#5 Lessons in Work-Life Balance from a Father of Seven Daughters

“Fred the Fly” joins us for a fun episode filled with "Complaints," "Confessions," Comments, and…. insights into achieving work-life balance, regardless of what your personal or professional life entails.

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SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Possibility Mindset Podcast. My name is Devin Henderson, your host, and I believe that something greater is always possible for you. Well, welcome back, everybody. I'm excited to be here with you. And yes, I skipped last week. So apologies to my extremely loyal following at this point. But I do appreciate you popping back in. And um, yeah, it's I you know it's one of those things where I'm kind of like, am I going to be able to maintain a weekly podcast? And that is yet to be determined. Yeah, I really want to because I have a theory and I haven't looked into the stats on this. I need to, that when you have a weekly podcast, um you just you can get more traction with your audience because you're delivering value. Like I know for me, when I listen to a podcast, I like to have it weekly. So maybe I'm just speaking for myself here that I get excited when that, you know, when my favorite podcast, like when Wednesday hits or Thursday hits, and it's a comedy podcast or a uh motivational podcast, I'm like, yes, like right when I need it, you know. But if it were to skip, like when sometimes it does skip a week and I'm like, oh, like I'm I'm let down. Now that said, I'm still excited to come back the next week. So I think I've talked myself out of this theory now that maybe you don't absolutely have to do it weekly, but I do like knowing what it's like to be in the shoes of you listeners, it's like I want to be as loyal to that as possible, as committed to coming out with uh weekly um content for you, right? To enjoy and to be inspired by. So uh, well, good news this week, we got her done. So here it is. So thanks for joining. I think I think for me, the video is the most challenging part. You know, I think a podcast could be so much easier if I only did audio. The reason we do video is because we figure, you know, the more platforms you're on, the more bigger audience, the more people you're going to reach. And I think some people like to watch. You know, they like to put a name to the face and just, you know, watch as they're walking, uh, not as they're driving, but watching, you know, during the safe times. But also the nice thing about the video is that we cut it up to clip into clips and put it on social media. And someone from my team said, since I'm like sort of fall into the bucket of like a personality, rather than just having an audio reel, say on YouTube with images or captions, it's good to actually have my face since I speak in front of people and since I'm animated and it's what I do. I'm a professional speaker, it only makes sense to do the video. So we'll keep doing the video part as long as um we can and as long as it makes sense and as long as we believe it really is valuable to you listeners. So there you go. Um last week I was at an event and some we were talking about podcasts, and I was telling them how I recently started one, and that I guess, you know, this is episode five. And he said, I heard that once you get to episode 10, then you've really proven to yourself that you're gonna stay committed and you're much more likely to go for it. I don't know the stats on that. And he said, Well, it's either it was either 10 or 100. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute here. That's kind of a big gap. It's not like 10 or 12 or 10 or 15, it's like 10 or 100, right? That's like telling someone in college, you're either gonna graduate in one year or 100. You know, we we don't know, it's somewhere in between. So anyway, I figured, you know, statistics are fine, uh, trends are okay, but I figured we're all on our journey. We can make it what it is. So I can even say, hey, I got to five. And for me, that means I'm committed and I'm in the game. So that's what I'm gonna say today. There's your first piece of inspiration. Wasn't even planning that, but you know what? Don't let statistics and trends scare you away and deflate you from achieving that goal. Just UB U, baby. Go out and do it and um you know, like be a maverick. Be a maverick. You know, I I um I had a coach who uh I made this commitment to a while back that um I think it was the year 2021, it was gonna be the year of the maverick for me, and that definition uh is an unorthodox or independent-minded person. And so I uh you know, I think of Top Gun, I think of Maverick. He was very, very unorthodox. He was doing low flybys, he was um he likes to break the rules. Uh, but some sometimes it's for fun, sometimes it's for no purpose, but it's just who he is, and sometimes that really pays off for him. So I like to think of myself as a maverick, you know, just get up there, do it your own way, right? So many times I put myself in a box and limit myself because I I watch social media, I watch other dads, other speakers, and I say, well, they were successful this way, I guess that's the only way. And that's just simply not true. You know, you just gotta write your own story and go on your own journey. Okay, um, I I did look up that definition. I a lot of times I don't I don't look up things. Here's the thing you need to know about me. I don't know if this falls into the um confession arena. I don't like to Google things. And I think I'm gonna do a longer episode on why I don't like to Google things. I've done a few short videos on that in the past. In a nutshell, I don't think we need to or are even meant to know everything all the time. I think it takes away from our creative thinking. I think it takes away from active discussions with people. I think when when people are having a discussion about um, man, how how far did we how far did we run today? We ran from A to B. How far was that? You know, from home to the grocery store. I don't know, was it was it a mile, was it two miles, and someone gives up the phone? Well, we're gonna answer that right now. And, you know, let's let's look that up. Okay, it was 2.5. Guess what? End of the fun discussion, end of the theories about how far we may have run. And so it's like we're always looking these things up. And so sometimes I just don't like to look it up. Um, now the one of the reasons I'm also sharing that is sometimes I will Google things because I feel like it's if it's pertinent to the discussion, then yes. Now, there are certain times where I might say, I don't know, I don't I don't know the answer to the question I'm asking right now. And you on your phone or on your computer could easily Google that for yourself. So I figure if you want to, go ahead, but I'm gonna leave that choice up to you. I'm not gonna force Google on you, right? Um at the same time, I know there's also the fact-check aspect of podcasts, which I'm gonna be honest, I don't know like if there's laws or if that's just like an etiquette thing. So at some point, someone may be like, hey, you you know, you need me to be fact-checking, Devin. You have to Google everything you're saying to make sure you're on track. So anyway, figuring it out as we go. All right. Um okay, so again, speaking of not Googling things, last podcast, I I like to listen to my podcast because I like listening to my own voice, man. I think it's pretty cool. No, I like to listen just to be like, what did I say? You know, because when you sit down for um a period of time and you just talk, sometimes it's like, oh, uh I do this with speeches too. I'll go back, I like to video record every speech, you know, for quality assurance to always be improving, and I'll be like, oh, I I flipped those words, or I said the wrong thing. Or, you know, you're sitting in an audience, you're listening to a speaker, and they say a phrase wrong, and you know that they know the real phrase, that it just came out of their mouth wrong. So I like to go back and just see, what did I get right? What did I get wrong? Well, I did say that um uh Eleanor Roosevelt, actually, I I said I I gave a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, and it's something about do something every day that scares you. And in the back of my mind, I knew it was Eleanor Roosevelt. I was probably like 85% sure, but I was like, well, I'm not I I should probably say it. In that case, that might have been a good case to Google that and say, I think that was Eleanor Roosevelt and looked it up, or just simply said, I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt. If I'm wrong, look it up. You know, put it in the comments, let me know. Um, so I'm not always so quick to Google. Um now, okay, moving on from the Google thing, but also speaking of listening to last week, this is man, this is like a I feel like my thoughts right now are like one of those tributaries that go into the ocean. Is that what it's called? Tributary? I'm not gonna look it up. Tributary, I think, is like from uh, oh, that's some kind of uh topography thing, right? I don't even know if that's the right word, but where it goes from topography, is that the study of maps? Okay, maybe I should be Googling things. I don't know, but if you're listening to this, I'm getting things wrong. That's okay. See, that's the beauty of your own decisions. You can decide to look it up for yourself, or in your mind, you can go, oh no, I know what that is. I'm I'm smarter than Devin in this um our area. So there you go. You're welcome for feeling smart today. Um, but whatever it is, tributaries, you know, I feel like my mind's going in a thousand different directions right now. Some something about rivers and creeks and oceans. Um this is the point in time where the old perfectionist in me would have been like, okay, stop the podcast, start it over again, re-record. But no, baby, I'm not doing that. Okay. I'm my gift to you is to be imperfect. All right. There's your second piece of inspiration. Be imperfect. It's okay, pick up the ball, move on. Okay. Now, I was listening to the podcast last week, and I um said thank you for your service to military people, to uh police officers, uh, and to firefighters. I did not mention EMT. And as soon as I heard myself not say it, I was like, oh, how could you leave out EMT people, like first responders, helping people in um trouble, you know? So thank you, EMT, for your service. We appreciate you. All right, I have to tell you something too. There is a pesky fly flying around. And before I was like, I'm gonna kill this fly before I start this podcast. I couldn't get the darn thing. That it like never lands, and when it does, it's in a place where I can't smack it with my fly swatter here. And so, do you ever try to hit a fly while it's in the air? It's pretty funny. My wife makes fun of me when I sometimes there's not a fly swatter nearby, so I'll take a shirt and start swinging it in mid-air, and you know, if someone didn't know there was a fly in the room, just think about how ridiculous you would look. I mean, you look ridiculous enough with them knowing you're trying to hit the fly in the air, but I just look like a fool, I'm sure. But I I gotta get this fly. So my my goal, there he is. My goal is sometime before this podcast is over, I'm going to get that fly. And I kind of want to do it in the air, just to do it in real time. I'm almost tempted to go get a pair of chopsticks so I can pull a Danielson and pluck that bad boy out of midair. There he is. Ugh, I need some chopsticks. Okay. Anyway, we'll get you, buddy. We'll get you. Maybe you'll see him flying by here in a second. We should, you know, we should probably just name him because I think he might be the same fly who keeps coming back. Uh, but don't they only live for like a day? I don't know. Google it. All right, let's see here. Um, we've we've I've got a list here. I want to go, I want to make sure I don't uh miss anything. I will tell you, my my family is not here right now, uh, with the exception of my oldest daughter, Claire. So, so where we're at right now is, you know, this is this is summertime. This is mid-July. And mid-July, um, my my wife's hometown, they have their county fair. It's the Lincoln County Fair. This is in Kansas. She's from a very small town in north central Kansas called Sylvan Grove, which is population 300 people. So her graduating class was like 20 students, very small, but they have this fair every year, and so it's a very quaint little town with wonderful people. And actually, a lot of my wife, uh Lynn, I'll just do I have to keep saying my wife Lynn? Eventually you'll know my wife's name's Lynn. Lynn's family still lives there, so it's really fun for the kids to go back and play with their cousins. Uh, and it's it's a great time. I'm I'm sure more about the fair will unfold over the years. Um, so they're there right now, and now it used to be like they would go because they spent about five days there, and then I would come late, and I would spend about two or three days there and come home early, which means that I have a little bit of time to myself. And yes, this time Claire's with me, but Claire is busy. Claire works at Chick-fil-A. Claire's got like a bajillion friends, um, but we do get some time together. In fact, we're planning a sushi date later today. Uh, and ice cream, but that's a surprise.

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Wink!

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So um anyway, the reason I bring this up is because like I've had a little margin this week and it feels really good. And yes, I miss my wife and my my baby girls, but it is so nice to kind of just get caught up and be able to breathe a little bit. And one thing I love to do is at night, it's kind of like my my nightly ritual when they're gone is to walk in the park for two for about two hours, Shawnee Mission Park, if you all know, uh if if you happen to be from here. Um, and I it's just like the most peaceful, amazing walk. You know, we don't live in like the Rocky Mountains where like you go hiking, but it's just a nice stroll. It's it is very secluded, lots of trees, streams, open fields, a lot of deer. Last night I saw a copperhead, took a video of it. I should include that here. Scary, man. Those those are big and apparently deadly. So uh I was walking, you know, as it was like getting dark, and so you get your phone flashlight out and make sure you don't step on any. Because at that time of night in the summer, I usually see about one or two. So it's been nice. So if you were wondering why does Devin seem so relaxed, so calm, that's why. Okay, I haven't seen like that at all, I'm sure. But um, but yeah, things are good. Uh, I feel like it's one of those blessings for me in my life where I just get uh a little retreat, um, knowing that I need to give my wife more breaks like that as well. Easier said than done, but it's one of our one of our aims. Okay, um I'm gonna go into uh my first segment for the day, which is trivial complaints. Alright, my trivial complaint for today is this, and this one truly drives me crazy. Okay, why do they put t-shirt tags? You know, like usually t-shirt tags used to always be at the the back of your neck. And that was kind of annoying because it would pop out and people are always tucking the tag back in. It's like, get your hands off me, but thank you. And then you're always checking it yourself. Well, they were like, let's let's move the tag. Where can we move it where it won't pop out? I know, let's put it right where it's gonna tickle everybody's ribs. Right down here, under their ribs, so that it's even more annoying than on the back of the neck. Now, if you're wearing an undershirt, not as big of a deal, but I hardly ever wear an undershirt with a t-shirt. So then what you're thinking is you're thinking, like, oh, let's cut it off. Let's cut the tag off down to the base. No, that's worse. Now it's like cutting into, it's like scraping you because it's like really short and it's really annoying. So then you're like, well, let me rip it out of there. Well, you go to rip it out. Well, then that leaves a hole in your shirt because it's like, you know, sewn into the seam of your shirt. So I don't know if I need to like hire a seamstress to artfully pluck that out of there or put my kids to hard labor, taking all the tags out of the sides of my t-shirts. I recently bought a t-shirt in the store, it was really cool. It was a it was a white t-shirt that said puma on the front. I was like, this thing fits perfectly, it's awesome. I needed a new t-shirt, and I for some reason I didn't notice when I tried it on the tag was there, and I came home and I was like, stink! So my daughter stole my shirt, slash I let her have it because I I can't do it. I even tried to cut the tag off, and as usual, it didn't work. So I love the t-shirts that have no tags. Why don't we just move all t-shirts to tagless? Please. Okay, I don't know what else to say about that, but this is my campaign to please let's go taglish, taglish, tagless, or taglish with all t-shirts or t-shirts or what have you. I had a friend in uh college who said what have you after everything single thing he said, and so I'm I'm gonna bring that back. What have you. All right. Um, I'm gonna go into confessions of a motivational speaker now. And this is I I recently was watching uh TikTok, me, the guy who tries to not watch much social media, but there are some good things on there. I gotta say, if you can get the algorithm working in your favor, and I have a lot of ones that are like good for like to help, you know, they're about fitness or how to sleep better or just um positive mindset. If you can get those in your algorithm, it's really nice. Well, this one guy, he was saying, you know, don't overshare. And it was actually, I thought it was really good advice. Um, and he has some good things to say about it, and I think there is a place where you can overshare, but in a podcast, it's like in this context, you know, he was talking more about just conversational, people at work. Um, but in a podcast, what is it to overshare? And the first thing I think about is I have to, you know, like take every piece of advice with a grain of salt because it's like, man, it can just debilitate me, make me say, oh, am I oversharing? Well, maybe I should freak out and pause for a while and get coaching on what it means to share versus overshare. And then I thought, okay, I'm I'm gonna just move forward, I'm gonna keep sharing. One of the points of this is for you to get to know me a little bit because I feel like the better you know me, the better you understand what I mean by the possibility mindset and how something greater is always possible has played out in my life. And that's really what I want to pass on to you. And I feel like the more you get to know someone, it's like we're sitting down for coffee. You can sort of absorb, there's that fly. You can absorb, he's on my light. I'm like, do I whack the light? I'm I'm gonna try it. Here we go. Come on, fly, and boom. It was one of those I don't know where he is. He could be like, oh, missed him. I didn't want to smack it and knock it over. Anyway, okay. That was close call, pal. All right. What are we gonna name him? What should we name the fly? Fred? Is that just Fred the Fly? Let's do Fred. Anyway, what was I talking about? Something probably the most important thing so far on on this um episode. But but the more the more you know me, the more you're gonna understand my life um and and how how something great is always possible. So I do want to get vulnerable. I want to be transparent, I want to share what's going on in my heart and my mind, but I do realize you still have to have a filter. So I promise you there will be a filter. Uh, I my aim is to not overshare and extend beyond what's comfortable for you, and to not do it if it's if it doesn't serve you, if it's not like fun, and if it's not helpful, it's like why go there? Right? So um we'll see. We'll see how it goes with that. All right, so speaking of oversharing, okay. Today's confession is, and I I don't even know where to start with this one. I better take a drink. Oh boy. I'm drinking mud water today. Mud water, it's like a coffee alternative, it's a mushroom-based coffee alternative with honey in it, and it basically tastes like hot chocolate. It's amazing. I'm gonna talk about mud water more in a later episode. Uh, shout out to Mudwater. You're amazing. Um, yeah. Sponsor me. I'd love to partner with you. Um okay, so here's my confession today. Here's my confession. I have a I think a little bit of OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder. I've never been like clinically um uh diagnosed or anything, but here's here's where I get in. I've done this since I was a kid. I have something that I call the even habit. The even habit, which I'm just gonna give you a quick example. Let's say I'm sitting in a chair like this and I bump my right elbow on the right arm of the chair. Well, that feels uneven, it doesn't feel right. Well, I've got to now bump my left elbow to even it out. And I've talked to a few people over the years who deal with this, and they're like, yeah, I kind of get that a little bit. Like, you like symmetry, you like things to be even, but mine has kind of gone to the extreme where, okay, let's say I'll and I don't I've overcome this maybe uh more than um I let on right now. Um, but let's say I bump my right elbow, and then to even it out, I bump my left elbow, but I bump my left elbow harder. And so now it's like, oh, I can feel there was a bigger impact on the left side. So now what I have to do is bump it harder on the right side and then softer on the left side. And then to take it even a step further, it's like, wait a minute, that whole process started with me bumping my right elbow first. Now I have to repeat all four bumps, starting with the left arm. I know that now I probably sound just like I have some serious issues to you. Like I say, this has kind of become almost an unconscious thing over the years. And it doesn't just apply to bumping my elbow, it applies to like stomping my feet. Or the weirdest one is like flexing certain muscles. Like let's say an eye twitch. Okay, I twitch my right eye, well, then I have to twitch my left eye. Well, then left eye first right eye, and I have to even out the pressure. And and so then I it looks like I have a tick sometimes. I'm like doing this eye trick, and the same thing with uh, you know, your trapezius muscles just above your shoulders. I'll I'll kind of flex that and it goes up, and then I'll do my right side and I'll watch myself on stage or on on any kind of video. I'm like, dude, I'm doing the even thing, and my wife and I, we just laugh at me because I look like I'm twitching around up there, and it's like I'm just the even habit. So I guess is that a tick? Right? I mean, it's actually voluntary, arguably, I guess. I mean, I guess you could say, well, you're I'm not really consciously doing it, but if I make a conscious effort, I can stop. So does that mean it's not a tick? I I'm I'm not sure. I'm not sure where this falls in, but but that is the even habit. And there's even more that I could unpack, but I think I'll save that for later. We might have a an even habit uh uh two, right? Uh and then like a third, we might make it a trilogy and just keep going. It might become like Mission Impossible where it's like, let's just keep going with these. All right. So that's today's confession of a motivational speaker. Now, if you didn't think I was weird, now you do. So now you can feel normal slash weird with me. Isn't that great? Sometimes just being vulnerable, getting things off your chest is awesome for yourself to reveal something sort of intimate about yourself. But what I find is that it frees other people up to, oh, it's okay to be weird because everyone's weird. Because I think each one of us thinks we have these weird, unique things that we're just like afraid to share because people will think we're completely bonkers. But uh I to me it's like a gift to share these weird things so that you can empower you to feel you know more normal. All right, there we go. Um and that is the point, by the way, all the time of these confessions is to turn it into something that's that's actually uh meant to help you in a way. And then with the trivial complaints, it's really a reminder that these are like first world problems, right? That's why I call them trivial. They are things that ultimately do not matter. And when you zoom out from those problems, you're able to see all of the tremendous blessings in your life. So that's the point of those two segments. Okay, there we go. Um I'm gonna move on to comments now. I still haven't found any comments that are straight into like the podcast comments, but I get comments on social media and uh on this platform that I use at the end of my keynote. People um can immediately um from their phone comment on the keynote. So I'm gonna read a couple of those. All right, so um, this is what one person said. This was awesome, okay? This space does not allow for me to express just how amazing Devin's session was. So I'll say extraordinary presentation. Devin, thank you. And thank you for that. That's amazing. That is all it's so good to know that your message is connecting with people. How awesome is it that this pop message of greater possibilities and igniting untapped potential is resonating this strongly. Okay, this one's good. This uh this other person said this guy tells a great story about crushing an eight-year-old's record he saw on YouTube. Just kidding. It was great. Thank you so much. And that is hilarious because that is one of the stories I tell in my keynote, and I think I told that part on the podcast where with my soccer juggling journey, there was an eight-year-old who had like doubled my record at the time. So I was like, it's on, kid, let's do it. So uh very funny comment. Awesome. Okay, here's another one. Real, just real, period. I appreciated the discussion of your challenges and setbacks. I also appreciated the discussion of your family. Oftentimes, speakers don't mention the impact your family has on your professional career as well. Yeah, I don't know how I couldn't talk about my family. They are such a huge part of my life, and they inspire me, and just the gratitude that I have for them really affects, impacts in a positive way everything that I do. So everything I do feel like is it's for my family. So that was awesome they said that. Uh okay, last comment. Hey man, I was at this recent uh event. You did a great job. My youngest son is into cards and tricks, so we've tried to search and watch some of your videos online. I have a question. And I do have some of those videos somewhere online. Uh anyway, at one point you were talking about your family and you had some incredibly hilarious jokes and descriptions because your family is so large. Um, I also have a large family with five kids. I was wondering if you could share some of those you said with me. I don't remember them, but they were really good. If not, no worries. I understand. Thanks. Um, first of all, awesome. Thank you for that. Uh appreciate that. Glad that you found it funny. You know, it's it's so interesting. Um, this is kind of a tangent, but I'm gonna go ahead and go on it. So here, come with me if you would. You know, as a creative person who's always like developing content. Like originally my content was like a magic show, and then it was like the context of a keynote and a message, and then um the creative process uh was like comedy, all really is a certain form of intellectual property, something you want to guard, something you don't want someone else to just take and go copy you uh because it's kind of like taking that value, something that you should be you like when you do this for a living, it's like you should be earning money off of your creative ideas. Well, with stand-up comedy uh in my past, you know, you're very much about like um you're careful not to steal someone else's jokes, right? If you're telling a joke that sounds similar to someone else, either change it or you know, like think there's many ways to handle it. I mean, you can go as far as to investigate who came up with the bit first. Do you approach the other person? I've never gone to another comedian and said, hey, I'm I'm doing that joke, you need to lay off. But there are times where I'm like, even if like a famous comedian like Jim Gaffigan, if I had a similar idea about my big family and then he says something similar, it's kind of like I have to think about possibly rewording or restructuring that bit so people don't think I'm just like a Jim Gaffigan hack, right? I don't just want to be sounding like I just got jokes from Jim. So so when someone asks for my jokes, like there's still this part of me that's like guarded that I just want to be able to freely be like, yeah, and I just want to send him the jokes, but I'm kind of like, well, who is he? You know, I don't know, and I haven't looked up his profile. This was an Instagram message, but I'm like, is he uh a speaker? Is he a comedian? Is he someone who heard those jokes and thought, those will be hilarious jokes for me to tell on stage? Now that may not be the case. He may just want to share those jokes with his family at the dinner table, right? But in my mind, I'm like, whoa, if he's gonna take these jokes and tell them, and then like someone watches my YouTube video uh with humor, and then someone watches his YouTube video, they're gonna be like, well, who's the creative genius here, right? So I'm always a little bit guarded. Maybe this is kind of uh also a confession that there's like this guarded part of me. And and I I think there is legitimacy to that. I do think you have to guard your intellectual property to a degree, but then I think sometimes it's okay to let go. It's kind of like that balance of life's a balance. Uh, when is when are you oversharing versus just sharing? When are you guarding way too much when you should just be giving freely? So anyway, that was that. But um also I I read the other reason I wanted to read that comment last is because it's just a really nice segue into what I briefly want to discuss uh before I say goodbye today. And that is my family. Uh so it's funny, you know, he was talking about having a big family, and we just, I mean, that's that's just such a blessing for me, you know, to be in the position that I am. And so really what I want to do is just offer a little bit of perspective from from me being a father of seven daughters, um, kind of like the worth like work-life balance. Like, how does that work? Because people always ask me, how do you find the time to focus on your business, to focus on your fitness, to focus on your friendships when you have seven kids? Right? Like, how do you do that? So I will say, first of all, um, I don't have all the answers, obviously. It's actually one of the things I'm always, when people say, I don't have all the answers, I'm like, well, duh, do you even have to say that? But I there I there it was, I just said it. So I don't have all the answers, but I have found a few things that have worked for me. So I'm just gonna kind of talk you through what what it looks like and and how it's not perfect and how I'm still in this journey of trying to figure out how do you balance work and family. So in a uh I'm trying to think, I don't think I've introduced my family yet on the past uh on the podcast. So let me just tell you, my wife Lynn and I, on July 15th, so just uh what was it, sat this last Saturday, a few days ago, we celebrated 17 years of marriage. So very exciting. Um, for our anniversary, we were gonna like try to like get a few nights away. It didn't work out. We're still trying to plan it. That's how crazy it is. Speaking of trying to balance everything. Um, so we have seven daughters. I'll give you the breakdown. Claire, uh, the the Chick-fil-A employee, just turned 16. Um, so we had her um just before we had our first anniversary. It was like we almost got a full year of marriage together before we had a kid, but we didn't. Uh so my uh my daughter pointed out, she goes, You've you guys have never had an anniversary without having a kid. And we were like, wow, that's uh that's profound, babe. Um so so she's 16, uh, Claire, Charlotte is 13, so two teenagers. Uh Cambry is 11, Elsie is eight, Eva is six, Emmy is uh three, Haven is two. Now, these are the jokes that I tell that are my jokes. So after I introduce the family and I give their names and ages, I say, I'm guessing on some of those, not good with names. Okay. And then I say, people are like, You trying for that boy? I'm like, do we look like quitters? Because I have a picture of the family on the screen. And then I say, and we also thought about adoption, and then we were like, eh, let's just keep them. So those are just a few of the jokes that kind of came from my stand-up comedy days that I can still use in my keynote speaking as I'm introducing my family. Uh, and there's a lot more bets. That was one of the beautiful things about when I transitioned into stand-up comedy, having so many kids. There was always, always material. In fact, one of the segments I'm thinking about including at some point, I call girl talk, and I've just written down the cute, amazing, funny things they've said over the years. We just go back in my notes and we just read down that list and just crack up, and it's it's a fun way to capture the moment, uh, but then to also go back and to be able to laugh at it and enjoy it, you know, months, years later. So I I some of them, some of them work even out of context, and so I might start including some of those on the podcast. Um, I I joke about my family. I I especially did my stand-up. In fact, when I first started with stand-up, I did a lot about my family, and a lot of it was, you know, self-deprecating, but also would be about kind of aimed at the kids, and I was just trying to be funny. It was jokes like like the adoption thing. The joke used to be people would say, Bummer, you don't have boys. Have you thought about adoption? And I was like, we thought about it, but then we were like, who's gonna take five girls? Right? That was back when we only had five girls, and that joke has evolved to soften over time. And I remember when I first started with this comedy, someone came to me, a close friend, and he said, Man, that's not you. That doesn't feel genuine. Uh, because I know you love your kids, and I need to believe what the comedian is saying for me to really get into the bit. And at first I was like, it's a joke, don't you understand it's a joke? But as time has gone on, I've realized it's not fun to watch someone bash their kids, even if they're joking. So, so I've I've tried to really soften that uh over the years, um, especially now as a keynote speaker, it's not really about the comedy punchline, you know, set up, punch, set up, punch, laugh, laugh, laugh. It's more about injecting humor in um to add value to the message and and the engagement and everything. So, anyway, work in progress, but uh it's going really well with the with the jokes in the keynote. Um, but the reason I brought all that up is because, yes, as much, all kidding aside, I love my family. Like, it's so hard watching them grow up. You know, Claire's 16 driving. She has her, she got her license the day of her of her birthday. You know, I was out of town, her mom, you know, my wife took her in and uh she was like, we're getting it now. And you know, she works at Chick-fil-A, she's crushing it there, loving it, so proud of her. And it's like, man, in two years, she'll be 18. It might be time for her to like, you know, move on in life and move out of here. And it's like, I tell the kids, you guys stay as long as you want. I don't know how healthy that is, but it's like, I I love you, babies. I I want you around as long as you'll stay. So they've always been a huge source of inspiration to me. Now, when I first started having kids, I'm gonna take a drink of this mud water here, potential sponsors. Oh yeah. I haven't seen Fred in a while, by the way. Where did Fred? He's I guess he's like, I've bugged that guy enough. Unless he's down in my career. No, he's not in my mudwater, he better not be. Anyway. So when I first uh started, you know, we first started having kids, I was already into my career as an entertainer. This was kind of before the days of speaking where I was just doing magic shows. And I thought, we we weren't planning on having a kid until we had been married about five years. So Claire was, you know, the first of many surprises. And I thought, man, this is going to slow down my career, right? Like I'm not gonna have the time I wanted to to kind of like have that initial push of just like a good half a decade of marketing, putting myself out there so things are self-working, so that by the time I do have kids, I'm just kind of coasting at that point. Well, so I thought this is gonna hold me back, but I will tell you, I think it's actually been the exact opposite. And the reason I think it's been the opposite is because when you have these priorities in your life that you have to make margin for, you have to start thinking about how can I work less to spend more time with my family. But you don't want to like work less and make less. So what you have to do is you have to start working smarter in order to make bigger gains without as much effort. Where I feel like if I didn't have kids, I'd kind of maybe get a little bit lazy, like, yeah, it's kind of working, I'll do it when I can. But when you have kids, you're like, okay, it's time to like get focused and really start thinking about how I can maximize every minute of my day. And so I think that's why it pushed me forward. And also, you know, when I first started doing when I was first a magician, a birthday party magician, and working in restaurants, it was like you don't make very much money doing that. You have to do a lot of gigs to make a living. Where I saw at one point, as I looked ahead and I said, Ooh, motivational speaker, that's my calling. It's gonna help me make more money so I can do less gigs, spend more time with my family. So I felt like because I had kids, it just kind of like all worked together to where it inspired me to work smarter and to reach for something bigger. Right? For me, that bigger thing was inspiring audiences, professional audiences, rather than just doing birthday parties and living rooms. And so it accelerated it, it exploded my growth. So you talk about work-life balance. That was just, I'm so grateful that I had that awareness early on to change and to evolve, right? And not to not to work harder in a way that I was working more, but working harder with more focus so that I could actually work less, work smarter, and get more ROI. And the ROI is yes, better income for less time put in, but then also time with my family. So, so that's how it worked for me. I really feel like if you the work-life balance thing, if you're looking at your family or whatever it is, this is not just for people who have kids and have big families. This is for you know, any any aspect. So take one aspect of your life and you say, This is time consuming, but maybe it's a hobby. I love this thing. Uh, you know, maybe it's like you, you, you, you golf or whatever your hobby might be. It might just be time with friends. It might be uh, you like to hike, you like to kayak, you like to, you know, uh make quilts, but I have to also like work and make a living, right? Well, if you look at these hobbies as motivation to be more focused in your work, then that can help you be more successful professionally and also free up more time personally for you to do the things that you love. So to me, that's the biggest piece of advice I wanted to offer on work-life balance. Now that's sort of like the broad, right? So to zoom in a little bit on my day today, I'm still trying to figure out what my daily process looks like. My I'm a morning person. I I most people I talk to, I would say the majority of people I talk to, tell me if you agree, um, seem to be like I'm a night person, but I'm a morning person. I love getting up early, I love taking walks with my wife. I I give my best time in the morning. I have my most focus, my most energy, uh, my most motivation. Once it hits like 12:31, I'm done. When it's one, I am done. That's that could be like my life's motto. And then it's like, I really need like a siesta every day for me to like come back. Yesterday, I I since the family's gone, I took a very restful nap around um two, two to three. I woke up at three and I was like, I'm still done. I'm still exhausted. Somehow I got up and uh I I crushed it four hours. I just went four hours of more work till seven, and then I went on my walk and uh did my did that thing. But uh, you know, it's so um table that for a second. The morning thing, I'm a morning person. You need to know that that's when my best work happens. Now I heard another speaker who um had a, you know, he split with his wife, and he said the reason we split is because my wife said, Um, he's a speaker, if I didn't already say that, she said, I'm tired of your clients getting the best of you while your family, we get the rest of you. And I'm thinking, is that happening in my life? Am I giving the best to other people and giving my family only the rest? Well, my wife and I talk about this a lot. We've been talking about it recently. Like, do I just back it way off? Do I say, you know what? I can't keep up on social media, I can't do a podcast, I can't start writing a book, I just need to focus on doing my keynotes and then doing only the only the maintenance work for that, right? Like, you know, um prepping for the gigs, customizing the keynotes. Like, that's all I can do. But we thought I'm meant to be a creative person, right? And if I if I'm not putting my creative work into my job, I'm not gonna be good for my family, right? It kind of it's it's kind of like an oxymoron, like, man, if I um if I don't work, then I'll have more time for my family. It doesn't work like that for me. I have to be like living my purpose in order for me to feel invigorated and feel like like I'm doing something of quality so that I could be there for my family. So I I've decided um, yes, you have to put parameters on what you're doing, but but still be creative, still work so that you can be the best for your family. It's this is that's part of the balance, right? Um for me, it's like what are those parameters? Well, that morning time, right? How do I give more of that to my family? I think is the big question for me right now, because in like right now, it's uh it's it's just about noon. Um, and of course, now right now my family, yes, they're they're gone, but usually they're here. Uh so it's like, how can I give more of the morning time to them? Well, we've been talking about, okay, maybe like two days a week is like work mornings, and then two or I guess three days a week, if I'm doing the correct math, would be for the family, or maybe three is work, two is family. But making sure that I'm not just giving them the rest, but that I am balancing it with giving them the best. In fact, I'm gonna, you know, I'll do this right now on the podcast. I'm gonna make a commitment that from now on, for the rest of the summer, I'm gonna try something three days a week. Three mornings are gonna be work-focused, and two are going to be family focused. So stay tuned. I'm gonna make a note of that and keep you updated on the progress. So there it is. I really hope that some of this has been helped for you with work-life balance, no matter what what elements that you are trying to balance in your life and in your work. Okay, hey, this has been so great. We've had a lot of things going on. We've had Fred the Fly, I think he pretty much checked out. Um, so anyway, thank you so much for joining. I look forward to seeing you next time. And remember, something greater is always possible for you.