Work life balance, of course, is a myth, and I like to use the word work life integration because we're never going to balance anything. And instead of looking at it as a time challenge Wade, let's look at it as an energy challenge because time is finite. We will never have this hour together again. However, if you look at it in terms of energy, the energy we put into our day, energy is renewable. Welcome, everybody, today I'm excited to have Dr. Lori Baker Shonna here to talk with us about energizing work life balance goals. She's a leadership coach and professional speaker who works with individuals, academic institutions and entrepreneurs and small businesses and large corporations to strengthen their management and team building skills so they achieve high levels of accidents, productivity, profitability by reclaiming passion and expertize in their industries. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. How are you doing, Wade? It's so great to be here and your audience is so lucky to have you. What a great topic. What a great goal. It's just you're inspiring. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. So share a little bit, if you don't mind. You've got an extensive background and people can see more of an MBA educational doctorate. There's so much study you've done and work around this topic. Share a little bit, if you don't mind, about what got you excited about this topic and why you're so passionate about it. I really love leadership, and one of the things that struck me from the get go is that people are promoted based on how good they do at a job. Oh, you did a good job. Let's make you a supervisor. Let's make you a manager. And then they don't give them any leadership skills. So all of a sudden you have a group of people being supervised by a manager who has no idea how to lead teams, how to deal with conflict management, how to communicate, how to motivate not. They might be able to imagine that they might be able to manage a project, but they cannot manage people. And that made me crazy. So I got a doctorate in organizational leadership to be able to train people on how to lead because it's difficult. I was a college professor for twenty five years, so one of my goals there was teaching students how to work in a team because Wade I'm sure you've been in teams that are so dysfunctional. Some people are doing a lot of work. Some people aren't doing any work because no one is taught people how to work in a team and function well. So this is the space that I'm in and I just love it because everybody needs some help with their leadership skills. Awesome, yeah, I've definitely found that's one of the tougher areas I remember listening to an interview once or a book, I forget what it was, but the person was talking about the idea that at least in many of our traditional school systems, people are told to achieve individually. And then when we go into the workforce, we're told to achieve as a team. But we've been taught before to compete individually and before in school that working together as a team would have been considered cheating. And so what do you do that? Because now you're kind of confused. And at one moment you're told, depending on your environment, that maybe you're supposed to compete in sales organization. Sometimes we're going to have some friendly competition. If there's ever been an oxymoron that I've ever heard or seen, I don't know. There's been that, especially when they'll say, yeah, it's a friendly competition and we've got a reward system where there's at least one reward that's exclusive. So it's not well, if we all hit a certain level, we all get axed. It's now whoever does the best, the one person gets this and they wonder why there's division or there's just certain ways systems sometimes get set up, whether it be team sports. You see the Wade team sports just don't even use sports as a coach. Kids, as opposed to the sense of, well, the team, the organization, the group can achieve certain goals and, you know, bringing it around not just to your work, but also to this idea of, well, how do you balance work and life if the whole job is stressful, the whole business of being on a team and. Well, who's supposed to this well suited to this? Johnny did this all this strife and these stories? Well, they did this in pointing. You almost feel like you're you're in preschool. So GI glue, it's like, well, no, it's OK if we're just here to get something done. And the focus gets lost, how do you find that the work that you do can help bring people back to work? What's that main focus? What are we even here to do? Because before we even get to work life balance, we have to get the results at work. We don't get the results at work, whatever those results need to be to make money or we're kind of in trouble. How do you bring people back to some understanding of balancing that? Wade, first of all, that was so amazingly insightful, I've never heard of that, but it's so true, we're really raised as individuals, except if you're lucky enough to be in team sports. But interestingly enough, I use baseball as an analogy to why how teams need to function, because it's easy and it's clear. So I always tell a team that's not doing well or not playing well together, as they say that if you take a look at a baseball team, you cannot function without a pitcher. You can't everybody can't come to the ballpark. The pitcher doesn't show up, but they still play. It's not happening. Same thing with the catcher. Same thing with. So every position is important. So the first thing you learn is that every person in a team has an incredible, important job to play. That's your baseline. And then what happens if you lack or you don't show up or you don't do? Well, then the whole team, we don't win. So when you have that clarity of an idea of a team that really helps elevate your team. And so I think when you bring to the workplace those kind of. Really beautifully compassionate and inclusive ideas people will elevate, and you're right, work life balance work is stressful enough. And listen, these days with covid home life is stressful enough. So to be able to alleviate some of that stress by making your teams at work functional, making your supervisors functional, that really helps alleviate that stress. And at home, teamwork at home, too. Let's face it, Wade, if you get your family to work as a team and you get your kids to understand the importance of teamwork and elevating the family, you really have a lot of lower stress. Absolutely. There's a couple of things there that you said I love on unpack is, one, this idea that there's roles I know a lot of times people will talk about the participation trophy culture. And I think that's very different than saying that a team has certain roles. If you have an airline, we need pilots, flight attendants, grounds, crew, and let's say ticketing people are, you know, admin people. If you're missing any of those, the thing doesn't work, so it's not that we're saying that, oh, you're a superstar no matter what we're saying. No, no, your role is that important. And yes, the pilot makes more than the grounds crew person because that's a higher level. You know, the same way dentist makes more than the admin person at the dentist office. There's still a hierarchy. It's not about who's better. It's about who can actually get that job done. And that's so relevant. And then the second thing to what you say about the teamwork at home. I can just think of times as our kids have grown up when we've been less clear about how they can contribute in the household and when perhaps they're either not sure how they can contribute or are they going to mess things up or anywhere between that? And will I? Maybe I don't have to or maybe I'll get away with it if I can't or can not have to do it versus when the team is all contributing. You know, as a parent, just something as simple as kids not doing their dishes can end up into a half hour extra, all dumped on one person. And if that one person absorbance that every single day, forget the frustration that builds up. But just the exhaustion, just all those different pieces coming together. And again, I think so many people have this idea that there's some sort of magical balance to work and life. And my understanding is you go in and you be awesome at work and you go in and you'd be awesome in your personal life. So when people say Wade, you talk about a 3-Day Weekend or a 4-Day Work Week lifestyle, however you want to word it. And my understanding is, yes, on my three day weekends, I'm doing my best to be awesome for my family to be an awesome friend and to be awesome for me to enjoy that and in the work week to go in and be awesome. So it's, you know, people here work like, oh, you're trying to get Soul Work. No, trying to be excellent in each of them, but divide them enough that I can even actually focus on one as opposed to just always being something that's going to magically be able multitask and bounce back and forth, which doesn't seem to be realistic. Know and and you're the keyword there is focus. You have to be focused on what you do. That's just so important. You know, I my son is twenty six, but when he went to college, he was the only one in his he was in an apartment with a couple of guys. He was the only one who did the dishes because we, we got him that that's you do the dishes right after you eat. I mean it's just the family dynamic, the family and that's was his job. I didn't even think twice about it. But he lived with two boys, men now who are in college who did not do the dishes. And it frustrated the heck out of them. But it just it just showed you bring that's sounds like such a simple concept, but you bring that into the workplace and you have one person who's working really hard and has a great work ethic. And then you have two people who never were you never were taught the work that they were taught responsibility. And there there's someone picking up that slack. And that is a real key determinant of situation in the workplace. So it's a great example. Yeah. And I like you said, there are two. And this is something I think as we mature, we start to come up with broader explanations. The first explanation, if I were the twenty six year old, I'd be like, these guys are lazy or they don't want to contribute or they're being selfish and yet have that role model has not been set for them. They might not know how to do dishes. They might be afraid they're going to break stuff. They might not want to feel stupid and or they might just be lazy. But there's different ways you can possibly be approached rather than just labeling it and all of a sudden putting casting a negative shadow on it. Absolutely. And then you have to learn as a communicator how to talk to these boys. Are you roommates and say, look, without any judgment, I see that these dishes aren't being done. Let's you know what's happening? Is that something that you don't like to do or tell me why you're not doing the dishes so that you're not accusatory, just kind of interested? Because you're absolutely right. They might not have a culture of doing the dishes in their home or they don't know how to do it. But you'd be surprised how many young people don't know how to do some of the simple things that you would assume they would know how to do, which is very is a college professor. I learned that really quickly. But that is a really great observation. Wade a great observation. Yeah, I saw a post once, which I thought was great, which was it was kind of one of these stereotypical millennial baby boomer posts and it was a millennial, you know, the post was the millennials saying you might make fun of us for not knowing how to use a rotary phone or this or that. But just remember, you can't export your Podfest without us. And it was just one of those things. And if you understand that you said, oh, so that's the equivalent the other way, like, I understand these things. But wow, exporting a PDF is really difficult and to a lot of people it's not. When you're working with people in a business setting and a leader is saying, OK, how do I create a greater personal and professional life balance, not just for me, but perhaps lead other people to do that inside my work, the people I'm working with? How can you make that happen or how can you at least facilitate that? The first thing you need to do as a leader is to acknowledge that people do need work life balance. And so that whole concept of working there is a lot of myths that, you know, harder and longer you work and you know, this Wade, this is you breaches, the longer you work, the better you are. And that's a myth because the real productive people who can get things done, get in and get out. This is the type of employee you want. So that myth of working till six or seven o'clock every night just to show the boss that you're working hard, I think that that has to go out the window, in my opinion. Instead, leadership has to realize that if we can get our employees to put in a really strong workday, then they should be able to leave at the right time and then they should not be bothered unless it's a job that they have to be bothered in overnight. But they should be able to leave their work at home and go home and get refueled. And if we have a little we start with that whole corporate culture of that, then that's really easy. Now, a lot of us don't have that corporate culture. A lot of us are entrepreneurs who have to set our own boundaries. So it's really important to understand, and this is the way I describe it, work life balance, of course, is a myth. And I like to use the word work life integration because we're never going to balance anything. And instead of looking at it as a time challenge Wade let's look at it as an energy challenge because time is finite. We will never have this hour together again. However, if you look at it in terms of energy, the energy we put into our day, energy is renewable. So when you look at your day and how you're going to be setting it up because a good person who a good person, but a person who really wants that 4-Day Work Week has to be organized. Right. So how are you going to spend your energy? Some days your energy is going to be 80 percent work and 20 percent home. That's where you're going to spend. Some of your days are going to be a hundred percent home and zero percent work by figuring out where are you going to put your energy. That's a lot more liberating and it really helps energize you to get through the day. And then the self care aspect is how you refuel, how you bring back that energy every day. So there's some real tickets and keys to that, because if you decide that you are going to put 20 percent of your energy into your family one day, you can't feel guilty about putting that 20 percent in. Do you have to get rid of guilt and you've got to get rid of that feel of you have to be perfect because that doesn't work. If you're mindful and your head is where you are when you're where you are, like your heads and your family and not thinking about work. And when you're at work, your head's at work and not thinking about your family, that really helps with work like integration. Yeah, I think that's so true. A few things. One friend of mine had said it this way. Alex and Philippe had heard an author talk about being where your feet are. Just, you know, it's just so very clear you're there, be there, be present in a different way to what you just said. And I've noticed at times, you know, I've studied from different cultures. And for example, in my case, I usually am working four days a week. I'm usually taking Fridays off over 80 percent of the time, probably over 90 percent of the time I've been covered, which has been kind of interesting at times. The kids were at school, at home, and I couldn't go out. Yes, OK, I'll do the work anyway. But. I have a software company, and on Fridays I might get two to three emails, and if I respond to those emails, it might take me five to 15 minutes on a Friday afternoon after I've already been to the beach, had my fun, played my volleyball. I'm good, and I'm about to spend more time with my family, to be really precise. It might be like 80 percent volleyball, one percent work email, 19 percent family or something of that nature. And instead of being so dogmatic about, oh, gosh, you know, if I if I answer these two emails, well, then it's been a horrible day and I just messed up everything. It's like, no, man, you've been at the beach all day. You're exhausted. You literally couldn't you know, I'm forty nine. That reaches a point where I can't play anymore. And it's like, OK, I'm done for the day and. The alternative for me, just nuts and bolts business to be OK with an Wade hire a person to answer those three questions on a Friday. Well, in my case, it's not worth it to do that. And then I'd have to go out and hustle to sell more software to cover that. Whereas to your point, the energetically if I got to enjoy my Friday, that's the main thing. It's not this rigid definition of black or white. You got to do what I wanted to do. And now in my case, I don't do those emails before I go to play volleyball, but also usually just from, again, the practicality of a business. What happens? I've emptied my queue, so to speak, on Thursday night. And software is one of those things where it is a tech support thing where people do expect a quicker answer. My coaching clients know they don't reach out to be different. They already know that. But the software people and I started that business years ago, now they expect some sort of 24 hour response ish sort of thing. So if I respond in that same day, even with a here's the form answer, do your thing or hey, can we check in Monday morning? I just wanted to be heard. No big deal. It's going to all be OK. And once in a while it might be. Hey, Wade today it's a software that helps people compensate people Wade payrolls. Today, I need your call. I need your help. Can you call Gradle call. And again, I got to do that thing so it's not so dogmatic to your point. It's not this work or life or whatever. There can be a balance now on Saturdays and Sundays. Yeah. I get to pretty much say, no, I'm not touching work because my personality style. And I think a lot of people who are entrepreneurs have this is if I go in, I'm going down that rabbit hole, I have to turn off my clubhouse notifications. None of my Instagram and all those notifications are off, even my email. I'll allow myself to go to my personal email, but if I go elsewhere, I can very quickly go down a rabbit hole and that's not necessary. But again, if I can just look at the big picture of what I'm looking to do, I can have that balance. And I think some of that. Almost dogmatic. Approach to it is what's made it so difficult for people to say, well, I can't be perfect, so I'm just going to give it all up. How do you find when you work with people that maybe having a little more realistic perspective on it can help them maybe be more likely to implement? I give them real practical advice. And at the end of the day, it was really practical advice. Wade if I was coaching you, I'd say, OK, I'll let you do that on Fridays, but you can't do it in the morning. So I would say to you, I want you to go play volleyball all day and you're forty nine year old body. I'm teasing. You know, I feel that. But you I want you to hit that whole mind. It's that whole mindset, it's that full if you start your day, your day off with an email. You're going to be thinking about that email while you're playing with your kids, and that's not great. It's not good at all. So I, I say to you, OK, you can go home and you give yourself a half an hour every Friday to catch up and then that's fine. But that's that mindset that you that's the that's the problem with sneaking in work emails when you should be with your family is that you're not with your family when you do that. And there's no it's that to me is the black and white issue. The other thing that I do do things that are really key Wade one is set your client expectations. My clients know I do not work at night anymore. I am done at six and that's it. Unless there's a I don't I coach and I do leadership, there's usually not a huge emergency. Sometimes there is, but then people can text me. They know how to get me. But every so my clients know six o'clock I'm done. But the second I wake up I get up very early in the morning. They can reach me. Just send me an email and I'll get it to you first. So they had the expectation is they know I'm there, but I'm not going to be there after six. The second expectation that you need to do is. For me, I need to have a I need to get hit Monday running, and it's funny, I just started a moderate in a clubhouse club, which I've never done, but it's going to be Monday mornings at 7:00 in the morning. And so I really got to clear my schedule now because it's going to it's so what I do is I take an hour to Sunday and I get my emails need answering and I get everything done. So I'm ready for Monday. But I this is so important. Like, I don't send out any emails until Monday because I don't want people to know that I'm working on Sunday. It you if you're if you're one of these people who work late at night, which I love because I don't I'm a morning person. But if you if you do all your good stuff at midnight and one don't send out that email, it's nobody's business when you send it out during business hours because you're sending the wrong impression of your time and what you do. That's so huge. There's so many people and I've done this at times where I want you to see that I'm up at one am working on your stuff. Now, I've done that strategically a couple of times when I was behind on a client and I was busy and it was almost like me saying, just so you know, I'm up at 2:00 in the morning just trying to catch up. So that was very specific and it wasn't a lot. I literally had been working the whole day and I and I said, hey, sorry, I'm just now getting this. It's been crazy. This was a busy time of season, but in day in and day out to your point. Absolutely. And I think one of the things people seem to miss is. You can look at working long hours from two perspectives, one perspective, which I'm going to label them, I'm going to say the unenlightened or this oversimplistic thing as well. I'm a hard worker. The other perspective is that you're slow and bad at what you do. If I can get the same results in less time, why should I be there that long? That's like if you think of school, who's usually considered the smartest kid in the class, the kid that finishes the test as quickly as possible and still gets a good grade. Now, there might be a kid that takes longer and still gets a good grade. That's awesome. It might take them longer, no problem. But very few people are saying, yeah, you see that kid that worked really, really long and messed up all the answers. That's the guy you want to be now. That's and again, it might happen, it might not be their strength. I'm not trying to make fun of people to take long and take tests, but the point is, is if you can get it done, if you can mow my lawn with a lawn mower, I'm not going to pay you more if you cut it with a pair of scissors. In fact, I'm going to think you're kind of kind of an idiot. Like, why would you do that? You don't you're not including you're missing something. And definitely what you mentioned client expectations. I remember when I first started telling clients I wasn't working on Fridays, I was so scared and most of my software clients have been with me for literally five, seven, 10 years. So they even know if they don't if I don't respond on a Friday, it's no big deal and it's not an emergency. I just found that it helps Retention. But overall, what I found is when I started telling people I'm not here on Fridays and yes, here I'm not trying to hide. I'm I'm at the beach. So specifically, I'm not here. Most of my clients are entrepreneurs. I like, wow, that's pretty cool. How are you doing that? And in addition to that, then when they would if you even take that product that's unique to my business model, perhaps, but it still speaks to yes, I kind of have my stuff together is people would then say, oh, wait, I know your time is important. That's what I knew, that it was working, because before I would do the same consulting session and some people might take my time, they might talk over for an hour and a half, two hours. And I wasn't mature enough yet to hold them to the time to say, hey, time's up. And all this time because Wade time Wade Wade Galt always available. It's like that kid in high school that's willing to date anybody at any time versus the person that says no. And it was something like, hey, wait, I know your time's importantly. What's going on here, there's like conspiracy people, like a bunch of my friends playing a joke on me and I keep hearing that, but just the fact that I was less available, again, not as some game, not as some psychological tactic, I simply was less available. It was it was that clear. But I was content with that. And it was the exact opposite of desperation or commission breath to get a sale. It was like, this is just what's important to me. My family's important. And I didn't have to say, well, see, I'm doing this because my family is important, blah, blah, blah. Soapbox, soapbox. Now, it was just here's when I can talk and and even with podcasts and interviews, I have a certain time. And if you're a podcast and if you have a podcast, one of the first steps you learn is first you have to make sure I'm available for all these people in the U.S.. Wait. Well, hold on. I'm producing the podcast as the podcast person. And when I'm a guest on the exact topics like, hey, whatever works for you as the host, the host is doing the majority of the work. So if the guest doesn't want to align with the host time again, it's not a power dynamic. It's like that's just kind of the reality. People need to kind of fall in line, and so, again, that expectation, that clarity about your time, I find just helps me become so much more organized, so much more productive. How do you take what you do and then now apply it to the person who now is learning, let's say, to work in the new virtual environment? What tips would give that person? I'm so glad you, because that is I'm so glad you asked because I've been speaking about this for years and all of a sudden everyone's working from home. And it took the whole work life balance integration model and put it on its head, because suddenly I it's interesting for me, Wade I'm a professional speaker as well as a leadership coach, and I had seven gigs cancel in last spring just because I know more live performances. Right. So I had to really learn how to pivot to the virtual space and present there, which I did successfully. It's a little lonely nodding, but you do it right. However, the thing I started speaking about my big topic was how to manage to work at home because I started my own business three years ago, a marketing business and I work from home. It took me years to get a peek, get a groove about how you don't watch TV during the day and how you set your boundaries. And everyone, like millions of people, were thrown into the home workplace without any instructions, like throwing people into a pool and not teaching them how to swim, because there's certain things that you need to do to stay sane at work. And so I want to talk a little bit about that, because that helps with your work life integration. So the first thing you need to do is figure out boundaries because you are not going to work 24/7 in your home. But you don't know that because you're looking at your computer. It's right there. Hopefully not on your kitchen table, but it's right there in front of you. And so you have to learn how to create those boundaries and say to your boss or to your clients, I stop at six o'clock and I tell my clients, say, it's your family. I need to I'm stopping at six because I need to spend time with my family. And people are getting that because of all the things going on. I think people are finally understanding that. And the other thing is a lot of employees have to work with their children so they might not be able to work the 9:00 to 5:00. So they need to speak with their employers about saying I cannot work from 9:00 to noon because that's when my child's in school. But I will work from 12 to seven and then a couple hours in the evening. So setting those boundaries, but not but not being apologetic about it, this is our lives. So you set that boundary and that is one way you can really achieve balance. This is what I'm working and this is what I'm not working and I'm working. When I'm working, I have your full attention. So that's a crucial first step. The second thing is to find a workspace that you can shut a door or at least tell people to leave you alone, because when your family members have no idea that you're there, you have time to play or cook or whatever you're doing and you don't. You're at a job who verbally setting these boundaries and also with your clients. I have my clients know. I just love the fact that they they understand that even working from home, you have certain boundaries. That is the key ingredients to work life. Integration is setting the boundaries, being unapologetic about those boundaries and communicating those boundaries. Those three things can really set you up and not. And finally, Wade not feeling guilty about the boundaries because we all need that. And to your point about the hourly I pay, I charge hourly and I'm sure my clients don't want me to spend more time that I need to on a project. So being efficient and productive, I think it's crucial as a business person. Yeah, I think most people have not yet realized, if they're employees, that most employers. Even though they might not have figured out how to verbalize yet, they want results, they don't get paid for your hours now. Some of them are used to situations where they believe or have experienced that the team members are not committed to results. So they've kind of translated it into while this number of hours takes this number of results. But make no mistake, your clients are paying you for results. And so when it comes down to where the clients of your boss, if you work for somebody, they're paying for a certain result. And if you're able to get clear about what that looks like and even tell your employer or your employees, this is specifically what we're aiming for or what is it that we're aiming for, let's talk exactly about what that is and let's put a lot of energy to that. One of the things I realized when I would do what is now people will call strategy sessions or introductory sessions, but there's always been some sort of you know, you get to know somebody, a client that might do business with you. I would have these sessions that might last, you know, 30 minutes to an hour or whatnot, and I'd be very present with that person. And one of the things that at one point I even verbalize to some of them, I said, look, I want you to understand something real quick, because we'd be back to where we were about to do business, say, look, right now for this last hour, I've been completely present with you. It's just been you and I. And meanwhile, I have clients that have been emailing and calling, right, but it's not an emergency. I have a software business in the coaching business. Nothing that I do is is is truly urgent and that sense. So I don't believe in emergencies. I just don't I had a teacher that used to say she had a Boston accent to say failure to prepare on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. And that's part was the last word, by the way, for those who haven't caught that or for the for the transcription services. So it was just very clear, like I don't do emergencies is basically what I said. And so I said, I want to set that expectation, because that way, if and when something comes up that you believe is an emergency, by all means, communicate to me and whatnot. But my clients do not have my cell number. A couple of them do of my own. My best clients are my highest investment clients. Actually, probably best is the better word. The ones I trust with actually aren't going to abuse it, but. Setting that expectation, he was just like really clear just from the get go, it's kind of like that person says, Yeah, I'll work for you, but I don't do windows. I just don't ever ask me to do windows. I've got this thing in my you know, there's this huge story in my family and somebody because of a window, I'll never do windows. It's not that I'm lazy. I'll do whatever else. I don't do windows. OK, no problem. And then that person can decide, do they want to work with you or not? And if they later come back, they'll get that kind of it's like, oh God, I feel an emergency coming on. And you're like, I don't do emergency. Guess what? So we're going have to figure this one out and guess who's going to figure out that is that's what he means you because I don't do emergencies. All that being said, that's not meant to be arrogant. It's not it's just not to acknowledge that, as you and I both know, especially when you're a coach, people will have a hard time wrapping their head around what you do that's valuable for them. So you sometimes have to help them say, OK, remember, before you talk to me, you had this situation and you told me it was costing you X number of dollars, X number of hours, X X amount of frustration or whatever. And then I helped you to where here's the new you know, here's the after photo. Here's where you're at. That's what you paid for. You did not pay for me to be your 800 support as a coach. You know, one 800 call me at any time in the hour. That's not what the agreement was. And so it just helps people be clear on that. And for me, it helps me to not be so even demanding of myself, because entrepreneurs were some of the toughest people on ourselves of how things are supposed to be and how it could be and what could be better. How do you find that when people are struggling with this? How can people set. Realistic expectations, so they're not creating that perfectionism or any of the things that sabotage work life balance, like trying too hard or just trying too hard and letting it go or just procrastinating stuff. How can people. Deal with that proactively rather than having to take advantage of them. It's a it's a complex issue because we really have to start feeling confident about what we offer, like our value, like Wade, you know, your value, and so you can confidently ask for what you need. I'm the same way I know my value. I know exactly what I am worth. And I and I have no problem asking for what I need and what I charge and all that. But people starting out, you know, they're worried about what people think they're going to get rejected. So the most important thing you can do as an entrepreneur, just in general, is to start building your core confidence. And it's like going to the gym every day and building. If you're not confident with yourself, no one's going to want to hire you because they want to hire a confident person. I always make the analysis of the pilot. You want a confident pilot in the cockpit, someone who's not sure whether they're a. Ability to fly a plane, you don't want to be in that plane, right? So same thing with anything you do, it's just as important. So having that confidence is really crucial. And then the second thing is, don't worry about what people think of you because you have no control over what people think of you. And that whole idea of what you have control over and what you don't is very important. I find that you don't have control over the way people perceive you or the way people think of you. You could only show up as your authentic self and either they'll like you or they won't. And knowing that and really building on you is crucial to be able to help you with these thoughts of having to set boundaries and expectations. And finally, perfectionism is a myth because, first of all, it's boring. I just think that perfect people are so boring. Wade, if you take me out for a drink and you are telling me that you've got the perfect family, the perfect house, the perfect spouse, the perfect job, the perfect life, I would wait for five minutes, suck down a drink and leave because it's a boring, perfect life is messy and things are interesting. And you really want to learn how to to grow and change and learn from. I make mistakes every day. If I didn't, I would not be the person I am. So really grow and embrace that. And if you can let go of what people are thinking about you and let go of trying to be perfect and just be you the kind of person you were when you were like two or three and four where you didn't care what people thought. Go back to that. That's where you're going to find joy. And that, as you brought up in the beginning of the podcast, is what I preach. Even if I do a very, you know, cut and dry, you know, training with the corporation, I always end up with a motivational speech, which is my trademark. And the thing is the matter is we have to find joy every day and we have to be positive because negativity never moves us forward. So we wake up every morning and we say we're going to have a good day or we're going to have a crappy day. Choose the good day that you can control. How you react to life you can control is going to hit you every day Wade. But how you decide I'm going to take care of this is how you're going to move forward. And that joy in that positivity is contagious. And that's how you build a business. That's how you make friends. That's how you create a functional family, all on that premise of being positive and really pivoting to the positive and finding joy. Yeah. And when you talk about what you can control, you can control what you work on. You can control and become a better craftsperson at whatever it is your craft is and just, you know, doing the work. And I think a lot of people. Forget that, you know, you can that you can control, you can't control, as you said, how other people perceive you. I know as I've continued to grow my business, I'm running into more people that are loving what I do. And I'm trying to more people that are rude and condescending. And I spoke to a friend of mine recently and he said, Wade, I'm growing at this other level. He's like he's starting to grow his business even quicker than imagined. He's like he showed me some of the emails he got. And I was like, oh, I need to collect some of those. He got the half in this and you're an idiot. And this is like I haven't gotten there yet. So now I turned around the whole conversation from, oh, man, these people be mean to I. I've made up my game. I need to get a lot more of this, either hate mail or jealousy mail or whatever it is, because at the end of the day, you're just going to do what you do and people are going to respond to it in different ways. You're hopefully going to attract the people that align with you, that resonate with you and the other people. Again, you probably don't want to work with those. One other thing, you and I talked a little bit about this. What are specific just energy management and mindfulness techniques people can use to achieve work life balance. We've talked a little more business or bigger perspective. And I know you said that there's some things you do with people to help them just understand how to do that in a way where they can get to more of that. Again, integration balance, however you want to work that, how can people do a better job of that? I think the number one thing you have to do is be mindful of the fact that you need to do it. And when you're mindful, I'm a big organization person and planner person, and I believe that the 4-Day Work Week cannot work without great planning and organization. So people who are like spontaneous, that's fine to a point because all of a sudden you're going to spin out of control because things have to be put into your day to have balance. So part of my energy management idea is that you have to refill, you have to refuel, and that the only way you can do that is by taking the time at least an hour, a day to either exercise or yoga or watch Netflix or whatever it does to let you literally leave your work and family and all that and take care of yourself. And that has to be planned. I when I work with my clients, I make them sit down and show me their day. And when they take their breaks, when they take their lunch, and because you cannot continue to work 24/7 and think that you're going to be good and productive, you have to fit your body needs to pick those, especially working from home. So that's number one. Number two, when I love that, where you are, what your feet are. Those of you who are have the phone constantly with them, you're really not with the person you're with and people can feel it and it's it's disrespectful, but it's also hard. Also. Most of us are not active listeners, I think podcasts have really been helpful because it's forcing people to listen more and tell stories and clubhouse to it's not a visual. You have to listen. And I think that's really helping us because really we're none of us really actively listen. But when you're talking to someone and you realize someone actively listening to you, it is such a great feeling, especially for your kids. If you can sit down with your children and listen to them and look them in the eye, put everything down and hear what they say, that really adds confidence. And so think about your employees, the people who you love to stop what you're doing. And body language is key. And I've gotten away from that this past year because people aren't seeing each other. But I used to talk about when when people in office, when someone comes into your office, you stop what you're doing. Get away from your computer and look at them. So these mindfulness is the ability to be in the moment is energizing and refreshing. So setting the boundaries, creating a plan for when you work and when you play. And getting rid of that guilt and being there, really being present in your life so it doesn't pass you by, this is what's going to make you a joyful, more integrated person. Awesome, thank you so much, I'm really grateful for what we've been able to cover today, I think we've gotten everything from macro perspectives to micro perspectives, employees, entrepreneurs. Where can people learn more about your work and how you help? My best way to contact me is Laurie Baker, China.com, it's my website, and send me an email and let's start talking. It's really important to invest in yourself. And about your value of your clients, it just really is important to think about how can I how could I be happier? That's I'm kind of a joy coach and how can I be happier and when you're happier and more productive. Also, when companies come back, I love speaking to companies and in person. So if anybody has a company that's dysfunctional, it needs someone to come in and help them with their leadership. I would love to help. I think that can be pretty easy to find. I'm guessing it's very easy to find. I'm a very busy woman. But let me tell you, it's I think people are learning. And the big topic, Wade, is now hybrid office spaces. You know how to work with people who some are in office and some are at home. That is a whole another skill set. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming out and joining us and sharing your wisdom with the audience. For those you again check out, we'll have the links inside the show notes to all the different things. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Lori Baker. And as always, look forward to helping you all create the life and the lifestyle you most desire so you can better enjoy your family, your friends and your life. Thanks for listening.