals is to put together a golf trip of about, 24. , and, , the thought is to do a Ryder Cup weekend, and I was looking at that. I put together a whole bunch of aspects of that. I'm not ready to really move forward with it yet, but I've moved it , down the road a little bit.

I, I've had some conversations with some people who are getting excited about it as well, so I'm moving it a little bit down the road. , number seven, take more time for reading. , I like reading. I, I shouldn't say that. My eyes are getting worse. I like audio books. I like hearing, , , books

so I take a lot more time to read while I'm on vacation. Number eight, spend time with friends. I already talked about that. Finding some time to, , hang out, play cards with some people, play some golf with some people. , number nine is, is dream a little. , dream about, , and some of this is work related.

I dream about, you know, what I want for the staff, what I want for the company, where I think we can go, , maybe some new things we might want to try, , because my mind is uncluttered. I'm able to, , I don't know, be a little more creative and a little more. , , free thinking, I guess is the word. And, , number 10, , call a bunch of people who I normally don't have time to speak with.

And so what I try to do is find somebody, , , once a day during the week I'm off and just call them up. Could be somebody I worked with in the past, could be. , friend from college could be just somebody I've, I've struggled to keep in touch with or get back, , in, contact with. So I've talked to a bunch of people this week that I haven't talked to in a while, and, , it's good, you know, it's good to hear how people are doing , and see if there's anything that could connect us and, , keep us better connected moving into the future.

So, you know, work life balance. I, I don't know if those things help any of you. These are things that have worked for me and it's taken me a long time. I've worked outta my home for a long time, and I know that when the computer is on the other side of a door, or even if that computer is in my living room, there was times.

Where we didn't have a big house and whatnot, and I worked outta the house and , essentially my computer was in the living room and that was my office. And it was also the TV room. It was also the kids' playing room. It was all those things. And it's hard , to walk away from work and to not have it consume you.

And when the kids are tugging at you, you're sitting at the computer. I know that that is hard. , and that's why I think life design is so, instead of letting life happen to you and say, well, this is my job. I have to do these things. Ask yourself those questions. What do you want your life to look like?

What do you want out of your job? What do you want out of your career? My father-in-law finished his career after 30 some odd years with the same job he started with. 35 years earlier, he never wanted a promotion. He had no desire to have a promotion. He had no desire to give any more than what he gave to that organization.

And the entry level job was just fine with him. He made enough money. He took three weeks vacation a year. He loved his family. He spent time in the Poconos. He did all the things he wanted to do, and. , don't believe if somebody's pushing you to do stuff that you're not sure you want to do or don't, doesn't fit what your picture of what you want your life to be like.

, maybe you just need to say, no, reevaluate. I don't know. Anyway, that's what Fridays are about. Just me sharing a little bit and looking at some things maybe from a little different perspective.

 That's all for today. If you know someone that might benefit from our channel. You could do us a great favor and shoot them a note. Let them know that you are listening to the show and that they can subscribe wherever they listen to podcasts, apple, Google, overcast, Spotify, Stitcher. You get the picture where everywhere. And if you can't find us there, go head to our website this week, health.com. We want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders, 📍 short test and artist site.

Check them out at this week. health.com/today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.

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