Work-life balance

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast, powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses. But first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the creator space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, How can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three? Every week, I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey.

These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

On today's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, we are focusing on a topic that I'm sure all entrepreneurs and employees alike struggle with daily, work-life balance. Let's get into it. What is work life balance? It depends on who you ask. Everyone has a different definition based on their situation.

For many, it's ensuring that you manage some sort of equilibrium between professional life and personal time. Like spending time with family, partaking in activities you enjoy, or simply relaxing. For the entrepreneurs listening, you know as well as I do, that when you take the leap into entrepreneurship, it's common for your existing work-life balance boundaries, if you had any, to take a hit.

We've had so many folks on this show that have dedicated their lives to their work, and occasionally their personal lives have been affected greatly. In most episodes of the show, I try to ask our featured entrepreneurs how they balance it all, especially when working a full-time job and balancing a side hustle.

However, I thought it was time we dedicated an entire episode to exploring this concept, to see how we can improve our own work-life balance, and why it is so vital to avoid burnout and failure within business. On today's show, I have two guests to speak about this. Adam Walker, a longtime entrepreneur and podcaster.

For transparency, Adam and I are business partners. We currently own a content creation agency together, Edgewise media, which was founded in 2020. Let's meet him now.

[00:02:12] Adam Walker: Hey, I'm Adam Walker. I'm a husband. I've got five kids. I wear fedoras. I started my career in the nonprofit space and eventually started up a marketing agency.

Ran that agency for 10 years and we sold that agency in 2019. Bounced around a little bit, ended up starting a podcast, and content creation agency, as well as doing marketing consulting, and I'm also involved in a software startup. So those are the things that I'm doing, that's how I got to where I am today.

[00:02:42] Sanjay Parekh: Along with Adam, we have Alice Rizzi on the show. Alice is a licensed psychologist in New York, mindfulness coach. Alice specializes in helping individuals overcome fear and self doubt, managing their stress, and gaining confidence. Here she is now.

[00:02:59] Alice Rizzi: My name is Dr. Alice Rizzi. I'm a licensed psychologist in New York and a telehealth provider in Florida.

I'm also a mindfulness coach worldwide. And about four years ago, I started both of my businesses. So it was right mid-pandemic. I had originally been working for another group practice and we were all working from home and I realized everything that I'm doing for this other individual and giving money away.

I can just do for myself. So that was like my light bulb moment. And I was like, okay, I'm going to start my own private practice. And I don't know if your listeners have ever been in therapy or coaching, it can take a while to build up a caseload, like a roster of clients to work with. So I started doing some research.

I started taking courses. I started learning all about SEO and then I was waiting for clients. And so then I started my second business, which was the mindfulness coaching business. So now I operate both and I work with adult professionals in the therapy business. I help them manage stress, anxiety, and OCD using evidence-based practices.

And in my coaching business, I help ambitious, heart-led women transform fear, self-doubt into, more confidence, self-esteem so that they can create the kind of life and business that they love.

[00:04:16] Sanjay Parekh: With the help of Adam and Alice, we are going to deep dive into work-life balance. We'll start by defining it, then move into topics such as managing work-life balance in today's always connected society strategies and habits you can adapt to better achieve your ideal balance. And finally, creating boundaries so you don't face burnout or failure within your business. Let's get into it. I'm sure to many, the concepts of work-life balance are pretty self-explanatory, especially as I somewhat explained it earlier.

However, I asked Adam and Alice to give me their definitions. One from an entrepreneur who works daily to achieve it, and the second from a psychologist and coach who helps individuals grappling with concepts like this every day.

[00:04:58] Adam Walker: Yeah, I think work-life balance is figuring out the level of work, the level of personal life that each person needs to thrive and it's probably different for each person. It's probably different for each phase of life as well, and I think the way it looks is often very different person by person. But for me It looks like separating things out pretty dramatically and cutting off the times that I'm available for email and Slack and other things like that.

[00:05:27] Sanjay Parekh: Now, when I asked Alice to define the concept of work-life balance, she explained that the concept looks different for everyone and that it's very personal to each individual.

[00:05:37] Alice Rizzi: I've heard someone else say this that like they refer to it more as like work, work-life harmony, rather than balance, because it's never going to be 50/50 you're always going to have weeks where you're more like into work, and then you're going to have weeks where hopefully you're off and on vacation and having fun.

Most days you're going to have some work and some life, even though work is part of life. So it's going to be personal to each individual, how much time you allocate to different things. And one of the things I love talking to my clients about is your personal core values, because they're what allows you to dictate and feel good about how much time you're allocating to different things.

[00:06:18] Sanjay Parekh: I asked Alice to expand a little on personal values and how someone can find out what number one, their values are, and number two, how these values impact their lives and how they should be balancing their personal and professional lives.

[00:06:33] Alice Rizzi: People often ask, like, how do I define my core values? You can do a values card sort.

And if you type it up in Google, it will come up. But you can also grab any list of values and just circle a few to yourself. Like, what is really important to me in life? What kind of person do I want to be? When you think about how much time to allocate to work and life that's going to depend on which values you personally select for yourself.

[00:06:58] Sanjay Parekh: Determining your core values is a common therapy practice which can lead to a lot of clarity as you go about your day to day life. However, this was the first time I'd heard of the practice being used to help balance your work life and personal life, but it can be very effective.

As Dr. Rizzi said, a simple Google search can help you determine these values. Look into it. I asked Dr. Rizzi about common misconceptions she often sees when chatting with folks about work-life balance.

[00:07:27] Alice Rizzi: Well, that it has to be 50/50, I think, is probably the biggest one. People are like, well, if I spend eight hours at work, then I need to somehow spend eight hours at home.

But I don't have eight hours because I have to cook and clean and child care and dogs. Partners and whatever and that's really not the case.

[00:07:45] Sanjay Parekh: Like Dr. Rizzi mentioned earlier, work-life balance is personal to each individual and looks different for everyone. And maybe she's right. Maybe we should be adopting the term work-life harmony instead.

I know that for entrepreneurs, especially solopreneurs, it's easy to work for 12 or more hours a day. If this is you, you know it's impossible to spend just as much time committed to your personal life. Vice versa, if you're in a situation where you need to spend more time in your personal life over your work life, it can be impossible to work as much as you would like to.

It was reassuring to hear Dr. Rizzi say that it does not have to be 50/50, and often never is. To wrap up our first section of this episode, I asked both of our guests how an individual knows when their work-life balance is out of sync. Let's start with Adam, who shares his own personal story of how he came to realize he was out of sync.

[00:08:38] Adam Walker: I realized my work-life balance was out of sync when I was spending time in my personal space doing things with my family and I was constantly worried about work or I was distracted by my email or I was distracted by messages. And for me, that was a red flag to know that like something's really out of whack here and I need to figure out what it wasn't and it was causing a lot of anxiety in me as well; like a lot of stress. So I think I think that's kind of the first thing is, is there a balance is kind of question number one. Because for a lot of people, they're just on 24/7 and they don't realize the level of stress that that causes to their lives. So it's a question of one, is there balance at all?

And question two is, are there times that you are fully unplugged and fully engaged with your life that is separate from work? And if the answer is no to both of those questions, then there's probably a problem that you need to address.

[00:09:34] Sanjay Parekh: When I asked Alice the same question, she highlights how an out of sync work life balance can lead to physical health issues.

[00:09:41] Alice Rizzi: Well, a couple of extremes would be, like, if you already know that you're experiencing burnout, or if you are already physically ill. Like, that's basically what can happen if you are not careful about how you're balancing your life. You're going to be overworked, you're going to feel like overwhelmed, you're going to feel like you have too many responsibilities, like you can't quite catch your breath.

And your body really feels that. So you might find yourself getting sick very often, you might have stomach issues, you might have autoimmune conditions that flare up. So those are like the signs on the major like extreme end. But before that, like if you are finding yourself frazzled and overwhelmed, disorganized, like you feel like you have a hundred different things and you don't know what to start first.

People might tell you like, oh, we haven't spent any time with you. You know, can we, like, schedule something? Your partner or family might say, oh, we never see you. Like, mommy, where are you? You're always working, right? Especially for parents. So socially, people might start noticing. And you will find there's like more fogginess, I think, you start deprioritizing your own physical needs like, you know, we've all been there like you're writing an email and you notice that the urge to go to the bathroom and you're like, let me just finish this email, but then a new email pops up and you're like, okay, just this one.

And so suddenly, like, you've been holding in and that can make your body sick. And it's the same thing with like lunch, you know, so many people eat lunch at their desk and they think like, well, I can't afford, you know, the time to step away. And it's like, is that really true? Like how long is it actually going to take you to eat that sandwich?

You can sit in the kitchen for 10 minutes, eat your sandwich. And if you really need to come back, you can come back, but at least you're allowing your mind to unplug from the work that you are doing. And that will actually bring more clarity to you in the long run, but those are kind of the major signs, right?

So, the physical, mental ailments on the extreme end, and then, the physical neglect that starts with little things here and there, and people noticing in your external life.

[00:11:44] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901.

Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox.com. Hiscox, the business insurance experts.

[00:11:59] Sanjay Parekh: Next, I want to discuss why it's so challenging to achieve the perfect work-life balance. One topic that I'm specifically interested in is the impact of the smartphone. It seems like overnight we have adopted an always on work ethic. Our phones allow us to constantly be connected to work. Not only that, but the pandemic has standardized working from home, blurring the lines further between home life and work life.

I asked Alice to expand on how smartphone in our pocket impacts how we view work.

[00:12:30] Alice Rizzi: I think for a lot of people, it throws them off. I mean, I know for myself, I use my phone a lot more than I use my laptop. I use my laptop, you know, when I have to like write up a document or when I'm planning to sit for a few hours and like do client facing work.

But most of the other time I'm on my phone. If I want to check my email, it's on my phone. If I want to do social media, it's on my phone. So I think a lot of people have a hard time unplugging because of that. So like, just as an example, one thing that I do for myself is my work email is in a separate folder on a different page away from my home screen versus like my personal email that I can log into whenever I want.

And so it's like thinking about like tricks like that. What can you do for yourself to make work out of reach when you want it to be out of reach, right? And then closer in reach when you want it to be in reach.

[00:13:19] Sanjay Parekh: When I asked Adam the same question, he laid out how he, as an entrepreneur, sets boundaries with his clients in this age of being connected constantly.

[00:13:28] Adam Walker: All of a sudden, everybody got access to 24/7 communication for work, and so they started communicating constantly, and then they couldn't dial it back. And clients are super demanding, and bosses are super demanding, whatever else. And so that's another thing, too, is like, when I take on clients, and I've done this for years, like I make sure they know, listen, I'm not on email all the time.

So if you need me, and there's like some crazy emergency, which I'm in marketing, I can't imagine why there would be a crazy marketing emergency, but whatever, if there's a crazy marketing emergency, then feel free to text me. That's an appropriate use of text. Otherwise, you're not going to find me until Monday morning on a week. I'm not around until then. And so I'll get back to you when you work whenever you want to work. That's fine. There's no judgment here, but I'll get back to you when I'm at my desk and actually getting work done. And then not until then, I'll make sure they know that everybody's cool with it.

[00:14:21] Sanjay Parekh: Listening to both Dr. Rizzi and Adam answer this question as entrepreneurs. I wondered if entrepreneurs have it worse when it comes to constantly being on for many entrepreneurs. Their business is their life. And it may be harder for them versus an employee to disconnect, especially when they set their own hours. I asked Adam what he thought about this.

[00:14:41] Adam Walker: I mean, entrepreneurs struggle with work-life balance, I think more than the average person, but largely also because there was this huge trend in social media for many years with kind of this like hustle till you die culture. With all of these influencers that are like, listen, you can sleep when you're dead.

You can have friends when you're a millionaire, go make tons of money right now. And that's just not real. And it's not honest. And it's not healthy. And, it's not worth it. So yeah, I think entrepreneurs really struggle with that and we have to be willing to dial back some of our ambition sometimes in order to have a sustainable and meaningful existence today as well as growing for tomorrow.

[00:15:25] Sanjay Parekh: When I asked Dr. Rizzi the same question, she cites hustle culture as well. But also notes that while entrepreneurs might struggle with this a little more, everyone is affected.

[00:15:35] Alice Rizzi: But I think entrepreneurs struggle with that a lot because like, well, I run the business and I'm the CEO and I'm the copywriter and I have to create a website and I have to do the marketing and I have to do the selling and I have to get on a call and the emails and like you're wearing so many different hats.

It could be like, If you really think about it, you might be doing the job of like a dozen team members and you're trying to squeeze it into the same 24 hours, right? So it's so important to have that balance.

[00:16:02] Sanjay Parekh: Redefining your values when it comes to work is so essential when achieving work-life balance.

And if you've made it this far, you shouldn't be surprised by this. With this, I want to transition into our last segment of this episode, practical solutions and strategies. I'm sure this is the part of the episode that most listeners are looking forward to the most. During the episode, we've heard some helpful advice about achieving work life balance.

From Dr. Rizzi's advice on determining your core values to Adam's strategies when it comes to setting boundaries with his clients. Before we say goodbye to Dr. Rizzi and Adam, I wanted to learn a little bit more about what the average person can do to better achieve work-life balance. Any useful tools they may use or advice on managing stress when it comes to work because I know Adam is really into tech. We even host a technology news podcast together called Tech Talk Y'all. I knew he would have some tools up his sleeve he uses to balance work life and personal life, and boy did he deliver on that.

[00:17:00] Adam Walker: So, okay. Yes, several. So Spark email is one of my favorite tools for work-life balance specifically because I can pull up my email program right now and because now is not a set time that I have for checking email, it'll show me this beautiful screen and it won't show me any emails on the screen. It'll just show me this night and then I can click a button and see the emails if I want to see them.

So that's kind of nice because I haven't set to think check my emails at like 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. or something like that. So I love that. Another tool that I use is to do is so I put all my tasks in to do list. And I keep myself organized there. I've used to do list forever. It's a great task management software. A new tool that I've been using recently that I love is called Sun Sama. It's a tool for time boxing so I can take all my tasks from Todoist and I can look at all my meetings and then I can take my tasks and put them directly on my calendar using Sun Sama and so it kind of blocks up my calendar so that if one of my team members wants to schedule time with me tomorrow, like I'll already have time blocked out for the tasks I have to do and they know when I'm actually available. And so it doesn't get in the pop-up meetings don't get in the way of me actually doing the work that needs to be done.

[00:18:13] Sanjay Parekh: I knew that Alice would have some great advice on managing stress. Here she is now.

[00:18:17] Alice Rizzi: So oftentimes what I advise my clients to do is allocate some time to themselves every day. And that time is going to look differently for each individual as we already spoke about like depending on the values. But that could be like time that you spend like singing, playing an instrument, crafting, going outside for a walk, taking a bath, going for a manicure. Like, you don't have to be very rigid about it, right? People think like, well, I can't afford to do a manicure every week. Okay. Nobody's asking you to, but can you allocate a half hour to yourself in your day?

What about even just 10 minutes, 10 minutes where you sit and maybe you do a meditation or maybe you journal a little bit about what your day was like. Like that is me time. And that still counts. That will already help you feel more balanced because you're not just working and you're not just like a wife or a husband or a student or whatever.

You're also this person who has their own rich internal life that you get to spend how you like during this time.

[00:19:25] Sanjay Parekh: To wrap up today's episode, I asked Adam and Dr. Rizzi for their general advice for those trying to achieve work-life balance. Here's Adam.

[00:19:33] Adam Walker: I think I would say that doing less is not just, okay, it's probably essential.

We have this habit of thinking, like workwise of thinking, you have to do more, you have to do more. You have to do more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. And the reality is that there's a certain inflection point with work where doing more doesn't actually produce more results. It just produces more work and it, and probably less quality work.

And so I think doing less work, but higher quality work has a better impact on your work and therefore on your career than doing more work of mediocre quality.

[00:20:14] Sanjay Parekh: Over to Dr. Rizzi for the final word.

[00:20:16] Alice Rizzi: If we have to summarize it into just one thing, be mindful, that is what I teach my clients across both businesses to do.

But to expand on that just a little bit, you can start with asking yourself. What am I thinking? How am I feeling emotionally? How is my body feeling? You're going to start gaining so much awareness if you can ask yourself those questions at least once every day. Because if you are thinking, my job sucks, why am I doing this?

That's a cue that something needs to shift. If your stomach is growling and you realize, wow, I have felt my stomach doing that every single day this week, then maybe I need to shift something around when I eat. If you wake up every single morning and you are tired and you are dreading getting out of bed, maybe something around your sleep schedule needs to change, or even earlier on with the work that you're doing.

So it's really just becoming more attuned with yourself. What is my body telling me? Because ultimately that's how you're going to know whether you're happy or miserable.

[00:21:14] Sanjay Parekh: Thank you to both Dr. Rizzi and Adam for joining us on the show today to discuss work life balance. It's an important topic that affects both entrepreneurs and employees alike. To learn more about Dr. Rizzi and her work, visit her website at dralicerizzi.com. That's dralicerizzi.com. And to learn more about Adam, visit his site at adamjwalker.com. That's adamjwalker.com.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.