Ending The Struggle For Work-Life Balance | Gail Golden | Modern Wisdom Podcast 194

1. 0:00 – 2:38

   Why “work-life balance” fails: overwhelm is universal

   1. GGGail Golden0:00

      ... I don't ask myself, "Do I have the time for that?" 'Cause it's really easy to cheat. Instead, I started to ask myself two questions. The first one is, do I want to use my energy for that? My finite amount of energy that I've got, do I want to use it for that? And secondly, given that I don't have a lot of empty space in my life where I don't know what to do with myself, I have to ask myself, "If I'm going to take on that project, what am I going to do less of?"

   2. CWChris Williamson0:29

      I'm joined by Gale Golden. Gale, welcome to the show.

   3. GGGail Golden0:33

      I'm delighted to be here.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:35

      Very good to have you here. Talking about work/life balance today. 21st century, I think a lot of people listening will understand when work starts to creep into life, right? The barrier gets blurred between what you're supposed to do by day and what you want to do by evening. So your background, the things that you do, the people you've worked with, what are the common problems that you see people encountering with their work/life balance?

   5. GGGail Golden0:59

      You know, it's a great question. So, uh, very quickly, my background is that for the first half of my career, I worked as a psychotherapist working with, with all different kinds of people who were struggling with various sorts of psychological and emotional and relationship problems in their lives. Mid-career, I decided I was ready to do something different so I went back to school, got my MBA and since then, I've been working with executive coaching and business leadership and different kinds of people with different kinds of issues. The thing that began to dawn on me was that although these two kinds of work and two populations were very different, there was a problem that crossed over those two populations, which was that almost everybody, almost all the time felt overwhelmed, exhausted, inadequate and as if they were not meeting their own or other people's expectations. Whether you were the senior executive of a global Fortune 500 company or whether you were a stay-at-home parent hanging around with little children, that same theme kept coming up. And meanwhile, we've been talking about work/life balance forever, and I thought, "Wait a minute, uh, something is not working here." This concept of work/life balance, I don't know anybody who has a balanced life, myself included. And then we somehow imagine that other people do-

   6. CWChris Williamson2:30

      (laughs)

   7. GGGail Golden2:30

      ... and that just makes us feel even more inadequate and overwhelmed and out of control. Maybe it's time to start thinking about this problem in a different way.

2. 2:38 – 4:48

   Stop comparing your insides to other people’s outsides

   1. CWChris Williamson2:38

      Uh, I loved your analogy in the book where you were talking about how you always look at other people like they've got it together. You know?

   2. GGGail Golden2:47

      Yes.

   3. CWChris Williamson2:47

      I think you were, you were talking about someone that was learning to play the guitar, and they were a PhD student and did this-

   4. GGGail Golden2:54

      Right.

   5. CWChris Williamson2:54

      ... and had a family and was-

   6. GGGail Golden2:55

      Right, right.

   7. CWChris Williamson2:55

      ... altruistic, weekend, weekend endurance athlete, all that stuff. Um-

   8. GGGail Golden2:59

      Right.

   9. CWChris Williamson3:00

      And from your view, he had it together and the, the, the mother of five who had seven dogs and, and parachutes on the weekend, she had it together and everything else.

   10. GGGail Golden3:09

       Yes. Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson3:09

       But internally, everyone's just a chaotic mess. And I think this asymmetry between what we see of other people and what we see of ourselves is one of the big explanations for why we often feel inadequate, right? You only get to see the highlight reel of everyone else, but you get to see your own blunders from the front row seat.

   12. GGGail Golden3:28

       That is so true. Uh, the phrase that I often use is, "Don't compare your own insides to other people's outsides." And we do that all the time and I'll tell you, one of the, the big realizations for me was, as I was doing that, looking at the people, the kinds of people you're describing and thinking, "Oh my gosh, you know, they're so amazing." And then one day I began to realize that there were people who were looking at me as if I was one of those people who had it all together and was doing it all and I thought, "My God, don't they know what a train wreck I am?"

   13. CWChris Williamson4:02

       (laughs)

   14. GGGail Golden4:04

       (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson4:04

       "I'm so incompetent."

   16. GGGail Golden4:05

       Right.

   17. CWChris Williamson4:05

       "I don't know what I'm doing."

   18. GGGail Golden4:07

       That's right.

   19. CWChris Williamson4:07

       "Sometimes I go, I go, I go, get to work and I find I haven't got any pants on." You know, like just-

   20. GGGail Golden4:11

       Exactly.

   21. CWChris Williamson4:12

       That's ... We've all been there.

   22. GGGail Golden4:13

       That's right. Uh, I'm faking it half the time, you know, all of this stuff. Um, and, but that made me think, "Well, okay, if, if other people think that's my life then I'm probably mistaken about those other people who seem to have it all together." And that got me thinking then about, "Okay, how could we really move towards a life that felt more, more meaningful, more focused, more using my energy for the things that really matter?" And that's what I started to work on.

3. 4:48 – 7:22

   Manage energy, not time: two questions to prevent overcommitment

   1. CWChris Williamson4:48

      You touched on a, uh, a key word there, energy, um-

   2. GGGail Golden4:52

      Yes.

   3. CWChris Williamson4:52

      ... what was the book that you suggested that you said started your journey? I can't remember it.

   4. GGGail Golden4:58

      Absolutely. It's a wonderful book, I recommend it to almost every one of my clients. It's called The Power of Full Engagement by two guys, Lower and Schwarz. Uh, and these two guys started out, they were athletic coaches who were specializing in working with athletes who had fallen off their peak performance, they were not able to perform at the level they previously had been able to reach. So the question was, what's going on with these people? They clearly have the capacity, why are they not performing at that level? And out of that work they developed some principles which they then began to apply to the people they call corporate athletes, high profile leaders in high stress jobs. And one of their key, uh, what, recommendations, one of their, their key findings was don't talk about managing time. You can't manage time. You get 24 hours a day, there's nothing you can do about it, it just keeps coming so it's not useful to think about managing time. Instead, start thinking about managing energy.... and how do I want to utilize my energy? And for me, that was a very powerful message because it changed the question for me. If somebody comes to me and says, "Hey Gail, we'd like you to work on this project. We think you'd be great. Will you do it?" I don't ask myself, "Do I have the time for that?" 'Cause it's really easy to cheat a- and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm, I'm free between 2:00 and 2:30 in the morning, so I can do that," you know? Instead, I started to ask myself two questions. The first one is, "Do I want to use my energy for that? My finite amount of energy that I've got, do I wanna use it for that?" And secondly, given that I don't have a lot of empty space in my life where I don't know what to do with myself, I have to ask myself, "If I'm going to take on that project, what am I going to do less of?" And if I can't come up with an honest answer to that, then I can't take on the project. And so those two questions, "Do I wanna use my energy for that? And if I do, what am I gonna do less of?" is really a good way of not turning myself into that over-committed, frenzied person ...

   5. CWChris Williamson7:20

      (laughs)

   6. GGGail Golden7:20

      ... who feels so out of control, right?

4. 7:22 – 10:48

   Why saying no is complicated: desire, guilt, and social approval

   1. CWChris Williamson7:22

      I, I couldn't agree more. The number of times where I've just said yes to things because I want novelty, because it sounds ...

   2. GGGail Golden7:29

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson7:29

      ... like an adventure, because it sounds like something that might be fun or interesting or different, or I explain it away as hedging, that, "Oh, well, this, this is me playing the field. It's gonna ... I'm distributing my portfolio more effectively," or, "It's multiple revenue streams, man," or whatever it might be.

   4. GGGail Golden7:45

      Right. Right, right.

   5. CWChris Williamson7:45

      All the different ways, all the different ways ...

   6. GGGail Golden7:47

      Yes.

   7. CWChris Williamson7:47

      ... that it comes through. We recently had ...

   8. GGGail Golden7:48

      Yes.

   9. CWChris Williamson7:48

      ... Greg, Greg McKeown, author of Essentialist, on the podcast, and I think ...

   10. GGGail Golden7:52

       Ah.

   11. CWChris Williamson7:52

       ... a lot of your, um, ideas in his align, which is that you need to focus on the vital few and not the trivial many. But as you've identified, we just like the idea of new and it's easier to say yes than ... it- isn't it weird that it's easier to commit to doing a thing than to say no, because doing the thing actually involves a state change?

   12. GGGail Golden8:15

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson8:15

       It's easier to say, "Yeah, I'll do ... I'll take the kids to school, I'll do the dog walk, I'll add this project in."

   14. GGGail Golden8:21

       Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson8:21

       "Yeah, I'll do the presentation." It's weird, isn't it?

   16. GGGail Golden8:24

       Yeah. Well, yes, and look, I think, I think this is a simple idea which is very complicated to make it work in your life. And that is another one of my basic principles is that, you know, we're not talking about simple problems. Simple problems, people fix those. Um, these are complicated, difficult issues. Saying no, I mean, what makes that so hard? First of all, as you say, sometimes the thing looks really exciting and, and, and appealing and, and delightful and, and yeah, I'd love to do that. Um, in the same way that a museum curator who's putting together a good exhibit, which is the analogy that I use throughout my book, that curator has all kinds of beautiful works of art that they could put into the exhibit, but most of them aren't gonna fit, and so finding a way to say, "Eh, you know, that's a great Rembrandt, but it doesn't belong in my van Gogh exhibit." Uh, you know, that, that's the, that's the challenge that we have. So it's, it's both our own desire for all these things. It's also our inner voice that says, "Well, what's the matter with you? Other people can manage to get all of this done. You should be able to do it as well." And then there's the fact we don't wanna disappoint other people. We don't wanna let people down. We don't want to have people not like us, and so that's another piece I think that makes it hard to say no.

   17. CWChris Williamson9:50

       That's such a good framing there, the- those, those last two are really, really important, the fact that you don't wanna let other people down and also that you see other people being able to get stuff done, you presume that you will up-regulate your productivity or down-regulate your sleep as appropriate ...

   18. GGGail Golden10:07

       (laughs)

   19. CWChris Williamson10:07

       ... to (laughs) to fit stuff in ...

   20. GGGail Golden10:09

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson10:09

       ... right? It just is.

   22. GGGail Golden10:10

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson10:10

       It's ... And I've done it for years and years and years. I've ... 'cause you see your own inefficiencies ...

   24. GGGail Golden10:16

       Yes.

   25. CWChris Williamson10:16

       ... from that front row seat, and you're like, "Well ..."

   26. GGGail Golden10:18

       Yes.

   27. CWChris Williamson10:19

       "I spend, um, 45 minutes a day on YouTube or Instagram or whatever. All I need to do is say yes to the project and get rid of the Instagram." And you're like ...

   28. GGGail Golden10:31

       Right.

   29. CWChris Williamson10:31

       S- you need to start from where you are with regards to your efficiency, not where you think that you could get to if you added this thing in, and this is Chris Spark's, past Modern Wisdom podcast guest-

   30. GGGail Golden10:43

       (laughs)
5. 10:48 – 13:57

   Sprint and recover: the productivity rhythm most people ignore

   1. GGGail Golden10:48

      Absolutely. What you're talking about actually feeds right into the other one of my very favorite learnings from The Power of Full Engagement. When they studied these athletes, what they found is the most highly productive, high achieving people have a rhythm where they manage their energy that is sprint and recover. Sprint means you do something full force, you work at it as hard as you can, whether it's a physical activity or a mental activity or putting on the best podcast you can p- possibly figure out how to do. You do that with everything you've got for a defined period of time, and then you stop and recover and rest. And that, that's how highly productive people get things done. Meanwhile, we live in a society that says, "Oh, I work 24/7. I never have to take a break. I run, run, run, run, run, run, run until I drop," and that's a recipe for inefficiency. So going back to your idea about I'm spending 45 minutes a day looking at, at YouTube, you have to. You need that. That's your recovery time. If you don't do that, you're going to be less productive.... so instead of doing it and feeling guilty about it, you say, "Okay, I'm gonna work hard for 90 minutes, two hours, and then I'm gonna go look at YouTube for 15, 30 minutes, get my recovery, get my break, and then come back and work again." That's how people get it done.

   2. CWChris Williamson12:27

      Looking at, um, Cal Newport's Deep Work, I think he found in that, that even the absolute peak performers of knowledge work could squeeze out top, top end four to six hours of focused deep work per day.

   3. GGGail Golden12:43

      Right. Right. Right.

   4. CWChris Williamson12:44

      What does it say? What does it tell us that the average, um, (laughs) the average worker, the full-time worker's at work for eight hours?

   5. GGGail Golden12:52

      I know.

   6. CWChris Williamson12:52

      What does that say?

   7. GGGail Golden12:55

      Well, it, I mean, it certainly says we, we aren't gonna be spending all of those eight hours doing that, that deep work that you're talking about. People just can't or don't. The same as, you know, somebody who's a ... I mean, hockey players, when they play hockey, they're not on the ice all the time. They skate like madmen, and then they go off for a few minutes, and then they come ... they rotate, they're rotating in and out all the time. That's the model that we need to learn to use. Now, that doesn't mean that in your eight hours at work, you're not doing other productive kinds of work or connecting with coworkers, you know, making relationships that lead to collaboration and creativity, um, just spending a little time reflecting, um, doing the do-dah work that has to get done as part of any workplace, the, the low intensity work. So it, it doesn't mean that, you know, for four to, you know, four to, uh, six hours a day, you're doing nothing at work, but you won't be doing deep work the whole time. That's for 100% sure.

6. 13:57 – 17:26

   A practical work-life ‘service’: curate your exhibit (values first)

   1. CWChris Williamson13:57

      I get it. Okay, so we're gonna do a, a work-life balance MOT. Where do we, where do we start?

   2. GGGail Golden14:05

      First, you have to tell me what is, what do you ... MOT?

   3. CWChris Williamson14:08

      Oh, oh, God.

   4. GGGail Golden14:08

      What is it?

   5. CWChris Williamson14:08

      I forget that you're ... Right. So it's when you take (laughs) your car in for a service, it's just, where are we beginning? We need to frame-

   6. GGGail Golden14:15

      (sighs)

   7. CWChris Williamson14:15

      ... the fact that someone has terrible work-life balance. How, how do they, how do they know? How do they know? Where do they start?

   8. GGGail Golden14:23

      Right. Okay. Sorry about that. Not familiar with-

   9. CWChris Williamson14:25

      It's fine. It's Anglicizing everything, you know. I d- I-

   10. GGGail Golden14:27

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson14:27

       ... can't believe that America doesn't have MOTs.

   12. GGGail Golden14:30

       Well, you know what? It means something entirely different in the United States, and that's why I thought I (laughs) probably should ask you what it meant.

   13. CWChris Williamson14:36

       I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know what it is (00:03:52) .

   14. GGGail Golden14:38

       Well, it's nothing terrible, but it's very different. Um-

   15. CWChris Williamson14:41

       Okay.

   16. GGGail Golden14:41

       ... o- oftentimes, members of the Jewish community will use the phrase MOT, which means member of the tribe.

   17. CWChris Williamson14:48

       (laughs)

   18. GGGail Golden14:48

       And it's a way of identifying other Jews.

   19. CWChris Williamson14:51

       It couldn't have been any further-

   20. GGGail Golden14:53

       Couldn't have been more different, that's right.

   21. CWChris Williamson14:54

       I- imagine if you took, imagine if you took your car in and you were like, "I really wanna, I need to get my car sorted. Uh, would you be able to give it an MOT?" And then you come back, and there's just someone Jewish sat there that was like, "Hi. I'm, I'm your new friend."

   22. GGGail Golden15:06

       (laughs) Exactly.

   23. CWChris Williamson15:06

       "I'm here, I'm here to, I'm here to be friends with you." Oh, wait, no.

   24. GGGail Golden15:09

       Right. No.

   25. CWChris Williamson15:09

       We- we are service, we are doing a work-life balance-

   26. GGGail Golden15:12

       Right.

   27. CWChris Williamson15:13

       ... service.

   28. GGGail Golden15:13

       Right. Okay. So as I say, it's not hard to identify when it's out of whack. You feel bad. You feel lousy. You feel inadequate. You feel like everybody else is doing more than you're doing, that something is not right about your life. And by the way, your suggestion that we do this to ourselves all the time, we say, "Oh, yeah, I can sleep less," really bad idea. Really bad idea. Both psychologically and physically, uh, a recipe for breakdown, um, so not a good idea. So you start with that discomfort. "I'm, you know, this is not working for me." And then my curating model says that the first thing you have to do is to figure out what is your exhibit about. Okay? What is this exhibit you're trying to design? What's it about? At this particular time in your life, what matters to you? What are you passionate about? What, wh- what, what are you focused on or what should you be focused on? And that, of course, changes over your lifetime. Your exhibit at 25 is gonna be probably quite different from when you're 75. Um, but you need to do that work to sort of understand what are the things that really matter, and this is very individual and customized. I mean, I was just talking with a woman this morning for whom one of the main things her exhibit is about right now is making a lot of money. Okay? She's the main earner in her family. She's got two young children, and she wants t- to put her energy into a place that is gonna make a lot of money, that sets her family up to be comfortable from now on. Okay? That might or might not be what drives you or what drives me. But for her, that's what her exhibit is about right now, and she, she then should make choices based on that value, that importance for her. Somebody else, their exhibit might be about, um, I don't know, um, how can I work towards better racial equity in the United States, which is a very big issue for us right now. For that person, they need to then organize their exhibit differently. So for number one, it's what my exhibit is about.

   29. CWChris Williamson17:24

       Mm-hmm.

7. 17:26 – 19:16

   Subtract boldly: what doesn’t belong in the exhibit (even temporarily)

   1. GGGail Golden17:26

      And then just like a museum curator, you look around at all the stuff you could be putting in your ex- in your exhibit, or you have been putting in your exhibit, and you see that it's kind of a cluttered mess if you put all that stuff in. So you have to start making decisions about what doesn't go into your exhibit, and it doesn't mean it goes in the trash. It may mean that it gets put in the back room for now, but it's not going to be in your exhibit right now. I can give you an example. When I, I mentioned I went back to school mid-career and got my MBA. For two years, I was going to school full-time and running a private practice full-time. I had two full-time commitments, and so I had to do a couple of things. One was I went to my husband and my one son, who were still living at home, and said...... I can't cook for the next two years. (mic rustles) With someone else-

   2. CWChris Williamson18:18

      No, so that, how did that go down?

   3. GGGail Golden18:19

      It went out, it went down great.

   4. CWChris Williamson18:20

      (laughs)

   5. GGGail Golden18:20

      My husband said, "Fine, I got it." He bought a microwave.

   6. CWChris Williamson18:23

      (laughs)

   7. GGGail Golden18:24

      The first microwave we ever had.

   8. CWChris Williamson18:24

      That's such a-

   9. GGGail Golden18:25

      You know?

   10. CWChris Williamson18:25

       ... that's such a bloke solution, isn't it?

   11. GGGail Golden18:28

       Well, it was a terrific solution and it worked great. And for those two years, he did it. I also went to all my friends and said, "I'm gonna be a social dropout for the next two years. I, I will not be able to hang with you guys. (mic rustles) I love you. I'll see you in two years." And that worked out fine with everybody except one friend who was really angry and said, "You know, I must not mean anything to you if that's how you're gonna treat me." And I lost that friend and I'm, and I'm sad about that. But frankly, it was a, it was a curation that I had to do. Those were things I had to eliminate from my life in order to do the things that my exhibit was about which were running my practice, going to school, and trying not to completely destroy my family in the process.

   12. CWChris Williamson19:15

       (laughs)

8. 19:16 – 22:13

   ‘Just well enough’: embracing mediocrity to protect what matters

   1. GGGail Golden19:16

      Um, that, that was it. So number one, what's your exhibit about? Number two, what am I not going to do? And then there's a whole process for how you eliminate stuff, uh, by saying no, by delegating, by, you know, stepping back from things. Al-, there's all kinds of ways you can do that. The next step is, for many people, the most difficult because these are the things, I'm gonna have them in my exhibit, I have to have them in, but they're not the most important thing. So when the, in using the museum idea, they're off in a side room somewhere. If people really wanna look at those things, they can go in. But it's not the focus of the exhibit. In the real life parallel, it means that I make a conscious choice that I am going to do those things just well enough.

   2. CWChris Williamson20:04

      What are some examples of things like that that tend to be in people's lives?

   3. GGGail Golden20:09

      That, that you're gonna do just well enough? Well, again, it varies from person to person. I mean, everyone's exhibit is unique. I can tell you, for my life, pretty much my whole life, housework has gone into the just well enough piece of my exhibit. My home is not immaculate. My, it's never gonna be on the cover of Architectural Digest Magazine.

   4. CWChris Williamson20:30

      Mm-hmm.

   5. GGGail Golden20:30

      It, you know, it's not, it, you know, nobody's come in and condemned it yet, but it's, it's, it's, you know... But my attitude is, if it's visible, I want it to be reasonably tidy. If you open a closet, it's on you-

   6. CWChris Williamson20:42

      (laughs)

   7. GGGail Golden20:42

      ... what you're gonna find. I mean-

   8. CWChris Williamson20:43

      That's such a good heuristic. Yeah, no-

   9. GGGail Golden20:45

      Exactly, you know? It's-

   10. CWChris Williamson20:46

       ... I'm a, I'm a fan of that.

   11. GGGail Golden20:47

       It's just good enough. Um, for, for somebody else for whom that really matters, that's part of their peace of mind or part of their brand, then they should do that to perfection. But it's, it's not part of my, the most important things in my exhibit. In the workplace, it's harder to do this but, again, we have to. Um, I would like to read every professional journal in my profession and be up-to-date on all the research that has any relevance to my work. I don't. I don't. I read two or three journals most of the time. I, it's just good enough. Does that mean things are gonna fall through the cracks? Yeah, sometimes there's gonna be an important article, I'm gonna miss it. But that's what I have to do in order to have the energy for the things I wanna be great at. That I, when I wanna be provocative, I call this embracing mediocrity because it seems to me most of us have a terribly hard time doing this because we've absorbed these lessons that say, you know, "If you're gonna do something, be great at it." Uh, you know, the good is the ene- the, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the good is the enemy of the great, you know. Well, I say the good is the friend of the great because the reality is, most of what we do in our life, we do mediocre. We just do. We don't have the bandwidth to be great at most of what we do. It's, it's just good enough.

9. 22:13 – 28:48

   Perfectionism, ROI, and the minimum viable version of progress

   1. CWChris Williamson22:13

      I don't ever want to be great at doing the housework. My cleaner, during lockdown, my cleaner hasn't been ab- been able to come and I'm, I'm barely even competent but I am doing it-

   2. GGGail Golden22:21

      Well-

   3. CWChris Williamson22:21

      Being, being correct, good being the enemy of the great or the friend of the great-

   4. GGGail Golden22:26

      Mm.

   5. CWChris Williamson22:27

      ... that's up for debate but I don't think that anyone can debate that perfect is the antithesis of progress. If we try and be perfect with everything that we do, we never take the product to market. As we're recording this, only yesterday I released my website for the first time, right? And there's stuff on there where I'm like, "Oh, that animation could, could do, be a little bit more of this there, or maybe I could have a slightly more sophisticated tracking pixel, or hmm, maybe that logo-

   6. GGGail Golden22:53

      Right.

   7. CWChris Williamson22:53

      ... if I sent it back off." But I've done this before and it is the mark of an, an unmature person at delivering products that they don't realize that minimum viable product is what it says it is. It is the minimum to get it to market-

   8. GGGail Golden23:11

      Correct.

   9. CWChris Williamson23:11

      ... and then you iterate from there. It's like jumping and learning to fly on the way down. Obviously, you can jump too early but I think in my experience, people are far too prepared to use their perfectionism, um, as a, a proxy for procrastination-

   10. GGGail Golden23:31

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson23:31

       ... that if they continue to per- to perfect on this thing and iterate on the stuff that they know doesn't matter, they never actually have to look at the stuff which does matter that they're uncomfortable with. People are happy to do name generation. I'm sure you've fallen prey to this at some point coming up with the, the name for a management company or whatever it might be.

   12. GGGail Golden23:47

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson23:47

       You'll do name, you'll do name generation, brainstorming, take eight hours of meetings once a week for the next two months-

   14. GGGail Golden23:54

       Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson23:54

       ... but, but then actually getting down to the nitty-gritty of like, right, okay, so who's looking after clients and who's looking after this and how are we gonna structure the blah, blah, blah, like People don't wanna do that but they'll play around-

   16. GGGail Golden24:03

       Right.

   17. CWChris Williamson24:03

       ... with logos and names. And there's-

   18. GGGail Golden24:04

       Oh, right.

   19. CWChris Williamson24:05

       ... there's people that are listening that are cringing at the fact that they've got a thing they want to do. They wanna start a business, a blog po-, a blog, a podcast, or whatever-

   20. GGGail Golden24:13

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson24:13

       ... and they've been mincing over the, the name, or the logo, or the, what it's something that doesn't, what type of webcam, whatever it might be, and it's like-

   22. GGGail Golden24:22

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson24:22

       ... that isn't what people care about and also isn't what brings value. So yeah. I like the, the, the good facilitating the great.

   24. GGGail Golden24:31

       Yes. Yes. Exactly.... uh, you've made so many points just now that I just, um, to- totally want to agree with. Um, one of the things I suggest is you have to look at the ROI, the return on investment. You know, we can put 75 hours into creating a logo with 10 high-paid people in the room. Like, really? What's the ROI on that? Not so good.

   25. CWChris Williamson24:54

       I'm pretty certain I've done that before, yeah.

   26. GGGail Golden24:55

       Right? I can spend an awful lot of time making my house immaculately, perfectly clean. Well, you know, I charge a pretty good hourly fee as a consultant. Those hours, do I wanna be spending them, you know, with a toothbrush scrubbing the underside of my bathroom sink or something? No, you know? So I think, look, there are things where perfection or close to it matter. If you are my neurosurgeon and you are gonna be inside my brain-

   27. CWChris Williamson25:24

       (laughs)

   28. GGGail Golden25:24

       ... I want you to be a perfectionist. I don't want you to be saying, "Ah, close enough." You know?

   29. CWChris Williamson25:28

       Yeah, that looks about right. That was how it was when I went in, right?

   30. GGGail Golden25:32

       (laughs)
10. 28:48 – 35:44

    Delegation without micromanagement: ‘only do what only you can do’

    1. CWChris Williamson28:48

       We have learned to say no to some of the bad things. We've also learned, we, we kinda touched on it there, but embracing mediocrity also includes-

    2. GGGail Golden28:57

       Right.

    3. CWChris Williamson28:58

       ... delegating, right?

    4. GGGail Golden28:58

       It does. Yes.

    5. CWChris Williamson28:59

       I, I love that idea.

    6. GGGail Golden28:59

       Delegating can be, it can be part of both the saying no, you just give it away entirely and somebody else deals with it from then on. Delegating is, in some sense, you still remain involved but somebody else is doing most or all of the work. And of course, that, if you're doing that as part of the, the good enough piece, what that means is they may not do it as well as you would or exactly the same way you would. And then you have a choice. You can micromanage them, which means you end up doing it anyway and they end up frustrated and wishing-

    7. CWChris Williamson29:34

       You end up doing more. You end up-

    8. GGGail Golden29:36

       Exactly. Exactly.

    9. CWChris Williamson29:38

       (laughs)

    10. GGGail Golden29:38

        Or you can say, "Good enough is..." So when I started my, my business now as a coach and leadership consultant, I hire other people to work for me sometimes doing psychological assessments on people perhaps who are applying for a very senior level job and the company wants a really good assessment of, you know, what's, how is this guy put together, or, or woman? And so, you know, you as, you, you do, give the assessments, you evaluate the results, and then you write a report. So this person who was working for me would write the report and he would send it to me because I cosign it, so I always wanna see how it looks. And it wasn't really written quite the way I would write it. It wasn't that it was bad or that it was wrong. It just, you know, the turn of phrase, it wasn't quite the same, and I would've done more of this and less of that. And at the beginning, I was doing all this redlining and rewriting and then I thought, "Wait a minute." You know, I'm paying this person to write the report. There is nothing wrong.... with the report that he's written. It just doesn't sound exactly like Gail Golden. Well, that's okay. Let it go. And it's that learning how to delegate and let other people do things their own way to their own standard, that's the art of it and so many people have trouble with that.

    11. CWChris Williamson30:55

        That's a really important insight that I hope that a lot of the people that are listening, especially the young entrepreneurs or people that have a desire to go into business, that red pill took me a decade to swallow.

    12. GGGail Golden31:09

        Yes.

    13. CWChris Williamson31:09

        We used to say, me and my business partner used to talk about, we, we would have an ongoing joke about if you want a job doing properly, do it yourself.

    14. GGGail Golden31:16

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson31:17

        And here's the absolute perfect example of that. So I run club nights, that's what I've done for the last 14 years, I get people drunk in night clubs and, um ...

    16. GGGail Golden31:26

        (laughs)

    17. CWChris Williamson31:27

        We were the directors, I've been the director since I started. I founded the company, director of the company for 14 years and me and my business partner every Saturday for four years without a break, 210 Saturdays in a row until I had a stomach bug that meant that I couldn't, I couldn't be at work. Literally had to be dragged away by a, by a, uh, a virus. Um, we would turn up at 11:00 AM at the club, let ourselves in and do stuff like set up the inflatables because if we delegated it to someone, I knew that may- maybe the inflatable would just be off to the left a little bit and then there's a particular way that they have to put the cable ties around the barriers outside and there'll be a ton of the guys that work for me that are listening and thinking, "Yeah, I remember that bit and I remember that bit and I remember that bit." And, um, i- i- it, that took me, when I look back now, that was my mid-20s.

    18. GGGail Golden32:19

        Mm-hmm.

    19. CWChris Williamson32:19

        Every Saturday I wrote off the daytime. I never had a Saturday daytime. I used to know off by heart the different radio presenters that would present on the radio because I'd know who was presenting on my way in, then who was presenting while I was in there, then who was presenting as I left. I hate the radio, the radio sucks. But my-

    20. GGGail Golden32:36

        (laughs)

    21. CWChris Williamson32:36

        ... my point is that I sacrificed so much, not only of life where I could've been enjoying life, but that wasn't my highest calling within the business. I could've given that to any student that I could've paid £8 an hour to, they would've got some extra hours out of it and I could've added value in the business in some of the places that only I can. But because-

    22. GGGail Golden32:59

        Yes.

    23. CWChris Williamson32:59

        ... I wasn't prepared to relinquish, I wasn't prepared to delegate and let go of control, what ended-

    24. GGGail Golden33:03

        Yep.

    25. CWChris Williamson33:03

        ... up happening? I ended (laughs) up wasting four years of my life sat in a club, uh, th- th- throwing, trying to throw bits of rope over the top of awnings so that we can, uh, pully up a- a- an inflatable-

    26. GGGail Golden33:15

        Right.

    27. CWChris Williamson33:15

        ... um, and not driving more trade for the business. So th- that is, that's the example for you there.

    28. GGGail Golden33:21

        Totally. You know, one of my clients years ago taught me a very interesting phrase. He was a senior executive in a bank and he said, his motto was, "Only do what only you can do." Now that's aspirational. Everybody has to take out the garbage from time to time, do you know what I mean? Nobody can only do what they are uniquely qualified or talented to do. But using it as a goal, only do what only you can do, is a really good rule for curating your life, for figuring out what you should be putting your energy into. And your story about you spending all this time throwing ropes over things, I mean, absolutely classic. It's, that's absolutely right, yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson34:10

        (laughs)

    30. GGGail Golden34:11

        You know, this delegation piece is often a very big issue for somebody in business who's had a promotion and you get promoted because you're really good at what you've been doing in your job and then you go up one level and it's the most normal thing in the world to, that you want to continue doing what got you promoted which is what you, what the former job was about. Except that's not your job anymore and other people are supposed to be doing that job now and you have got to get out of the, out of the weeds and up to the next level where you are overseeing, supervising, directing, guiding, inspiring, coaching and not doing the work yourself. One of the most difficult challenges for people when they get promoted to a more senior role.
11. 35:44 – 41:41

    Choosing and living your greatness: talent × opportunity × passion

    1. CWChris Williamson35:44

       ... how can we, how can we start to choose and live our greatness now?

    2. GGGail Golden35:47

       Yes. So that's, I mean, in, in many ways for, well, I was gonna say that's the fun part except it's not always fun. Um, so first of all, figuring out your greatness is sometimes hard. Um, some people have so many things they're good at or so many things they love doing that it's hard to focus it down. And you may say, "Well, gee whiz, I'd love to have that problem of being, you know, great at 17 things." But it's a problem, it's a challenge to let go of things and I think some of us feel like if I have a talent in this area, I'm obligated to use it, and, and then that feels like I'm somehow failing myself or others if I don't make use of this ability I have. But, you know, Leonardo da Vinci who was one of the most talented and, and, and multi-talented people in the history of the world, and even Leonardo wasn't good at every, wasn't great at everything, you know. He made choices and he did different things at different times in his life.... so being awa- figuring out what- first of all, "What is my talent? What am I, what am, what are my gifts? What am I good at?" The other thing that's very real is, "What's my opportunity?" You know, "Am I in a place and, and at a time when I can actually pursue this?" Because we tend to overestimate, you know, the individual's abilities and, and drive and underestimate the reality that your context is gonna limit you in many cases or say, "Not now. Maybe later on, but not right now." So what are, what are my talents, what, what are the opportunities available to me, and what is my passion? What, what do I find I'm thinking about and talking about and longing to do? And you look for the intersection of those things to figure out what the greatness is. And again, for right now. So that's a whole process and it can be quite complicated and it could take a while to figure it out. Um, and as in, in my case, I mean, what I was working on being great at for the first half of my career was being the greatest psychotherapist I could be, which is really hard, by the way, and takes a long time, and I got to be really good at it, and then I got tired of it and it was time to f- to, to reach for something else, and that's what I did. Um-

    3. CWChris Williamson38:06

       Let- letting go of our past epochs can be super challenging. I had a discussion with Tucker Max who, uh, famously founded the fratire, um, literacy genre, which is kind of young bros partying and getting drunk and stuff like that, um, and that, because he was New York Times bestselling author three or four times over with that particular type of book and then he'd wrapped his identity around in it and, um, he found it really challenging to become who he was next, you know? He wanted to be-

    4. GGGail Golden38:39

       Yes.

    5. CWChris Williamson38:39

       ... uh, uh, a husband, a father, a family man, a CEO, a business owner-

    6. GGGail Golden38:45

       Yes. Yes.

    7. CWChris Williamson38:45

       ... and you have these old labels and these epochs, right, and everyone knows, everyone that's listening's got that friend that's still stuck in the identity they were-

    8. GGGail Golden38:53

       (sighs)

    9. CWChris Williamson38:53

       ... when they were at school or at college or at university.

    10. GGGail Golden38:56

        Oh, yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson38:56

        You know?

    12. GGGail Golden38:56

        Oh, yeah. It's sad.

    13. CWChris Williamson38:58

        It's painful. It's painful to see.

    14. GGGail Golden38:59

        It's sad. Yeah, yeah. The captain of the football team, you know? I mean, yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson39:02

        "I would've made it."

    16. GGGail Golden39:04

        (laughs) There you go. So, so there's, there's that identifying your greatness at this time and then living your greatness. M- how are you gonna go for it? My husband is a musician and he teaches music students and his observation is, talent, absolutely you need talent, but you can predict who is gonna be a really great musician much more on the basis of their work ethic, their discipline, their willing to do what has to be done, more so than their talent. And you can be probably a second-rate talent with first-rate discipline and you're gonna get further ahead than the first-rate talent with second-rate discipline. So it's- i- it's hard work to be great at something and you have to, you really have to be willing to, to make the sacrifices, to do what it takes, to, you know, manage your procrastination, to manage your distractability, to stay on task, to stay focused, and as I said, there can be great joy in that, but it also is hard work. It means not doing other things that you might also enjoy doing. And again, I wanna go back to, to me, that doesn't mean that this is the only thing you do, that you just, you know, 24/7 you're working on that. Not at all. You take your breaks, you have some fun, you fool around, something... When I was writing my book, I was very disciplined about it 'cause I knew that was the only way it was gonna get written. I had chunks of time set aside that this is what I do. And I remember one afternoon, I think it was a four-hour chunk, I was about two hours into it and I thought, "You know, I just need to take a little break. I'm gonna go watch television for a few minutes." And two hours later, I was still watching television. So that, that, I mean, that happens, right? And the point is, at that point I can beat myself up and say, "Oh, I'm such a loser. I'm never gonna get my book done," or I can say, "I guess I needed to do that, so I did it, so tomorrow I get back on track." Um, and I actually have a whole chapter in the book called Busting Loose, which is about the fact that even when you're a highly disciplined person, you have to cheat sometimes. You have to do the little things that break the rules and the trick is to figure out what are the little things, not the big, black awful things that are gonna be irreparable, but the little things where you can dip your toe into mischief and then get back on track and give yourself room to do that.

12. 41:41 – 44:52

    Busting loose: breaks, gray zones, and bouncing back after slips

    1. CWChris Williamson41:41

       How do you draw the line yourself between taking a deserved break and pushing a lack of discipline too far so that you tumble into undiscipline and start to build bad habits? How do you self-

    2. GGGail Golden41:58

       (sighs)

    3. CWChris Williamson41:59

       ... how do you self-discipline in that situation?

    4. GGGail Golden42:01

       Y- you know, that's a very good question and it is, it's a nuanced thing because again, I, I think if you try to force yourself to be on task every single minute, you're going to fail. So we need to give ourselves some room to fool around from time to time, to do something silly, to waste time. (sighs) Look, I suppose part of it is looking and seeing how many days in a row did I do that or how many hours in a row. It, it kind of reminds me, you know, Weight Watchers, which is an, the organization that helps people get to a healthy weight, they have a wonderful saying that it doesn't, in the United States, it doesn't matter what you do on, what you eat on Thanksgiving Day, which is a day of overeating.

    5. CWChris Williamson42:43

       (laughs)

    6. GGGail Golden42:43

       It matters what you eat on the day after Thanksgiving.... the idea being on Thanksgiving Day, (object thuds) you're gonna eat what you feel like eating. That's what the day is for. But the next day, you get back on track. You get back on eating the men- in the way that you want to eat to be a healthy person. If you use Thanksgiving as an excuse to overeat for the next three months, you're in trouble. If it's one day, you're not in trouble. So part of it is looking at that (hands clap) ability to bounce back, to say, "Okay, that's enough of that, back to work." And then there are tricks you can use. For example, it can be you look at a task and it looks so big and so daunting. It's like, "Oh my gosh, I could never get that done." And one of the tricks is to chunk it down into manageable pieces. You know, take your website, for example. I mean, the whole building of that website, I'm sure, was a massive project. So, you know, if you had found yourself having difficulty starting with that, you could say, "Well, what's the first thing I need to do? Maybe I, I need to reserve a, a, a website." So do that piece, that's all. You know, then I'll think about the next step, and, and then, and by the way, reward and congratulate myself as I accomplish each of the steps along the way. It's much more manageable than looking at the whole big mountain and saying, "Oh my gosh, it's too much. I guess I'm, you know, just gonna go and watch some more cartoons on television or something like that."

    7. CWChris Williamson44:10

       (laughs)

    8. GGGail Golden44:11

       Um, so, so that chunking piece is, is a piece that we have learned really enables people to stay focused and to stay on task when we need to.

    9. CWChris Williamson44:21

       There's no next action, next physical action which is ever too difficult, right? Like, given enough time, I could walk to Mars. If you gave me, like, a couple of million years, I could walk to Mars 'cause it's just one step after another. I, there'd have to be a couple of bioengineering hacks happen to me.

    10. GGGail Golden44:38

        Yes, yes. (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson44:38

        But, but my point is that it's you can always-

    12. GGGail Golden44:40

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson44:40

        ... take one more step, right? But if you were-

    14. GGGail Golden44:42

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson44:42

        ... to say to someone, "I need you to walk to Mars," it's, it's a little bit, a little bit challenging. But okay, so we've got ourselves to the, to the stage where we're starting to choose and live our greatness. What about-

    16. GGGail Golden44:51

        Right.

13. 44:52 – 48:54

    Curating workplace culture: leadership signals that protect others’ energy

    1. CWChris Williamson44:52

       ... curating our workplace now?

    2. GGGail Golden44:54

       Well, so then I started to think about leadership, and as a business leader, it seems to me you have two responsibilities. One is to curate your own life, to utilize your energy in a way that you are putting your best energy into the things that matter the most, to you and to the organization that you lead. And by the way, curation is not a purely selfish process where all I care about is, you know, what's good for me. It also, we, we're social people, we're in a social context, we're thinking about other people at the same time, so, so curating your life as a business leader. But the second part is looking at the environment you're creating, at the messages that you are giving to the people who work for you, and thinking about, "Am I leading in a way that enables and facilitates them to curate their lives?" And, you know, in many cases, the answer is not so much. And s-

    3. CWChris Williamson45:52

       What are some of the, what are some of the ways that people often- (objects clattering) business leaders often create a workplace which doesn't enable?

    4. GGGail Golden45:58

       Yeah. A simple one is, I'm a night person. I get a great idea at 11:30 at night and I fire it out to my people at 11:30 at night or one o'clock in the morning, and I'm the boss, right? And people feel that then there's an expectation that they should respond to that. You know, there's a really simple hack, um, you know, in, in Outlook, which is the messaging system that I use, you can stick delay delivery on your email.

    5. CWChris Williamson46:25

       Schedule send. We love it. We love it.

    6. GGGail Golden46:27

       That's right, schedule send. You know, so I can have my idea... I'm not a night person, by the way, but if I were, and I have my 1:30 in the morning, you know, flash of insight, I write the email and I get it sent at noon or whenever my people are gonna be around, you know? And, and by doing so, I send the message that, "I, I want you to curate your life. I want you to have a reasonable organization of your energy." And I'm gonna take a minute to tell one of my favorite stories about this because I think it's really important. My father was a Holocaust survivor. He escaped from Germany to England, um, in 1939 and spent the war in England. And right after the war, um, children who had been incarcerated in the concentration camps were brought to England for rehabilitation, and there were a number of centers around England where these traumatized children were brought to bring them back to health. And they needed to find people who spoke German, Polish, or Yiddish because that's what these children spoke. So my, they reached out to the community. My dad, who has zero training in this, volunteered to be one of the counselors at one of these rehabilitation centers, and they had one day off a week when they worked at the rehabilitation center. And the director of the center told them, "You are not allowed to be on the campus on your day off. You may not show your face around here." Because he knew that these people were so dedicated to the work that they would be there seven days a week and they would drop from emotional and physical exhaustion. So he made a rule, "You couldn't come in on that day." That, to me, is an example of a, a business leader saying, "I need to think about your well-being, not just my own." He might have said, "Yeah, the kids need you seven days a week, so come on in," and he did not. Um, so that kind of thinking about helping your people to manage their energy so that they can bring their best and they get the breaks they need, whether it's taking their vacation days, whether it's not sending emails in the middle of the night, whether it's saying, "Hey, you know, it's summertime, we're all gonna quit work at three o'clock in the afternoon on Friday."... whatever it may be, to me, that is part of a leader's job to, to help others curate their lives.

14. 48:54 – 52:25

    If you’re not the boss: quiet curation, realistic limits, and when to leave

    1. CWChris Williamson48:54

       If you're not a business leader, how can you contribute to that environment? Let's say that you're just an employee or a worker-

    2. GGGail Golden49:00

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson49:00

       How can you contribute to that?

    4. GGGail Golden49:03

       It's harder because you don't really have the power that the leader has, and you may be working in an environment that doesn't encourage that kind of curation. I guess my, my first thought is, you quietly do it yourself, you know? You don't have to be tell- ... One of the things I say about mediocrity, by the way, and being just good enough, is when you figured out what you're gonna be just good enough on, don't tell people. Just quietly be good enough. They won't notice in most cases-

    5. CWChris Williamson49:33

       (laughs)

    6. GGGail Golden49:34

       ... right? You don't have to go announcing, "By the way, I'm gonna be mediocre on how well I shine my shoes." Just, just don't care, you know? So in the same way, I think you can quietly curate your life without necessarily making an announcement about it. But it's difficult. I mean, if you're working in a place that has these unreasonable expectations for attendance, length of time, productivity, (sighs) that's very difficult, and I think in many cases, you're wise to find another place to work.

    7. CWChris Williamson50:05

       Mm-hmm. No, I agree. The, the sort of Gary V Hustle and Grind mentality is never one that's really sat super well with me. It's not resonated massively, and I think that a big part of it is that I know ... I think everybody knows in their heart of hearts that the person who's able to go very, very hard for four or six hours per day will outperform the person who's still in the office at 3:00 AM-

    8. GGGail Golden50:30

       That's right.

    9. CWChris Williamson50:30

       ... because the person that's still in the office at 3:00 AM isn't working that hard. They're just sat there, they got their phone out, they're on YouTube. Like the number of times ... So, like I say, I run club nights and a lot of the guys that work for me are students at university, and a lot of the time they'll come in around about the exam period and they'll do a, a full day in the office of revision, but during the full day in the office, I'll have seen them, they'll be on Snapchat for half an hour, they'll have this. I'm like, "Dude, you could have been in and out of here in three hours-"

    10. GGGail Golden51:00

        Right.

    11. CWChris Williamson51:01

        "... if you'd left your phone at home, if you'd put RescueTime or some other sort of, uh, website blocking app on your computer." And you just nailed it. Like if you'd gone ... So this is a- a- another Cal Newport deep workism where he says that work done equals time times intensity. So you can do three hours at a 10 or you can do 10 hours at a three.

    12. GGGail Golden51:22

        Mm-hmm.

    13. CWChris Williamson51:22

        And it is hard, don't get me wrong. The higher levels of discomfort, the higher levels of intensity have a lot of discomfort with them because you don't get the little dopamine hits. You've also got to be super, super focused.

    14. GGGail Golden51:32

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWChris Williamson51:32

        But the more that you try and do that, the more that you cultivate a, um, an atmosphere of excellence where you are focused on the things that you're supposed to do, the easier it comes thereafter, and you get greater satisfaction from it. No one, no one wants to spend 10 hours a couple of days before a project deadline doing 50% intensity gray vanilla quality work. You don't want that.

    16. GGGail Golden51:56

        Right.

    17. CWChris Williamson51:56

        It doesn't make you feel satisfied. But you know-

    18. GGGail Golden51:58

        No.

    19. CWChris Williamson51:59

        ... the days that you go in when you s- when you absolutely crush it, five hours in and out, everything's done, you've got the evening to yourself, like that-

    20. GGGail Golden52:05

        Mm-hmm.

    21. CWChris Williamson52:05

        That is where work feels satisfying, right?

    22. GGGail Golden52:08

        I absolutely agree. And I, you know, I think, yeah, I mean, you said it. It's, and it's that satisfaction that comes from sprint and recover and the productivity that comes from that is just, you know-

    23. CWChris Williamson52:22

        It's a winner, so-

    24. GGGail Golden52:23

        ... that, that's where, that's a winner. Exactly.

15. 52:25 – 1:00:08

    Curating home life: bringing your best energy and reducing family pressure

    1. CWChris Williamson52:25

       We've, we've got our workplace sorted. Can we, can we curate a home as well? 'Cause there's, you gotta, you know, I've gotta be a, a mother, a father, a brother, a whatever, housemate, whatever it might be.

    2. GGGail Golden52:34

       Right, right. Yes. Um, I think, I think the same principles apply both in terms of making a choice about what kind of energy I bring home and do they get my leftover, you know, 25% fairly irritable self, or do I bring my best self to my home? And if so, how do I do that? There are lots of other pieces to that. I mean, I, what we're hearing a lo- a lot in the States, and my guess is that it's true in, in, in the UK as well, is teenagers who are driven like maniacs. I mean, because, you know, the idea is you have to get your kid into the best university so that then they can get the job with the top firm in New York and, and, and then they can, you know, be wealthy and live happily ever after. And, and, and, and if they don't get a perfect score on this exam, the rest of their life is gonna unravel. And, and I ... You see young people, teenagers, you know, expected to get top grades, active in 17 different caree- extracurricular activities, doing good work in the community, I mean, impossible demands and, and crumbling under the pressure. You know, if that's your kid, you're not doing a good job curating as a parent and you need to get real about what are the one, two, or three things that you wanna help this kid focus on. And the rest of it can be just good enough, or I'm not doing it at all. And yes, we want our children to have a good work ethic and we want them to have persistence, but part of that is sometimes the kids say, "You know what?" I'm ... One of my sons decided he was gonna take gymnastics for a while. He took ... He's a really good athlete. He took two classes. He came and said, "I hate it. I don't wanna do it anymore."

    3. CWChris Williamson54:23

       (laughs)

    4. GGGail Golden54:24

       I said, "Fine, don't do it anymore. Just because you signed up doesn't mean you have to do it." I mean, you hate it. There's a lot of things in life you have to do even when you hate. Gymnastics is not one of them-

    5. CWChris Williamson54:35

       (laughs)

    6. GGGail Golden54:36

       ... right? So, you know, letting your kids quit stuff, letting your kids do something just well enough is, is part of this as well. So that's some of the home curation stuff that I think is really important.

    7. CWChris Williamson54:51

       I get that. So final thing, is there anything left to say about how discipline and liberation link together? Because I, I like, I like the idea of the sprint and the recover. I think that's a really good, um-... way for people to balance their energy, but is there any more on discipline and liberation?

    8. GGGail Golden55:09

       Well, I- I think I touched on this, but it is an important point, I think. There, you simply cannot be disciplined about everything in your life all the time. Nobody has, nobody will, nobody can. And there's a certain pleasure in breaking the rules, even the rules I've set for myself. And so learning how to do that, I- I- I talk about there's the white zone where I'm behaving in an absolutely exemplary manner, I'm being the Gail that I really wanna be and the kind of person I want other people to be, and there's the black zone where I'm doing something that's really destructive. I'm stealing from my employer, I'm driving drunk, I'm doing things that are really wrong. And in between is the gray zone where I've just- I'm just being a little bit bad. You know, I drink two martinis knowing that I'm gonna get silly or I eat chocolate cake when I'm really trying to, you know, get lean and- and- and have, be physically fit. I committed myself to exercising five days a week and you know what? I'm taking a week off, I'm not doing it. Um, li- little bit bad. Um, I tell a slightly off-color joke. Uh, and- again, using judgment and- and dipping my toe, and there's something about that little bit of mischief, that little bit of naughtiness that feels good, and then we can go back to being that admirable individual that we're trying to be most of the time. Um, many of us have this rigid conscience inside that we developed from when we were really little, which is like, it's either black or white. You're either a good boy or you're a bad boy. And what I'm suggesting is as adults we have room for that little place in between where I'm not being a good girl or a bad girl, I'm being a little bit naughty girl, and we need to visit that place in order to then gain the energy back to go ahead being the person that we really wanna be.

    9. CWChris Williamson57:13

       I love it. I love it. I think it's really cool. I like the idea of people being able to be their own disciplinarians, um, and also getting that liberation from it. Uh, the delegation stuff, again, like that's such an important part, been such a- a crucial, um, side of- of me allowing myself to do more of the stuff I want to do. I mentioned I have a cleaner, um, and it's like c- could I clean my house? Yeah, during lockdown I have, but does she do it better than me? Absolutely. Does it mean, like do I- I don't enjoy it. It's fun at the moment 'cause there's novelty attached, but as I said, everything else, like delegate down all of the stuff that you can't do, and if you're in a position where delegation isn't an option, as you said, look toward that what is the minimum viable effort or the minimum viable, um, mediocrity that I can-

    10. GGGail Golden58:03

        Right.

    11. CWChris Williamson58:03

        ... bring to the table here.

    12. GGGail Golden58:04

        Right. Right.

    13. CWChris Williamson58:05

        Um, that allows me to work on what I want, and the- the kind of f- final thing that I really like of how it all pieces together is that you talked about how, um, you want to go incredibly hard, you want to work i- in these sprints. If you do all of the steps before which ensures that the thing that you're doing is close to your highest calling, close to the passion that you genuinely feel, it won't feel like work. You will want to lose yourself in writing the book for four hours-

    14. GGGail Golden58:32

        Yes. Yes.

    15. CWChris Williamson58:32

        ... because that is what you're compelled to do.

    16. GGGail Golden58:36

        Yes. Exactly. That's how it comes together. And- and you get that exhibit where the big pieces are hanging in the middle, the necessary but not huge pieces are kind of off in a side room somewhere, you know, and the stuff that doesn't matter is back in the storeroom maybe for another day.

    17. CWChris Williamson58:58

        There we go. We did it. Look, uh, Curating Your Life will be linked in the show notes below. If it sounds like this is the sort of thing that you are struggling with, ending the struggle for work/life balance, I couldn't recommend it more. It- it's really, really cool, it's very actionable. I think you've done a- a great job with it, Gail. If people want-

    18. GGGail Golden59:14

        Thank you.

    19. CWChris Williamson59:14

        ... to find out a little bit more, w- where should they go? Anything to plug online?

    20. GGGail Golden59:19

        Sure. Yeah, my- my website, uh, it's brilliant of course, um, gailgoldenconsulting.com. Uh, please come and visit me. You can leave a message if you like. Um, and yeah, the book. Those are the two main places.

    21. CWChris Williamson59:33

        Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. You know what to do if you enjoyed the episode. Like, share, and subscribe or give me a message wherever you follow me @chriswillx. I will link Gail's fantastic website, as I'm sure it is, and the great Curating Your Life in the show notes below. Gail, thank you.

    22. GGGail Golden59:50

        Thank you. It's been a pleasure. I really enjoyed it.

    23. CWChris Williamson59:55

        (?) .

Episode duration: 1:00:08