Ep. 89 Family First, Business Second – Work Life Balance BS

-Family First, Business Second – Work-Life Balance BS

Business owners are notorious for being overwhelmed, stressed out, and time-strapped. If you’re not careful, your business can and will take over all parts of your life. Bye-bye hobbies. Bye-bye travel. See ya later family.

In this episode, Torie Mathis and her co-host Sean talk about why it’s essential that you put family first and business second.

If you’re wanting to enjoy more time away from your business while still being wildly successful then this episode is for you. If you’re looking for work-life balance it’s time to stop your search…it’s not about balance it’s about prioritizing, productivity, and finding those big rocks.

Mentioned in this episode: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People https://amzn.to/3eX5wkD

Watch for work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs, work-life balance for working mothers, work-life balance for women, work-life integration, non-negotiables for business owners.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

(transcription is auto-generated)

SAF 89

Sean: [00:00:00] The work hard, play hard, which is a crock of shit because you should work smart and play often. Like to me, that’s a way better thing.

Torie: [00:00:18] Hey guys, welcome to the show at Torie Mathis and I’m here with the one and only founder of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, Sean Mathis. 

Sean: [00:00:26] It’s all true. 

Torie: [00:00:27] It is all true. It is known a lot of the things that I noticed that we’ve been talking about recently has to do with the season of your life or the season of your business because the decisions that you’re going to make.

Are going to revolve very much around where you’re at and if you have children where your kids are at, because I know that the decisions that I made for my business before I had kids are very different than after I have kids. 

Sean: [00:00:59] Yeah. Just a little bit, 

Torie: [00:01:00] which is a given. Yeah. However, I really believe that you should always be family first.

And business second, it’s like the Stephen Covey, big rocks, little rocks. Like you’ve got to put the big rocks in and the little rocks will fill the little rocks. Always fill it like as long as you, you take care of what’s important first, I really think all those details they’ll happen. But if you try to put all those little rocks in first, like your big rocks are never going to fit in.

If you always focus on business or you make that your first priority, like you’re never going to have room to shove things in it’s like working out. I have to work out in the beginning of the day, Sean and I work out at the beginning of the day. We tried when we moved to this area and joined our new gym, we tried to work out in the evening and what ends up happening.

Sean: [00:01:48] It doesn’t get done. 

Torie: [00:01:49] It doesn’t get done. Why? Because you’re trying to shove that big rock in the end of your day. 

Sean: [00:01:54] It’s already hard enough to try to fit, finishing up the day and moving on from work. It’s got its own set of challenges. I doing these episodes. It’s, it takes a bit of effort to actually be able to do all of these things and then still fit in everything else.

It’s what’s your priority, 

Torie: [00:02:15] Right? And I think that you can’t just assume of course family is my priority, or of course my health is my priority. I think you really have to talk about them with either who you’re working with or with your spouse so that you guys are on the same page.

And I think once you say things out loud, like it really makes it real, like it’s not assumed anymore. It makes it so that everybody knows exactly what’s happening and it can help to keep you accountable as well. I know, that’s why a lot of people like to post certain things on social media, because then it helps them, to be accountable if that’s what they want.

But I think when you can discuss those things that are important then you can make sure that those become a priority right away. And we talk about non-negotiables all the time. I have a blog post that has been on my website for a really long time, and it gets the most traffic. By far of any other blog posts on there and it is about non-negotiables.

And I think that everybody needs to have these types of things in their life. And I think that there are things that need to be reviewed because seasons change and just like you have these for your life. I think you need to have them for your business as well. And I think that one that we have done is about our family. And I know for me I never ever thought that I would be like, stay at home, mom. 

Sean: [00:03:31] Why would you, it’s hard to fathom that kind of thing. 

Torie: [00:03:34] Like I have always been, I don’t know, like I always figured yes, like career and going after things and I don’t know, like never, ever, like my mom, wasn’t a stay at home mom. She always worked. 

Sean: [00:03:46] Yeah. I think that’s a misleading thing to say too though. Cause it’s you’re not necessarily a stay at home mom. You’re just not a mom that goes away. 

Torie: [00:03:52] Okay. This okay. That’s true. Okay. So I probably should have said it that way. I never thought that I would be home with my kids all the time.

And yes, me being home with my kids all the time, I worked the whole entire time. I ran my business with these children at my feet on my lap, climbing all over my head. Which means that in those seasons of my life, My business worked very different. And then I was able to make sure that I sculpted my business around the kids’ sleep schedules.

And then later when the amazing thing happened when they went to school is remember when Bella went  to school  I’m like, oh my gosh, I’ve never had this much time. I sculpted it around when they get home. Now, they don’t really care as much when I get home. So I can work a little bit longer, but I don’t work in the evenings anymore. Because that is the time that I, I want to do things with the family instead. 

Sean: [00:04:44] It’s just like the kids that grow up so fast. Our oldest still isn’t 13. He will be in November. But just even that these almost 13 years like it, they have absolutely flown by. So even though there was. A period of time there where Torie wasn’t able to work as much as she would have possibly wanted to that, that period of time was so small in the whole scheme of things.

And then, nap started getting longer and, was it preschool starts happening and then school starts having there. There’s like the progression of just the evolution I should say of our kids is, it changes so quickly to where now we are we’re at like the kids get themselves ready in the morning, pretty much other than taking them to school.

And then when they get home, they’re entertaining themselves for awhile until we finish up with work. That’s. And that’s been relatively recent that we get like a full-blown Workday worth of work done without kids really interrupting it.

Torie: [00:05:44] I don’t, I think your childhood was similar to mine though that I tried to play sports. I never had a parent go to a sport game. Any of LA? Not that I did it that much. I did all through junior high. Nobody ever went to one of my games. I did some things when I was in high school. I did some competitions. I did some public speaking, no one ever came to anything. Why? Because everybody was working right.

And so for me, I think that was so important from the beginning. Not that I thought that I would try to do it from home because like I never would have imagined that’s what I would have done so happy that I did. And I think the relationship that I have with our kids is different because I wasn’t this, corporate work, come home at seven o’clock mom, that, we grew up with.

I think it makes it different. And so I w I wish that more people would realize that if they aren’t entrepreneurs because it is your own business, like you can shape your schedule around your kids rather than the other way around. 

Sean: [00:06:49] And you’re the boss, right? So who the hell cares if your kids wind up being on a, coming through on a conference call or they can hear him in the background in today’s world?

Like it’s not unheard of embrace it. Yeah. I got kids. I also own this business. How can I help you? You don’t need to be embarrassed about it. Cause that’s, I think some of the stipulation, not stipulations, but some of the worry at the beginning of all this, few years ago where you’re like, you’re trying to hide the kids, like the dogs, don’t let the dogs bark, heaven forbid they know I have dogs and I’m at home who cares, right?

Yeah. It’s. It’s just one of those things where even the museum I’ll go and I’ll it’s as long as they want to. I don’t want to force them, but I’ll take the kids to the museum and they can hang out there all day. Who cares? I put both of them to work and installed the checkered floor. And then when you go to the museum and you see the black and white checkered floor, I had a, what were they? 11 and eight when they did that. It’s awesome. 

Torie: [00:07:46] It bums me out though. When I, you in, they’re very proud of it. Yeah. Parents have this. I have to work as hard as I can right now so that I can retire and then enjoy my life, man. 

Sean: [00:08:01] I hate that I got into brothers like that. I got all kinds of family like that, really? And that’s why I’m the black sheep on that because I’ve never, ever wanted to do that. Like why would you wait so long to be able to have fun that you might not ever even get to enjoy? Like you don’t have to have this crazy life and think you have to make a certain amount of money to be able to enjoy stuff like you can get away with having a good life and experience without having to be that millionaire or anything crazy. Like it’s super within reach for people. It’s just, it’s a decision you have to make, do I want to spend more time with kids and do things with them or do you want to put in the, 10, 15, 20 extra hours a week to a job that replaces you, when you die of a heart attack on the job and you get nothing, like it’s that kind of, and I saw it over and over. When I worked at Pepsi, they would just burn people out like complete. And the thing is you they’d want more. So you do more. And once you did that’s now your new base level.

So they want you to do more and more when you’re in sales. Anybody in sales knows you’ve got all these goals right now. What happens when you hit the goals? Your goals are now higher in higher which is great in theory, other than it burns you out. Like you can only maintain that and do that for so long without just completely losing it.

And the minute you do, you’re done. Yeah. And all that time is wasted. I honestly, I would rather, if I had to go get a job, I would rather just go get like a regular job and not worry about any of that other kind of stuff, and still be able to come home and enjoy my family as much as I do now. And that’s only if I had to absolutely go get a job.

Because mean, my family means more to me than trying to move up into some sort of corporate ladder and make a bunch of money that I may or may not get to enjoy. Like to me, it just makes no sense. 

Torie: [00:10:04] And that’s like you taking advantage of the opportunity for Miles Through Time though. It wasn’t probably the right time to do it.

And though it’s something that we could have done when we were older and had more money and had more, whatever it is, like the opportunity arose. And so it’s something that we went for. And I think that’s. Not just important for you, but I think that’s important for the kids. It’s important for everything that we’ve done, that we’re able to.

To maybe turn down things that might’ve been more money or might’ve been more clout or might’ve been something, but then if you go back to what’s really important. Sean, working at something that’s more of his passion, not working from some corporate, job that doesn’t give a shit about him or being able to try to make something out of what your passion is.

That’s, what’s important, being able to be with our kids all the time, while they’re young. That’s what’s important. It’s like when I got out of the army I ended up getting these two Jack Russells when I was a civilian working over there and that was my priority. So that was what was important for me.

So when I actually moved back to the states from Germany, I had these damn dogs with me. And so my whole life and even ours, when, I got together with Sean, I had the damn dogs, like that was a priority. So there were places when I moved back, I couldn’t live. I couldn’t go get apartments or whatever.

Those Jack Russells would have tore that thing up. But that was like so important for me at the time that I had to shape my whole everything else around these dogs. And I’ve seen people say get rid of the dogs. Like people get rid of them. No, that’s my priority. And I’m going to shape everything else around what it is that’s important to me rather than bend it, bend on those types of things. 

Sean: [00:11:52] It doesn’t always just come down to money because if that’s the only interest, like you’re almost guaranteed to be miserable, the money will come. Like you can do things to make money and be successful and be as rich as possible.

But you don’t have to, not do things that, that means something to you. Like the dogs like kids traveling. If you’re a whole passion in life is to be able to travel and experience things and do things. Why on earth would you spend your life working in a job where you got two weeks vacation a year?

And then you had no money to even go and actually do any of the things that you want to do. I got people in my family that’s exactly how they live. Oh, I’d love to go do stuff, but they never do. That’s crazy. 

Torie: [00:12:43] Makes me, it makes me sad because I think that anybody could follow their dreams. They could accomplish goals that they want. And I don’t know if they realize they can. It’s okay, if traveling is your thing and you want to do that, whatever your skill level is, whatever your living situation is like. There’s so many possibilities, like for doing something online or doing something digitally or virtually that if that was what you wanted to do, then you just need to say that’s, what’s important.

So you can start to face that direction and start to work towards whatever that is. I think anybody could do that. Traveling, you can travel for cheap, if that was what you wanted to do, or just start off that way, that whatever it is that it’s, that you want to do, whatever it is that you think is important, you can totally shape your whole life. I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care. What, how much money you have or your skill level. I think that the possibilities out there are for everybody. And I hope that our kids realize that’d be really nice. Like our kids, like when I was in high school, it was all about you have to go to college, no matter what, you don’t go to college you’re going to be a loser. 

Sean: [00:13:53] That was our whole generation was fed that garbage man. 

Torie: [00:13:57] It really didn’t matter. No, like I’m glad that, like I tried to go to college. It was really difficult trying to work and go to college. I ended up joining the army so that way I could get money for college and fricking best thing ever. Not only did I get money for college, but I got to travel. I got to meet all kinds of people. I went around the world, like you got a broken hip. I did, I broke my hip. Come on now. When I got those damn Jack Russells, but you know what, at that season, like what was important to me? Was school because crammed down my throat that I was going to be a loser if I didn’t go to college.

And so college was like super duper important. Second would have been traveled that I know, I never thought that I’d be able to do I totally wanted to. I wanted to get out of the area that I was in. You hear thinking when you’re young, like you meet people that like, wow, you’ve been there and you’ve been like, it was amazing to see that people were so traveled.

And my family just wasn’t. We did some trips. We did some camping and stuff like that, but like that, wasn’t what we did, but that didn’t mean that wasn’t what I could do. Like I had to decide that’s what was important for me and, joining the army is how I made it happen. 

Sean: [00:15:09] Yeah. I wish I would have had somebody to guide me on that kind of stuff. Cause I would, I like, I love to travel as well and do all that kind of stuff, but we didn’t do a whole lot of traveling growing up. And so those younger years of my adult life. I just spent spending money on cars, which is not anything I’m proud of because I had nothing to show for it. 

Torie: [00:15:31] What would you rather have been doing?

Sean: [00:15:32] Traveling. Yeah, absolutely. Cause I was in the international guard, so other than the one weekend a month and two weeks a year, I made pretty damn good money for that age that if I would have. No thought about it better. I could have been going on the cruises that we liked so much now years ago, I just go by myself.

I don’t care. And I’m the type person I totally would have went by myself on a cruise at 19, 20 years old. Absolutely hands down. I didn’t even think of it though. Not at all. 

Torie: [00:16:04] So when I was in the army, Everybody in the M a lot of the people in the military work very hard all week long. And then on the weekend, they go and drink and party and do all kinds. You know what I mean? All kinds of crazy stuff like in tech school and stuff like that, is that what everybody did as well? 

Sean: [00:16:23] Oh yeah. And then I got to, the friend that gets the car crashed and totaled on the weekends and all that fun is gone.

Torie: [00:16:29] I fell into that exact same thing. And that was what I did.

And I think people do that in whatever it is, their life. They, you get into this rut because that’s what you’re supposed to do. And that’s what everybody is doing. And you’re the whole reason that I left and joined the army is because I didn’t want to do the same shit all the time. Like I wanted to go.

So my first couple of years when I was in Europe, I didn’t even travel that much. I worked and I partied on the weekends and I worked and I partied on the weekends and it got old. After a year, I spent way too much money on nothing. Like you spent money on cars that you don’t even have anymore. And so I was like, I’m not doing this anymore.

I never went out and drank. I ended up getting a volunteer position because what was important to me, school and travel. So read like I had to readjust everything again, because I fell into that rut. And I got a volunteer position where I became a tour guide for the, I don’t remember what the name of it is.

The outdoor recreation people that like people go on to tours all over the place. I ended up driving a 10 passenger van all over Europe and gave people tours to these different places. I was like the tour guide that took people down and talk Tobar fast. And I had a bus driver there though, like a huge bus, like I was in charge of making sure everybody got there and got back and everything.

And you know what, everybody that I hung out with said about me. I wasn’t very nice, but I had to break out of that rut and figure out what was important for me in that season. And I can tell you that working hard all week and partying on the weekends was not. 

Sean: [00:18:07] See, and that’s a terrible, it’s a terrible way to live and it’s very common. And everybody wants to say the work hard, play hard, which is a crock of shit because you shouldn’t work smart and play often. To me, that’s a way better thing. Like why would I work that hard to then play that hard and be miserable about going back to work and working hard. I’m just going to work smarter, which means less and play more often and not hard.

Just play, man. Just have a good time. 

Torie: [00:18:35] Yeah. Yes. Those last, that last probably year and a half though. And this was after September, like before, was before September 11th. There was so much freedom to travel and I did a couple of trips. And then after September 11th, the last deal, year or two that I was over there, things were much more buckled down.

It was much harder to travel. And so I fricking blew it. Like I never made it to Italy. I, there’s so many places that I didn’t even get to go because I, fell into the damn rut. And so I think everyone’s to, we got to shake ourselves out of the rut and be like, okay, are we doing what’s important?

Are we doing what really is the non-negotiable thing? Are we spending enough time with our kids right now? Or are we falling into the work rut? Are we watching too much fricking Netflix? Because I know that there’s a lot of people that I see people go through some series. This series is they go through some shows like that’s a lot of time.

Speed spent on a couch watching TV show. There’s no shortage of shows to watch. No, but I can see that, like that is the rut that just like people get sucked in and feel like, oh, I got to get off work and watch Netflix like that. Doesn’t it. That, isn’t what you have to do when you get off. 

Sean: [00:19:46] And the thing is that pride is what makes you feel like crap, right? And that’s, that then puts you in the hall. It’s the Mondays, and all that garbage work. You start eliminating that kind of stuff and watch the Monday woes go away, no matter what it is that you do for a living, whether it’s working for yourself or working at a company, like it shouldn’t be miserable for you.

And really the biggest thing to do is just to, to check yourself and determine am I doing what I want to be doing right now? And if not fix it, there’s absolutely no reason to just continue. Week and month and year after year just being miserable. 

Torie: [00:20:25] I think it’s hard though, that you’re like, people think that’s how they should be. I don’t think some people realize that they’re miserable. Like all these people that we talk about that want to travel, like, why aren’t you traveling? I don’t have time. I don’t have money. 

Sean: [00:20:38] We’ll see. And that’s it like if you get stuck in a miserable word and that probably isn’t what it is. It’s are you able to do what you want to do? And if you can’t. 

Torie: [00:20:48] What can you do to get yourself in that direction? Because it’s totally doable and things. Don’t things do take time. Everybody only has, the same amount of time, but if you say that you don’t have time for something, then you’re just not using your time wisely. You’re just not using it in the smartest way.

Because you can always rearrange things. There are some people that do amazing things and they have the same amount of time as we do. They’re just using the time a little bit different. So you can never use time as an excuse. And then for money you would like if travel was your thing, figure out how to travel cheaper.

I a little bit of research and a little bit of planning maybe grouping up with some other people. Like you can travel cheap and you travel doesn’t mean you have to go to Japan. Like I’m sure that there’s things in your area that you haven’t seen. That’s traveling too, just getting out of that bubble.

Trying to figure out what these things are that you really want and figuring out how to go for those. And I think just by speaking about it, just by saying it weekly, saying it daily, talking about your spouse with it, I think just putting it out there makes shit happen. 

Sean: [00:22:00] Yeah. We’re a Testament to that for sure. Multiple times over, it’s just talking out loud about what it is that we want to do. Usually makes it happen. 

Torie: [00:22:10] What is the it’s? You start, you, we get a yellow car, we have a yellow car. And after we got we’d never saw yellow cars before that, but after you get that, like all of a sudden you see yellow cars everywhere, it’s a reticular activator. So once you activate that thing in your mind, and I’m not talking like secret bullshit, like thinking millions of dollars are gonna rain on you do not yet know, but. Speaking it out loud. And by actually saying these things and figuring it out yourself and then getting somebody on board with it, like that’s how fucking magic happens.

Sean: [00:22:44] You got to keep it. You got to keep it top of mind. To say something and then forget about it pretty much sweeps it under the door and it never happens, but if he keeps saying it over like for example, I’ll take a picture of a car. On Facebook and I’ll post it on there and be like, this is just for me, I’m letting you know that I’m going to get this car in two years.

And then I go back to my memories and I see it, and the thing is it’s not necessarily the exact same one because things will change. And I’m not like tied down to that specifically. But the thing is I’ve got multiple instances where I’ve really did go back and get that car. It’s two years before we got the yellow car.

I went and shared something and shared it to Torie. I’m like these, these cars are awesome, but what it was I wanted the next body style and we weren’t quite there yet. So we wound up getting another car and, but then two years rolled through. And we wound up getting that and that exact car that I wanted. Th the Porsche, the yellow cayenne 

Torie: [00:23:47] wasn’t there something with the, we had a little Mercedes that you got, why wasn’t there something with that one too? Or you went, maybe you, I N

Sean: [00:23:56] I got that one. So I test drove the Cayenne’s. Which drove cayenne S and then a GTS, but they were the original body style. And so they were cool and I liked them, but the interiors were too dated for me. And so I wound up coming home with this little Mercedes coupe, which is completely different, but I wanted the SUV. It just, that the next body style was outside of the current price range. So it took a little while, but.

I documented it on my personal social media profiles specifically because, beyond the business aspect of social I like seeing my Facebook memories you take photos and you print them out and you never go through the photo book really. Unless, some family member comes over and they want to reminisce or something, but the same thing happens with all your digital photos.

You’d never see them again. They’re just, they’re there. But the greatest thing is these Facebook memories and Google does it now. Like I want to be shown my own photos again after it’s been a year or two or more because that’s awesome. It’s a memory and it’s putting it back into my vision.

And that’s the greatest thing for me. So I personally do it. I did it for, my bench max. Nobody cares what my bench max is. But I want to know, when it pops up next year that I was so proud of. I think it was like 2 0 5 when I did it. I’m already at two 15. So when it comes through a full year and I’m like, oh, I remember that, and another year’s worth worth of work. And now look at me, 650 pounds I can bench.

Torie: [00:25:35] I think part of the problem too, is that people don’t know how to get there. And so they worry so much about the details that they’re just like, Can’t do it. What was me? 

Sean: [00:25:47] All the shit is difficult when you don’t know, 

Torie: [00:25:49] And you never have to know how to go there, just facing that direction and take one step and then tomorrow make sure you’re still faced in that direction and take one step.

Like eventually you’re going to get there. You don’t have to know the entire path. 

Sean: [00:26:04] Oh yeah. Don’t worry about how long it takes just keep moving. 

Torie: [00:26:08] And you don’t have to worry about every single detail either, but it’s knowing This is the direction I want to go. This is what’s important. I want to spend as much time as with my family.

I want to travel. I want to have my own business. I want to create an automotive museum. Do you think Sean knew how to create a museum? No. Do you think Sean has some handbook that he pulls out? Check that one off? No, 

Sean: [00:26:35] That’d be nice. 

Torie: [00:26:36] He has no idea what he’s doing. And he’s one step at a time and learning one by one and getting closer and doing more and facing the right direction.

But he didn’t have a plan on how to do it. And just like when I joined the army, I didn’t have a plan either at that time, I just knew okay. School and travel and you know what? That shit didn’t work out. Not like I thought. But then later, like I did get school and I got it for free. I got a four year fantastic education completely paid for.

And I got to go all kinds of places and not just in the army, now not right now because we can’t go anywhere. But in the last few years we’ve had some really great opportunities that we got to travel for sure. We take them. We take them when we can. And some times that the kids got to travel, like hopefully they, understand that they can do these things too.

Whatever it is that is important to you, whether it’s family or being healthy or traveling, like you don’t have to figure all of it out, but you have to face that the direction that you want to go. And I really think speaking about these things and talking about them. And even if you just talk out loud to yourself in the car talk to the dog but talking about it and saying things out loud and keeping it top of mind, man, you can do anything.

You can make your work, go around, whatever it is that you want to do. Yeah. 

Sean: [00:28:01] For sure. 

Torie: [00:28:02] So if you liked this episode, we would appreciate it. If you would leave us a review. And if you would share this with anybody that you think would think this is interesting, and we’ll see you on the next one shows on Tuesday, Thursday

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