Life-Work Balance in a 24/7 World

Imagine being seated in a quiet room, the soft hum of your laptop the only sound breaking the silence. Late night blurs into early morning as they often do when you’re an entrepreneur, business owner or busy executive. You glance at the clock: 3 AM. You should be asleep, but sleep seems like a luxury you can't afford.

Meet Brenton, one of our hosts, a successful entrepreneur with a peculiar work pattern. His day starts late, around 9 or 10 AM, a leisurely morning filled with casual conversations and networking. But as the clock strikes 1 PM, he transforms into a powerhouse of productivity, working till the wee hours of the morning.

On the other side of town, Ron, our other host, is already up and about, greeting the sunrise with an invigorating morning ride. An early bird by nature, he believes that his morning exercise sets the tone for the rest of his productive day.

Brenton and Ron are two individuals with starkly different work patterns but bound by a common thread - the quest for life-work balance. They've realised this balance isn't a one-size-fits-all concept; it's as unique as the individual seeking it. And it's not always about maintaining a perfect equilibrium; sometimes, it's about finding a rhythm that works for you over time.

In today's episode of the Business Builders Podcast, we delve into this complex topic of life-work balance, exploring its nuances through the personal experiences of our hosts, Brenton Gowland and Ron Tomlian. We tackle the definition of success, discuss the sacrifices often made in the pursuit of business goals, and reflect on the impact of work habits on personal relationships and overall well-being.

Main Topics & Key Points:

1. Reframing Work-Life Balance: We challenge the conventional idea of work-life balance by introducing the concept of Life-Work balance. "Work is a part of life, not the whole life," we say, emphasising that our existence isn't confined to our work alone.
2. Personal Stories & Experiences: We share anecdotes from our lives, including one host's journey to prioritise family and take regular holidays. "The decision to put family first wasn't easy, but it was necessary," they share.
3. Sacrifices & Responsibilities: We shed light on the often unseen sacrifices made by business owners and leaders, who carry the weight of their businesses' success on their shoulders.
4. Redefining Success: We question the traditional perspective of success, urging listeners to define what success means to them personally.
5. Work-life Struggles Among Business Owners: We discuss the struggles faced by a member of our tech group, highlighting the common struggle of achieving work-life balance among entrepreneurs.
6. Impact of Work & Sleep Patterns on Relationships: One host shares their experience of how work and sleep patterns can impact relationships, emphasising the importance of self-awareness.
7. Importance of Self-care: We emphasise the need for a balance between work and personal life and highlight the importance of self-care.

What's Coming Next in This Series:

In future episodes of this series, we'll delve deeper into the concept of Life-Work Balance. We've arranged interviews with experts in the field and successful business leaders who will share their insights and experiences. Their advice will aid us in designing our own well-balanced lives.
 

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Transcript

Brenton Gowland: 0:00

Hey there Business Builders. Ever found yourself struggling to find the right balance between your work and personal life? Well, today we're diving into the all important subject of Life-Work Balance. We'll share personal experiences, including the highs and lows of being business owners, their impacts on our personal lives and what we can do about it. So join us for this first episode in our series about planning for a more balanced life. Well, welcome to the Business Builders podcast. We are your hosts. I am Brenton Gowland.

Ron Tomlian: 0:28

And I'm Ron Tomlian.

Brenton Gowland: 0:29

And Ron, today is our 51st episode, we're into a new era.

Ron Tomlian: 0:33

Yeah, absolutely. And as a result, we're going to take a little bit of a deviation from the norm and, and start talking about something that's more about the person than it is about the business, and will relate that, will relate that in so we're talking about life, work balance. Now, why do we call it Life-Work Balance? Why don't we talk about Work-Life Balance like everybody else?

Brenton Gowland: 0:59

Because I think when we say work life balance, that seems to be emphasising the fact that work is the most important thing.

Ron Tomlian: 1:08

Absolutely. Right. And it's not appropriate. Work is a part of life, it isn't the whole life.

Brenton Gowland: 1:13

Correct. And look, the way this has come about Ron, I, obviously, we've told you before, if you're a regular listener, if you're just coming in for the first time, we sit down before we do a podcast, and we have different discussions and the last few episodes, run, we've been talking about the fact that you've been going away on holidays, and I think it was an episode or two ago, you were saying that that's something that you made sure you were doing right from the get go as far back as you can possibly remember to take care of your family.

Ron Tomlian: 1:44

Yeah, well, it wasn't always the case. And what's interesting is that I got to a point where I had to make some decisions. And we'll talk about that as part of this series. Yeah. But yeah, the interesting thing is that now it's, it's one of the priorities. And that is an important thing to consider is when we talk about work life balance, it's about prioritisation, as much as anything.

Brenton Gowland: 2:09

Yeah. And I think it's really good that you've said that, because one of the things that we want to get across with this series, because this series, again, will be all about lifework balance, is the fact that we're not experts that we've been learning. And again, a big part of the reason this has come up is because I have never really had an I'll be the first to admit this, a good life work balance. I've always been about work. So I started an advertising agency when I was 32. And for 15 years been involved with running that on a hands on perspective. In fact, I think it was almost 16 years. Now my business partners running that, which is fantastic. But during that whole period of time, I basically never took a holiday because I felt like if I did, the whole thing might fall apart. I felt like I was responsible. And I know a lot of business owners who are like this, you get to this point where you feel like you're there to feed the team to make sure that you're putting food on the table of the people you employ. And so I always felt that great weight of responsibility. And for most of the time that I was running Nucleus, I never had a significant other in my life or a partner. So I really only had myself to answer for so I never really took holidays.

Ron Tomlian: 3:23

So and this is all about sacrifice. If if you want something to go well, in one aspect of your life, you have to sacrifice other aspects. Yep. And finding this is the essence of Life-Work Balance, finding that balance between those sacrifices that you make. You know, it's interesting you say about a person who runs a business owns a business, one of the very first members I got into my tech group came to me. And I said, Why do you want to be a part of a group of CEOs? And he said, very simple, very simple. I want my life back. He said, I'm the only person in the business that doesn't take a holiday. And I want to take a holiday. And I'm very happy to say that it took a long time. But we got him to the point where he was taking at least a month a year. Pretty decent. Well, that's an interesting perspective. Because a lot of people would say, months a year is the sort of minimum you want to take under present. Yeah, but we got him up to that point, considering he was doing nothing. I think nowadays, he's probably he's not in my group anymore, but it's probably taking a lot more time than that off. But the point is, that can be a perspective that people have to be successful. I have to work myself into the ground. And it did then begs the question, what is success? And we're going to talk about that is one of the topics that we're going to look at in terms of this Life-Work Balance thing.

Brenton Gowland: 4:53

Now that's a really interesting question, what is success but we'll get to that in a minute. You talk about the fact that one of your TEC members had that whole problem.

Ron Tomlian: 5:03

Oh no he came to the group with that problem.

Brenton Gowland: 5:05

He came to the group with that problem?

Ron Tomlian: 5:06

Yeah, I think a lot of people who are business owners, or CEOs, or leaders in general, have that problem, that they will sacrifice themselves, because they've bear that weight of responsibility that you were talking about before. And as a result, they're the ones who suffer.

Brenton Gowland: 5:26

Yeah. And that manifests in so many ways, I would say, Yeah, and I'm sure if we delved into it, that a lot of your members would have that issue of work life balance, particularly those people who start businesses, because they feel it's their responsibility, and it does become a big ball and chain and an anchor for some people. And I found that I would be sleeping four or five, six hours a night and, and thinking that was luxury, because I slept not a lot, trying to make sure that I was always active and getting things done. But two reasons why, from my point of view, this topic came up and became really important. I've had a partner for the last five or six months. And I have noticed how my actions or my sleep patterns in my work, affects that person. And she's not able to sleep if I come back in at a later point in the night, because she's a light sleeper. So if I come into the bedroom, and three o'clock in the morning or something, that's it, her night is done. And I've realised I can't do that anymore. So.

Ron Tomlian: 6:33

But the interesting thing is, and this has become very avert for you. The truth of the matter is, as an example, if you're not getting enough sleep, it's affecting your business.

Brenton Gowland: 6:44

Yeah.

Ron Tomlian: 6:44

It's affecting the way you interact with other people.

Brenton Gowland: 6:46

Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 6:47

You probably haven't noticed, that's the difference?

Brenton Gowland: 6:50

Well, you do notice that you, you realise you're caught in it, but you're caught in a trap. So my work pattern would be during the morning, I'd get up often late, like I'd get up like 910 o'clock rather than six, seven o'clock, which she does. Now I do. But I would get up late. And then I would spend sometimes up until two o'clock, either talking to people calling people going through my list of people that I need to interact with and do that in a casual way, I might walk down to the coffee shop and get a slow start to the morning. But then you come one or two o'clock, I would start working, I would hit my straps on I'd be working till two in the morning, and I was quite comfortable with that.

Ron Tomlian: 7:34

And you get into a flow, it's might be a fantastic thing. As long as you compensate that with a decent amount of sleep as well. And we'll talk about that.

Brenton Gowland: 7:42

Yep. And put this in this train of thought that kind of indicates that you got to find the beats in the groove for your style of working. So I always thought my style of working was just to work like that. And I would be most productive between maybe 4pm in the afternoon and 2am in the morning. That was where I really got stuff done.

Ron Tomlian: 8:02

And it is for different people. I'm the opposite that you're what we call an owl. I'm an early bird. I'm a lark. I love to get up at five o'clock in the morning. Yes, stuff done. But I've learned that in doing that I now exercise at that time of the day rather than do what I used to do, which is study or get stuck in the work.

Brenton Gowland: 8:22

Yep. So the way we came to this topic, just in summarising all of that is basically by talking, having the episodes, we've been having my life changing a bit with a partner coming along, and then listening to you talking about your holidays and other things and thinking, gee, that's really something that I think I should be doing and going away and doing things. And I've started to realise it's really important. So it's become a topic between the two of us. But I guess what you're pointing out there is one person's way of working is different to another person's way of working. So if we talking about this master topic of life, work balance that's going to look different for everybody, right?

Ron Tomlian: 9:02

Absolutely. And different for everyone at different stages of their life. The accepted wisdom about life work balances, there has to be incomplete equilibrium. That's just unattainable. I think, at different stages in your life, there are going to be projects are there going to be situations where work will take the predominant position. And as long as there's a balancing and another stage, you just you can't. There are times for instance, the birth of a child where the whole life will take dominance. That's completely appropriate. But again, the different stages require different mixtures or components so that you get that overall work life balance or life work balance. And I think a lot of it comes down to what are we talking about in terms of goals, achievements. And I think one of the problems that people have is they don't think for themselves about what success is, for me.

Brenton Gowland: 10:08

That's interesting. For a star, I'll just come in and say, I really take my hat off to people who have kids, as you mentioned, because I see people I was reading up about a CEO the other day, who was saying that they used to work, well, actually a founder of a business. And they were saying they operated on four hours sleep a night, they took care of their son, then they worked, got up, did it all again, got their son off to school, single mum, in this particular instance, in doing that for years, to make sure that the business progresses, and it's doing well, etc, etc. And I don't have kids. So when I see people doing that, I think, Wow, that's amazing. Would I be able to do what I'm doing now, if I had kids in my life? And the answer is you will find a way, like you were saying, but it's by planning and being very specific or very intentional about the way you do things. So planning, then it seems. And, of course, we're spitballing. Here. If you want to find a lifework balance, you got to plan for it.

Ron Tomlian: 11:11

Yeah. And I think that the planning, like we talked about with strategic planning, is having that overall, what do I want to what do I want my life to be and a way that some people will think about this, and I tend to think about it is, at the end of your life? If you look back, will you say that was a life well lived? That's great. So what is a life well lived, and isn't about material success. And if we allow other people to define what success means, one, it usually means when I get, I will be happy when this I have the bigger house, or the bigger car, or the better job, and a lot of people as they move through their life. The problem is, once I get this, well, I want something else. So it's a never ending treadmill, instead of saying this is about the journey as a bunch as the destination fact more than the destination, because it's about how you live your life. Under those circumstances, the material goods, material assets. Yeah, they're gonna provide you with a bit of satisfaction for a shorter amount of time. But, you know, using the analogy of the car, you get your first car, and it's intensely satisfying. So well, I like this guy, I like this mini, but what I really want is a Mustang, you get the Mustang. And of course, there's always a better car, sitting around the corner, get the Mustang and what I really want is a Bentley, you get the Bentley, and then what you really want is an Aston Martin, at the Aston Martin and what you really wanted to be Gatti because there's always something more. And if your satisfaction is relying purely on material things, you're always going to be dissatisfied.

Brenton Gowland: 13:10

So that brings that whole creating a life well, live thing I really liked that I got to say, because if we want to say that, remember, we're talking about work life balance, if work life balance is creating a life well lived. That means we really need to understand for ourselves what that means. So for some people, it might be what you're talking about, it might be that whole drive to get more, because that might be the thing that floats their boat. I personally am going to give a judgement call here think that's a very two dimensional person who's got caught up in things that maybe are not necessarily that important. But that's just my opinion. Absolutely. I want to just say one thing, if you're listening today, and I think we got to consider this as well, Ron, for those people who are listening, I think we got to all ask ourselves that question almost right now. Do I have a good life work balancing? I think it's the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People we've spoken about in the past, that starts with this idea that you should write your own epitaph, what would people say about me when I passed away? Would I be happy with that? So I would ask everyone who's listening right now? If you were gone tomorrow, would you regret anything? Would you think, Ah, I just spent so much time poorly over here or I should have been spending time on this. That then comes to that question of a life well lived because if we said that to you, and you weren't self analysing yourself, you might go well, life well lived is exactly what Ron just said. It's about accumulating more stuff. It's about having more power. It's about having more prestige, all of that. But the fact is, and we're getting a bit morbid here on but there's all those famous stories about people's deathbed lost sayings and very little of it is about their accumulations. But it seems to be lessons from the deathbed seem to be things about, I should have spent more time doing this. I wish I had spent more time with the people I love this is important where that's not. So that to me a life well lived, if you want to really ask yourself is lifework balance kind of able to be answered in being able to say I've had a life well lived, is really thinking about if you were ready to kiss these mortal coils, goodbye, and you had your family gathered around you providing you do have your family gathered around you when you're ready to go. Would you sit there in your last days last breaths thinking that was a life well lived?

Ron Tomlian: 15:45

Exactly right. You have it that that comes down to the whole meaning of life question. Oh, the the interesting thing is that we're on a bill Business Builders podcast, why is this important to people who want to build businesses? Why is this important to our business builders? Why? This seems like a topic way off, Mark?

Brenton Gowland: 16:08

Well, actually, I think the perfect topic, you know, it is. And for those of you who are listening, this is kind of like a rhetorical question. Because if you know anything about the business builders podcast, we believe that if you're going to build a business, you got to work on yourself. First, the builder, the person building the business, has to be fit has to be able to function effectively. And so if we don't have a lifework balance, if we, at some point, something's going to break, I think it was you the other day, who was talking to me about sleep. So you know, one of the we're going to have a whole heap of topics over the next few months. And one of those topics will be looking at sleep, right? You were saying that if you have operate on six hours sleep at night, is the diminishing returns that happened. And I think I'll let you tell the story. And I'll get back to the whole life well lived thing in a minute, but you told a story about a snake,

Ron Tomlian: 17:01

Oh, the concept of an allostatic load. One of our TEC.

Brenton Gowland: 17:04

An allostatic load. Now there's something I need to look up. What the heck does that mean Ron?

Ron Tomlian: 17:09

Well, here's an explanation of an allosteric load. And I have to credit this to one of our tech speakers. And I have to admit, right at the moment, I forget his name. But if you can imagine you're walking down a path on a hike and you see a snake cross your path. What immediately happens? Well, physiologic freeze, yeah, physiologically, what happens is this huge pump of adrenaline gets injected into your bloodstream, your blood pressure goes skyrocketing, your pulse goes through the roof. And that is the amygdala telling the rest of the body right, we've got three choices here. We can freeze, we can flight as in flight, runaway, or we can fight and the body is getting ready for one of those three. Okay? Now, if the snack doesn't attack you and just slid us across your path. Fantastic. You keep walking. And what happens physiologically is your blood pressure starts to diminish, your pulse rate starts to diminish, that adrenaline starts to diffuse into your body. Fantastic. You going back to the setpoint that happened before, are you approaching that setpoint in all those indicators that happened before you saw the snake. But let's suppose you turn a corner within a couple of steps and there's another snake, what happens is once again, the whole process repeats itself, but it goes a little bit higher. And as you come back down the setpoint it's set a little bit higher. Now let's suppose you keep walking on this path. And that continues for the next 1015 minutes that you continually see a snake. What your body will do is stay at a heightened setpoint because it's anticipating there's going to be in danger around the next corner. The analogy is this is what happens to a lot of people in their work life. They they get into a state where look, I can, I can quite frankly operate not me. But this person can operate on four hours sleep a night.

Brenton Gowland: 19:20

Yep.

Ron Tomlian: 19:21

They're continually heightened.

Brenton Gowland: 19:22

Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 19:23

They're always on. And you we all know people like that.

Brenton Gowland: 19:27

That's been me.

Ron Tomlian: 19:27

Yeah, well, they always aren't antastic. And it doesn't take much to get you into work mode because basically you're always in work mode. And it's hard to settle down. Because you're always in work mode, you're always ready to take tackle the next task or accomplish the next thing. The downside is this. Number one, it's great for TASKI things, it means you're always on, but it means your brain is not thinking reflectively Okay, so you look at past See to make important decisions is significantly diminished. And it takes you about twice as long to make important decisions or to do anything, vaguely analytical, number one. Number two, it decreases your life by about 10 to 20 years, it might not be important to you. But that's the point. It has such stress, create such stress on your life, is that it has a significant impact on your longevity. Number three, if you decide, okay, what I need to do is get off this treadmill and go on a holiday because I haven't had one for three years, your body suddenly says, Are you kidding me? And most people can relate to this. Most people are workaholics and people are always on will relate this is go on holiday. And within the first two or three days you get sick.

Brenton Gowland: 20:56

Yeah.

Ron Tomlian: 20:57

And I know I'm preaching to the converted here, you get sick, and so a half your holiday is spent in bed. That's right, and you get back to work. And the whole process starts any you think,

Brenton Gowland: 21:07

Why should I ever take a holiday again?

Ron Tomlian: 21:09

Yeah because it's just too stressful.

Brenton Gowland: 21:11

The point of that story, though, is that at some point a crash is going to come. You can operate. I remember there was someone who I was working with years back. And they always said, if they were operating it at 130% for maybe three months, one month, now we can deal with that we've got one busy month, if it's two months, if it's three months, they would in their business employ more people if it was a sustained period of time where they are working at 130%. And now that is possible, of course to work at 130% because we got seven, eight hours in a day. So you just start working 12 1314 hours a day and you're working in 130%. Sometimes it's okay to do that. If it's all the time you're going to somewhere, destroy yourself now business owners Business Builders, back to why your original question? Why is this such an important topic for us? Well, often when the key person falls over, the business either falls over or goes through a really difficult period. So why should Business Builders be operating? All four cylinders? All six cylinders? Or eight cylinders? Depending on the engine model? Why should they be firing? Why should they be working like a well oiled machine because if they're not the business won't. So we must work on ourselves.

Ron Tomlian: 22:26

And there's this myth that if I don't work really hard, and push myself beyond my own limits, then I won't be successful and build that business. But if you are doing that, at your own detriment, and you are critical to that business, then you're building a business simply so it can fall over. Doesn't make any sense.

Brenton Gowland: 22:46

So you got to find the work life balance, or the life work balance, because life is the important thing. Because at the end of the day, when your days are almost up, it's not your business, you're going to be thinking about it's going to be the relationships you've got. It's going to be how you've contributed I was listening to someone the other day, and I can't remember who. But they were talking about the fact that they work hard because they want to contribute, they feel that unless they're giving back. They're not fulfilling their purpose. Now that's them. And that's great. But when they get to the end of their days, they'll be able to sit there and go, I contributed to my community. That's the thing for them that's really driving them. So what's driving you what's driving you our listener? What's driving you, Ron, what's driving me? That's what we got to find out. So there's a number of topics we'll go through in the next few weeks. One of them we talked about planning could be a whole episode, like you do 10 year plans with your TEC guys, is that correct?

Ron Tomlian: 23:43

That's right, getting them to think about what do I want my life to look like, in 10 years time? Usually people find it a little bit difficult to go beyond that. But unless you're thinking, that sort of timeframe, you're not dreaming enough. You're not being expansive in that.

Brenton Gowland: 23:59

And that covers all aspects that covers...

Ron Tomlian: 24:02

Personal life.

Brenton Gowland: 24:03

Yep.

Ron Tomlian: 24:04

The life is a professional and your life is a business person.

Brenton Gowland: 24:08

And that book I was talking about the seven habits, they talk about doing that as well. And having carrying around your own little personal business plan in your pocket for your life, your business plan for your life, whatever they call that I can't remember what it was. I know friends might we had tiny Conte on the podcast a while ago. She does a plan with her husband every year because she's told me in the past, and they treat their family a little bit like a business in the sense that there's all sorts of different things they consider like work life, work, balance, creating experiences, all the things beyond work.

Ron Tomlian: 24:41

And some people might baulk at the idea of treating your life like a business and being universal. But really what we're talking about is bringing some of the disciplines that work for business, like planning into your life because it can help develop that sense of balance in your life.

Brenton Gowland: 24:56

And one of the other things that I think is really important that we should be doing Talking about as well, there's some things, you know, there's that saying you don't know what you don't know. And we were talking about people getting sick, I made that mention of that business in South Australia is kind of going through a tough time because the owner is sick. But when we get sick when something goes wrong with us, when you're young, you kind of like nothing could destroy me. Well, I was like that anyway. And then I remember I got sick in my 30s. And it was a vitamin imbalance, actually, it ended up being I thought I was dying, ended up being a copper overdose. And so I had to dose myself up with magnesium, because a copper overdose means the magnesium basically gets sucked out of your body, somehow, what I went through then made me actually realise, oh, vitamins do matter, I gotta make sure I get a balanced diet, otherwise, I'm going to crash and burn like it didn't, it took me a year to get over that.

Ron Tomlian: 25:52

And the other thing I'd like to emphasise here is that, unfortunately, unless people are starting to consider this, what usually happens and you and I've seen it a number of times, is that the point at which people start thinking about this is when there's been a major life event for them, like a stroke, or a heart attack, you're in some type of type of major disease. And then they are forced into thinking about this. And there's limited scope for their planning at that point.

Brenton Gowland: 26:25

And I'll add to that, there's also nervous breakdown, there's burnout. And the thing that's really struck me in recent years is the psychological effects that things can have on you because it becomes cumulative. And if you're in your 20s, or your 30s, won't affect you that much. Maybe it does depends on your life experience. But for me, it was in my 40s that I started to I'm still in my 40s. Yeah, I'm impressed, not for much longer. But anyway, I realised that different ways of thinking different things have had different impacts on me, and I have to then go out and do things about that there's practices that you put in place that help you to heal. And I'm not being an esoteric and flower child-ey here. But there's real things that you put in place that help you to progress as a person and help you to find that Life-Work balance. But you don't know about those things until the detrimental effects start to become so loud that you can't not listen. So I'm going to suggest that on this series that we're going to do that some of the things we'll look at, we'll look at things like planning, we'll look at things like considering all areas of your life, relationships, our personal well being what we need in our body. So being aware of what we need to do for ourselves, what I need to do for me, all of these things we need to consider because when you can understand all the things that we need to consider to create a life worth living, then you can actually plan for them. But if you don't know that, you need to think about a certain thing like psychological well being or health.

Ron Tomlian: 28:02

Relationships

Brenton Gowland: 28:03

Or relationships.

Ron Tomlian: 28:04

I mean, let's be fair in, there's a certain badge of honour, that business people sometimes project, and that's my business, my work, life is the most important thing. And everything else suffers. And it's okay, because I'm building a business here, not thinking about what will make me happy, what will make me feel fulfilled, and my life, and relationships are often the things that suffer. And there's plenty of research that will bring into our discussions to talk about what actually makes people happy.

Brenton Gowland: 28:39

Yep. And so that's what you can expect from the Business Builders podcast over the next several episodes. And I think it's gonna be a good journey, I think. I think I'll learn a lot. Because, again, part of the reason I wanted to talk about this topic with us because I want to learn these things myself, because now there's a partner in my life that I need to consider. And therefore by considering how to actually take care of that person, I need to actually look at how do I take care of myself? Absolutely. So I want to leave you with a question. We hinted at this earlier. But if you aren't listening to us today, honestly, ask yourself, Do I have a good life work balance? And the question that's really difficult, is if you were on your deathbed today, would you look back at your life and say, I've had a life worth living? If the answer to either of those questions is my life work balance could improve, or there's things I would need to do to actually be able to say that I've had a life worth living. And I think the series that we're about to do is something that you will get something out of.

Ron Tomlian: 29:46

And if you don't, what are the consequences of that? Not only in terms of your own life, but in terms of your business. If you're thinking Well, thanks very much Brenton and Ron, nice, interesting topic, but I think they'll tune out. Or what are the consequences for the individual of not thinking and, for the business of not thinking about this stuff?

Brenton Gowland: 30:08

Well, they will become cumulative from experience, they will bite you at some point. So there's no doubt that they'll bite you at some point if you don't actually spend time planning and thinking about how to create a life worth living, how to find Life-Work balance. The question really is, when is it going to happen?

Ron Tomlian: 30:29

And we will be exploring that. Next.

Brenton Gowland: 30:32

Thank you for listening. This series really is about us investing in ourselves so that we're well equipped to work on our businesses.

Ron Tomlian: 30:41

Absolutely.

Brenton Gowland: 30:42

So bye for now.

Ron Tomlian: 30:44

Bye from me.

Brenton Gowland: 30:44

See you in a couple of weeks.