In The Loop with Andy Andrews, hosted by Andy Traub.
Andy shares critical wisdom on maintaining balance between work and family in response to a great listener question.
Listener feedback question: Matt became a financial advisor three years ago. The issue with advisors in his business is that no matter how much they achieve, there is still uncertainty and deep-seated insecurity about the business and what might happen tomorrow. He is about to go on a family vacation and all he can think about is opportunities he is missing for his business. He loves his family, so how does he give them 100% of himself?
This is a question a lot of people, including Andy, have struggled with over the years.
- If you ask a group of people, “What comes to mind when you think about success?” They will say things like: boat, house, car, etc.
- If you ask people, “What comes to mind when I say successful life?” Then, people have a whole different set of answers that usually involve their family.
- The first thing Andy encourages people to do is to determine what they are after.
- Are you after success…or a successful life?
- You have to always keep your end destination in mind and focus on the tasks that will get you there.
This is a struggle Andy goes through when determining how much time to spend writing and speaking and how much time to spend with his wife and two boys.
- He used to think that if his mission in life is to help other people live the life they could if they only knew how, then he should always take advantage of speaking in front of as many people as possible.
- One day, he read an interview with Billy Graham where Graham said that the one thing he would have changed about his life was spending more time with his family.
- Here’s the interesting thing—when you look at the Butterfly Effect, you will see that the time you spend with your family is at least as important as the time you spend doing your work.
- That one child you spend time with could go on to do something even greater than you ever do because of the time you spend with them. During the five days you’re gone with your family…you will not miss anything.
- If you spend that vacation thinking about work and looking at your cell phone, then when you get back you’re going to spend your time at work feeling bad for not giving 100% of yourself to your family.
- Your life will be thrown into disarray and you will be living in fear.
- Instead of living in fear, we should strive to live in faith.
- As you continue to improve in your field, you won’t have to worry about missing anything because eventually people will be waiting on you to return.
Want more? Read Andy’s blog post Balancing Work and Family: 3 Tips for High-Achievers and Entrepreneurs.
