117 - Work-Life Balance???

My name is Nick Brown, and I'm the founder of cooking physics. And I help professional chefs be happy and successful as they're building that culture of growth, development and leadership in their business. And I am trying to help each one of you understand what it's going to take to be able to get to that level. Now. One of the biggest buzzwords that's going on, and it's been happening for a while, is that whole business of work life balance. Now, my personal feeling is, I love the idea of it. I love the fact that they talk about the things that you're able to do because of it. Okay. But unfortunately, in the culinary world world, it is just a bunch of BS. Okay? And what do I mean by that? The reason why I say that is because when you think of a balance, you think of things that are exactly the same, okay? That have the same weight given to it. And in this sense, they're talking about your time, okay, you've got your day is split up into 388 hour sections, you've got eight hours of sleeping, you've got eight hours of work, and you've got eight hours of your personal life, that's the whole point behind work life balance, is to be able to get that same amount of time. That does not work in the culinary industry, it just doesn't, you're gonna have times where you're gonna have to work long hours. There's gonna be times where you've got to push forward and, you know, not be with family. Because we work nights, we work holidays, we work weekends. And if you're one of the lucky few that don't have to do all of those things. We're working every single day, all the day, all the times in between breakfast, lunch, dinner, sometimes you're in a hotel, and you're even working the graveyard shift as that lucky person who gets to do all of the prep during the middle of the night, and the off chance that somebody orders room service at three o'clock in the morning. Okay? So that's just how it's going to be. And so, I personally believe the idea of work life balance, as a balancing act is a bunch of BS, it sets you up for failure, you're constantly going to be sitting there going, I had to work 10 hours today, that means I had less time, I need to get back to just eight hours, I need to have my eight hours with my family, or eight hours on my own personal life. And it's just not going to happen. What I like to think of it is we need to think in the culinary field, more of a work life harmony. Okay, what do I mean by that harmony? So when I think about harmony, what do you think about? You're thinking about music, right? And if you're thinking about music, I mean, imagine a full on classical orchestra, the full orchestra, you've got the first violins second, violins, cellos, bass, the woodwinds, brass, the percussion, the drums, you know, and all those kinds of things. Okay. And you've got all those kinds of things. And if you're thinking about that, everything needs to be balanced. You're saying to me that each one of those instruments needs to have the same amount of playing time, needs to play the same level, to be able to get up to there. And so that so that they feel that they are needed and wanted and they've got the same amount of time, and everybody's trying to play at the same time. How do you think that's going to sound? It's gonna be freaking chaos. Okay, it's not going to turn out well, it's going to be straight up noise. And if we in the culinary field, start thinking about this work life balance As a balancing act so that everything in our lives, there's just going to be a bunch of noise. It's not going to work. Well, what does harmony mean? When you're thinking about that. So harmony, you've got the melody. Okay, the melody is the most important thing at that point in time. Okay, now that's typically going to be like the first violins. Or if there's a singer, it's going to be the singer, or the lead guitarist, you know, that's the melody, that's the thing that's going to be, let's say that melody is the most important thing in our lives. We'll put the first violins as, as work, okay. Close second, your life, your family life, your time with your family, okay, or your time with your friends, or whatever it is the second most important thing in your life, okay, you flip flop, it doesn't really matter. Just getting the point across, okay. And then you've got your cellos. And that could be a volunteer thing, or your friends and the bass, the bass line could be, you know, your church or your spiritual life, the thing that really keeps you up, up, float and keeps the tempo and keeps things moving along, you know, and then you've got all the fun things in there, your adventures, you know, you've got your flutes. And that's going to be like the fun adventures, and you got the the nice oboe, and that's gonna be your relaxing vacation, you know, and things like that. So all of those things are just mixing together. And at each point of this symphony at each point of the song, every single person, every single one of these instruments, gets their heyday gets their point where they get to say what they want to say. And so as its ebbing and flowing, okay, sometimes your work, that melody, that main melody is in the first violins and your work is work, you are grinding it out, you're working very hard, and you're very focused in what needs to happen. And everything else is just kind of taking a backseat, they're still there, you know, you're not you're not working 24/7. But it's there, okay. And then you get through that point of time. And then you move on, and you start getting the melody and some of the other places, okay, having that harmony, where every instrument has their own strengths, their own sounds, and their own, their own importance. And each one of these things. Harmony is being able to keep things into perspective, and ensuring that one does not overwhelm the other. You know, it's it's keeping things so that work does not overpower your life, it's making sure that life does not prevent you from making a living. It's allowing your passion to come through into your work, your passion going into your family, or into your personal life, or into the other things you're doing. And letting that passion affect it, and move it and move and, and shape the entire orchestral piece. Okay. That is what I think about when I think about work life balance, I think harmony, because balance is throwing everything all there all at the same time. So who's with me on this work life harmony, and been able to get everything running smoothly back and forth. That's what I want you to understand. It's a short message today. But it is so important. I really feel like if we can start understanding this importance of the work life harmony, and understanding that sometimes our work is going to take a lot of time. But when it when work pulls back, the we need to have that other focus, we need to have that melody in other parts of the orchestra. Because if it's just the first violins, I'm sorry, guys, but that's going to be a very boring, uninteresting orchestral piece. It's going to be a horrible symphony. And we need to make sure that we've got that melody passing through for everything so that we are focusing on all of those different areas. Sometimes work has to take a backseat. And when that happens, we need to understand that they're taking a backseat but they're not gone. Sometimes our personal life has to take that backseat. We understand that at that point in time. We need to you know, let that be there and be fine with that. But we need to Make sure that it doesn't take a backseat forever. Okay. You know, I talk about the times we're in holidays, the holidays are the busiest time of the year. Okay? For the most part, I am up in a ski resort area, there's lots of ski resorts around where I work and, and come middle of December. It's it's on, it's game time, those two weeks of Christmas vacation between, you know, holiday vacation between Christmas and New Year's when the kids are not in school. Okay. That is, by far the busiest time of the entire year. We plan for it, I understand it's going to happen. I plan that I'm going to probably work 12 hours during that time. Okay. But when I get off of work, I make sure that work stays there, work stays there, and I come home, and that harmony switches to family. When I've got that day off that harmony switches to that day off. And then when things cool down, and start relaxing, things like that. And we start getting into the slow season. I'm sorry, work but you're taking a backseat. I still need to provide a living. Okay, don't get me wrong. But that's where I say don't let life prevent you from making a living. But don't let work prevents you from having a life. Get that harmony, understand that it's going to ebb and flow back and forth. You could be fine with it. Understand that, in order for it to become a beautiful piece and a wonderful life. You need to get that harmony in sync with what works for you. Not everybody loves every piece of Symphony. Okay. Some people, they love work. And it takes a bigger portion of their lives than the rest of their life. Other people love their life, they love their family. And that takes the bigger portion of it other people, it's the experiences, it's going out with friends and having fun. And that takes the biggest portion of their focus. And that's okay. We just need to make sure that we've got that harmony. So that one does not completely overpower the other. So thank you so very much for joining me in this live teaching this Thursday. I will see you next week, where I'm going to be talking about the importance of networking. What exactly is networking? And why? Why is it what's the big deal? Okay? What are the benefits of that networking, and how you can use networking to increase your career and increase your your earning power. So I'll see you next week. Thank you again for joining me this week. If you have any questions or any comments about what you learned this week, please put them in the comments below. I would love to hear from you. And we will see you next week Thursday at one o'clock and we're out. Thank you