Juggling Act: Mastering Work-Life Balance As A Married Business Owner

Episode #631

What will you do if you only have 6 months to live?

What memories would you create?

We all know that spending time with your loved ones is priceless and that memories are more important than money…but how often do we forget that? What are we actually doing about the things we know are most important in this life? 

In this episode, Tim shares what you can do to establish your 5 territories so you can seize the moment with the people you love.

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TRANSCRIPTION

Doug Holt  00:01

Hey guys, welcome to The Powerful Man Show where we help married businessmen save their marriages without having to talk about it, get unstuck, and gain clarity in their lives. As I like to say, life is too short for average. I’m your host, Doug Holt, with my co-host, Tim, The Powerful Man, Matthews. Now let’s get this started.

Tim Matthews  00:22

I asked them well, “What is stopping you from achieving those things over the next six months?” And some of them said, “Well, the story is I don’t have the time.” To which the conversation carried on and it was, “Hey, you don’t have a time management issue, you have a priority’s issue.” The reality is when you realize you only have six months left to live, work stops being a priority and beginning to live becomes a priority.

Hello, everyone, welcome to another episode of The Powerful Man Show. I am your host, Tim Matthews with myself. Unfortunately, my co-host, Mr. Doug E. Fresh is not with me today. He has needed to take some time to refill his cup after pouring into the men at the Alpha Reset in a major where, and obviously the movement and the men that we serve. So, he’s out on a mountain skiing with his wonderful wife, sending you guys lots of well wishes.

So, gents, if you’re new to the show, we like to invite you guys, or we’re going to be doing in this show, in particular, to go through a little bit of an exercise with us, okay. So, if you are driving, it would be fantastic if you could pull over or if you’re listening to this and you’re driving, I advise you that you take some time to go through this at some point today. Okay.

Like Doug E. Fresh always says in the moment of insight, take massive action now. This is something that came up in conversation with the inner circle today. It was impactful with those guys. And for those of you that don’t know, the inner circle is our High-Level Mastermind where we limit it to a maximum of 10 men who invest upwards of 60K to be in it for the year. And it’s full of some amazing men all playing at a high level in business and marriage and health. Guys in there compete in Ironmans, run eight figure companies, they’re amazing man, all while being incredibly loving family man as well.

So, we’re going to talk about deaths. Morbid, I know, however, a very important thing to do, a very important thing to do, especially for a masculine guy, for you to contemplate your mortality. So, I’m going to take you through a process. I’m start in a moment, so if you need to pause this, go ahead and do so. I want you to get yourself in a position where you have your pen, you have a journal, and ideally you would be listening to this with headphones on and get in a comfortable seat position. Now if you do just need to pull over in your car, that’s fine, that will work. Otherwise, hit play when you are ready to go.

Okay. So, I am assuming that you are ready. So, what I’d like you to do, okay. I want you to take some nice, deep breaths in through your nose. Okay. Go ahead, fill your belly or your ribcage, fill your chest. Take a nice deep breath in through your nose and let the breath just kind of fall out of your mouth. Continue to repeat this rhythm. As you’re doing this, sit nice and tall with your back nice and straight, your chest nice and high. I want you to continue to notice how your body feels as you feel supported on the seat right now, feet planted held by the seat. And continue to take nice deep breaths. Breathing in through your nose, filling up your belly, filling up your chest, filling up your ribcage, big, big deep breaths. Again, just let the breath roll out of your mouth. Well done.

Now in a moment, what we’re going to do is we’re going to pick the pace of a little bit. And now we’re going to start to do some quick inhales through the nose and let the breath roll out the mouth. On the exhale, we’re just going to hold the breath for 30 seconds. Continue to breathe, fill up your belly, fill up the chest, fill up your ribcage. Exhale. Now let’s pick it up a bit. Big, fast breaths in through your nose and let the breath fall out of your mouth. Good. Well done. So, you’re going to do about 10 of these breaths, kind of like Wim Hof style.

Then on the final one, just hold the exhale. I’ve got a stopwatch, I will start it now. Good. Obviously, if you do need to breathe at this point then go ahead and breathe. Nice. Okay. 10 more seconds. Just notice how your body feels. Good. Three, two, one, good. And relax. Again, continue to return to the deep breaths in through your nose again, filling up your belly, filling up your ribcage, filling up your chest and letting it roll out of your mouth. Any noise you want to make on the exhale, a sigh, a groan, whatever, it’s all valid. Good. Continue with this, filling up your belly, your chest, your ribcage and let it go. Well done.

So, we’re going to return to the fast breaths in a moment again just like you did, Wim Hof style, if you will, [inaudible 00:06:45] fast in through your nose and out through your mouth and do 10 to 12 of them. On the final one, you’re going to hold the exhale. Okay. So, let’s begin 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and exhale and hold the exhale. As you hold the exhale, just notice how your body feels. I want you to imagine feeling an inch above you, an inch beneath you, an inch behind you, in front of you.

Just imagine how it feels, just connect the energy around you. I want you to imagine that this is your last breath, the final breath you ever are going to take. Notice how your body wants to breathe. Notice how there is a desire to want to breathe in. But imagine you were never to breathe in again. This is your mortality. Imagine your life. Let it flush before you, see everything that has come before this point, up until this point. Will you die a happy man? Will you die with regrets? Any conversations that you need to have had.

So, when you feel ready, allow yourself to breathe, take out your journal and a pen. And I want you to imagine coming round from this that you have been given the news that you have six months to live. Just let that sink in, that feeling. You have six months to live. There’s a terminal illness and you have six months to live. What must happen in order for you to die complete? Write it down, what must happen in order for you to die complete. Make a list of it. Whatever’s coming up for you, write it down.

What conversations do you need to have? What things do you need to do? What wrongs do you want to right? What stories are you no longer going to buy into now that you only have six months to live? What stories have been holding you back throughout the past decades robbing you of those magic moments in your life, those moments of joy? And we all like to think we have all the time in the world. But do we? Coming up to almost a year ago, my uncle, he was 72 years old, fit and healthy, a very healthy 72 year olds. He was in the gym, he felt a pain in his chest as he was doing the benchpress. Hmm, that seems a bit weird.

He thought he’d pull the muscle, went home, thought nothing of it. And then he began to cough. And he was coughing up blood. Hmm. Okay. Not a good sign. He didn’t want to worry so he didn’t go to the doctors until a couple of days later my father actually took him. Immediately the doctor referred him to the hospital. He had a diagnosis or he received a diagnosis of lung cancer. From diagnosis to death, it was about eight weeks. This came out of nowhere, and I’m sure you’ve got stories of this. I’m sure you’ve heard or know somebody who has experienced something like this. The point is, we all like to think we have all the time in the world and we wait and we settle.

What if you only had six months to live? What would have to happen in order for you to die complete? You should still be journaling by this point. Get all these things down. What conversations do you need to have with people? What would you stop tolerating? What stories would you stop letting limit you? How would you live? What would you do? What memories would you create?

Now, as I took the inner circle through this exercise earlier, they shared some amazing things. Again, you got to remember these are guys who are running significant companies, some of these companies you may have even heard of. And a recurring theme that came up for them, nothing was around business. The things that they needed to do in the next six months in order to die complete, very few around business. One was selling his business so he could put the money in a trust for his family. Another one was making sure the wills and things were in place so that if he did pass away, then ownership would go to his wife and then obviously they could choose to do what they want with the money.

But apart from that, it was everything like I need to tell my loved ones how much they mean to me. I’d arranged the trip to Italy with my wife that we’ve always wanted to go on. Because you know what? I say, well, we could use that money on something else. But the reality is, I can always make more money. I don’t always have more time to make more memories. One was going on a boy’s trip, spending time with friends. Doing a daily video blog for my kids, giving them lessons, writing a book, making sure I took time to pass on the things that money can’t buy.

The thing is, is the inner circle men went through this and maybe you too, they really began to get perspective on what really mattered in life. And I asked them well, “What is stopping you from achieving those things over the next six months?” And some of them said, “Well, the story is I don’t have the time.” To which the conversation carried on and it was, “Hey, you don’t have a time management issue, you have a priority’s issue.” The reality is when you realize you only have six months left to live, work stops being a priority and beginning to live becomes a priority. Making memories becomes a priority, love and joy and connection.

Do you know what? Even if you didn’t achieve all of those things over the next six months, the amount of openness and joy and love you would experience on that journey would be incredible. We all like to say that it’s not possible to live like every day was your last. Well, tell you what, something that I’ve come to learn is that the people who tend — the people that are dying are the ones that tend to appreciate things the most. It is possible to live with appreciation every day. It is possible to live with the joy and aliveness and creating the memories and telling people how much they mean to you and spending time with people that matter. Right. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to get triggered at times.

You might fall into DEER, but you’ll quickly clean it up because you know you only have six months left to live. So, you don’t want there to be any mud on the glass. I asked the inner circle men as well, what stories would you stop letting limit you? The story that I need to make more money in order to prove myself, the story that I don’t have enough time, the story that to provide for my family it means I have to set them up through work, set them up financially. Imagine you handling shit test, I think you’d handle shit test from a very different place. If you knew you had six months left to live, you just wouldn’t sweat the small stuff, would you? You wouldn’t get sucked into it. You’d handle it with a bit of playfulness, a bit of cockiness. Come on, honey. Let’s make the most of our time together. Come on, I love it when you get mad. Right?

And this is one of the ways the men in the movement learn to master work-life balance as a married business owner. They remind themselves regularly of what matters to them, of how we organize the five territories. It goes self, number one, that is at the bottom of the pyramid. Health is number two, that’s above it. Relationship’s number three, wealth and then business. If you only had six months to live, I imagine you’d make decisions slightly differently, right? You’d probably be a little more decisive, you’d probably sweat the detail a lot less, you’d probably let go a bit more. You probably have fun, smile, laugh, not take things so seriously.

So, I’m curious if you are part of the free Facebook community and The Powerful Man group, I’d love you to go over there, tag me in — take a picture of what you’ve written down, tag me in it. I’d love to see if you are in the private community with only the men in the movement playing an active role. Go ahead, go over to workplace, take a picture, tag me, post it in there. I would love to see it. This is a very powerful exercise.

If you wanted to take this a step further, you could always write your own eulogy asking yourself questions. Did my life serve as a warning or an example? What lessons did I pass on or what did I pass on that money can’t buy? Writing your eulogy is also a powerful act. But either way, whatever if this exercise resonates with you, I strongly recommend like Doug E. Fresh says in the moment of insight, take massive action. So, that is all for another episode of The Powerful Man Show. I appreciate you being here with me today. If this is your first time joining us, thank you. And until next time, see you again on The Powerful Man Show.

Doug Holt  18:15

All right, guys, that’s a wrap for this episode. But as I always say in the moment of insight, take massive action. You see, there are two types of men that listen to a podcast like this, those that go on from one podcast or show to another just hoping things are going to change and realizing that they’re going to be in the same place month after month, year after year. You see, I was this guy so I completely get it. You may just not be ready. But there’s also a second man, a second man that listens to a show just like this. And this is a guy who takes massive action so they can shorten the learning curve, compress time, and get results to be the WOLF. See, WOLF is an acronym for Wise, Open, Loving, and Fierce.

Now ask yourself, which one am I? And just be honest with yourself there. And there’s no judgment on my end. But if you’re ready to move from deactivated DEER mode, which is Defend, Excuse, Explain, and React to activated WOLF, Wise, Open, Loving and Fierce, then go over to thepowerfulman.com/grow. And go there now. In fact, I’ll make it super easy for you. I will even put the link right in the description here so you can just click it and go over there now to learn more. Guys, in the moment of insight, take massive action. Go from deactivated to activated, because like I said, life is too short for average and I’ll see you on the next episode.