Today I want to tell you about Sophia. I want to say Sophia, but Sophia, a successful bakery owner who nearly walked away from her thriving business because she felt like she was living to work instead of working to live. Today, she runs an even more profitable business while taking six weeks of vacation annually and being fully present with her family. The secret?Not work-life balance, but work-life integration.
Today, we're revealing the framework that transformed Sophia's relationship with her business and can do the same for you. In a world where chaos seems to reign supreme, where uncertainty lurks around every corner, and financial markets are now more unpredictable than ever. There's one place you can turn to to find clarity and control. Welcome to the Wealth Wisdom Financial Podcast. Hey, I'm
Brandon. And I'm Amanda. Join us as we dive deep in the world of personal and business finance to assist you in navigating through the chaos and building the financial future you deserve. We believe when conventional financial thinking doesn't get you where you want to go, you need wealth wisdom. So if you're ready to take control of your financial destiny. Tune in to the Wealth Wisdom Financial Podcast. Because in a chaotic world, your money shouldn't be.
Subscribe now and never miss an episode. Welcome to our episode today. We are been talking about work life reset. Today we're continuing our conversation about building businesses that enhance our lives. Rather than consume our lives. Your kids don't want a a business that's consuming you. They want something that enhances both you and them, right? Yeah. Or even if you don't have kids, your friends don't want that either. They want to hang out with you. This is the
last of the series. Don't worry if you missed out on all the other ones. You can go back. We totally think you should go back. They've been really great. We've explored how delegation and boundary setting create space for entrepreneurs to reclaim their time and how important that is if you really want financial freedom.
And today we're addressing the bigger picture, how to integrate your life and your work in ways that feel authentic and sustainable rather than fighting with each other, that they actually work together. Now, let's start with a mindset shift. For years, we've been told to seek work-life balance. I mean, I, I know I've heard it plenty of times. Um, have you heard that before?Yeah, of course. Seek work-life
balance?This is a mythical state where your professional and personal lives exist in perfect equilibrium or perfect harmony. But for entrepreneurs, this concept is fundamentally flawed, right?It is fundamentally flawed. It assumes work and life are opposing forces that must be kept separate, creating a constant tug of war for your attention and energy. Again, feel it a lot. Yeah. So,
what if we flipped the script?What if, instead of trying to find a balance with work and life as competing priorities, we integrated them as complementary parts of a fulfilling existence?That sounds awesome. Amazing. Work-life integration doesn't mean being available for work 24/7. Like, I think that's not very good. Rather, it's about designing your business and personal life so they support rather than sabotage
each other. Yeah, this approach recognizes three fundamental truths about entrepreneurship and business ownership. First, passion for your work is a feature, not a bug. Be passionate. That's great. Many entrepreneurs, business owners, we genuinely love what we do. and artificially separating it from our life creates this unnecessary guilt and conflict. You don't need that. I I I think about this a lot whenever we ask, you know, what does retirement mean for
you?And if you're a business owner, oftentimes you're like, I'm gonna work till I'm dead. Like we, we love it. Because we love it so much, not because we're poor, right?Yeah. Because we just want to. And that, and I think that that's okay, right?You don't, you don't have to stop working becausea man told you to, even though you're maybe the the man or woman. Anyway.
Yeah, the the other thing is that we have to like break down that is true for business owners, not maybe true for everybody else, is your business demands different amounts of attention at different times. Some seasons require an intense focus, while others allow more space for personal pursuits. Integration embraces this natural rhythm instead of forcing A rigid balance every day or every week. Yeah, I think also it's just not just seasons in the
year, but seasons of the business. You know, the first three years of a business are a challenge. You're building the systems, you're building all kinds of stuff, so it might be a little more focus. But as we are building and looking at other people, don't compare yourself to a business that's 30 years old and you're only 5 and you're saying, why am I not there? Well, because they're 30 years old and you're 5, right?Now
this third one. I have to go back and tell you the first time I heard the words work life balance or probably 2006, 2007 and it was really great. I was an employee at a nonprofit. Amazing. But times have changed and we're in a much different digital world than we were then. And you know, having your brand and having that be on the internet, on your personal social media, right, especially as a business owner, that kind of naturally blurs the lines between
work time and personal time. And fighting this reality just causes more stress, where if you thoughtfully manage it, it can create a lot of freedom. Yeah, someone told me as well, like this this idea of I want to make money while I'm sleeping. Right?And that, that maybe, um, with the digital world is, is you can, right?But at the same time, you don't wanna be sleeping, having to deal with things, uh, because, um, I
don't know. Your phone dings. Yeah. YeahUm, that, that seems not very good for sleep management or time management. Yeah. So now we get to the question, how?How do we create this integration in very practical terms?And what we've identified are five core practices that successful business owners use to achieve meaningful work-life integration. So we're gonna cover these five. They're purpose, identity, energy, technology, and money. There we go. Of course, you're gonna have the money,
right?Yep. Let's start with purpose. Yeah, the purpose alignment, right?So ensuring your business goals and personal values reinforce rather than contradict each other. When your work advances your deepest values, the artificial boundary between work and life begin to dissolve. Think again, it's it's thinking about where you wanna be in the 30 years or the business. And, And oftentimes if we're business owners, there's a reason that we created that business. Mm-hmm
Right. And it should probably be associated with something that we,We wanted a change in the world, right?And that's why we created it. Yeah. And the second one is about identity. And this is about expanding your identity, developing a sense of self that encompasses but is not limited to your role as a business owner. If you show up as a business owner all the time in every place, and that's your only identity, what happens if your business fails?You go through a huge crisis, right?
So instead, you can nurture relationships, hobbies, interests that have nothing to do with your professional life. And this allows you to feel fulfilled and purposeful even when you're not working. And what too many people do is they have this identity that's here's who I am, it is what I do. Rather than here's who I am, it's many things and I'm multifaceted and here's who I am that doesn't have to do just with what I do. I think one of those things, uh, for me was thinking about the
coffee shop. When we had the coffee shop, we were the coffee shop owners. We're the coffee people. Some people didn't know our real names. They were just the coffee people. I think we still have that sometimes, the coffee people. We know a lot, but a lot of the clients, customers, they became friends. We actually invited some of them to our house for wine tastings and other things. And we weren't just known as the coffee people, we were
known as Brandon and Amanda. that are cool and love other things like the baseball games, other things that we did, uh, in the area. Okay. So we got purpose, alignment, and identity expansion. You wanna do number three? Yeah. Then there's energy management. This is the hardest one for me because I don't have a lot of energy apparently. Um, No. Um, but it's, it's organizing your schedule around your natural energy patterns, uh, rather than arbitraryclock times,
right?This means identifying your peak performance periods and scheduling the most demanding work during those times, while protecting the low energy periods for recovery or less demanding tasks. Again, this is a hard one for me because, you know, I'm from Texas, like you guys know this. The energy, I'm I'm energetic, but it doesn't see it. You don't see it. Yeah, you don't see it. But it's around figuring out the things that make you and provide more energy and doing those things at the
right time. Yeah. So an example of this is actually in life, Brandon has more energy in the evenings, and I have more energy in the mornings. So we maybe almost like without thinking about it, because it's just who we are. I handle all the morning stuff with our family, with getting our son ready
for school. I'll ask Brandon for a little bit of help, but I'm the one that's you know getting us motivated, giving the the little guy a big hug, all the things in the morning, whereas Brandon's really cranky because he's not a morning person. But in the evening, I'm the one that's cranky, and Brandon does more of the bedtime routine and stuff like that. And so apply this energy management, not just to when you work, but also how you
engage with your family. Yeah, I think those, again, energy management is really, really helpful in knowing yourself. That, again, requires you to know how you are and your spouse or business partners, right?Okay, I have to do number four. This is technology boundaries. This is one that I excel at more than Brandon does, although he's really great at a lot of other things. I like the people she likes. I don't know, she's gonna be
in the Borg or something one day. Okay, so this is just setting clear rules about when and how you use technology. So you prevent work from constantly infiltrating personal time, especially, remember we talked about social media and how like when work-life balance was first introduced or I first heard about it, that wasn't as big of a deal. But now we're on social media where our work cells, our personal cells all in the same
place. That's led me to just eliminate social media from my personal time and for most of my professional time too. But we've found that having designated device-free times and spaces, as well as communicating those expectations to our clients, our team members, our family, has been very helpful to have some of those technology
boundaries. That's been hard, I think, for Brandon, like he he loves people, he wants to be social on social media, but that can bring up work stuff during personal time when it doesn't need to. Yeah, I think that's, again, those technology boundaries is really important alsoas, as parents and as we are in this world of being connected to everything all the time. And so teaching that, that's okay to be unplugged. Maybe, uh, I don't know if it's gonna be a thing
that people are doing more and more. Um, and that kids aren't even on social media sometimes. I don't know. Yeah. And even if you don't have kids, this is still really good for your sleep. You know, technology, have a bedtime earlier than your bedtime. So you don't have those screen blue stuff. And again, you're listening on a YouTube, you might be watching late at night. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for doing that. Don't forget, hit subscribe and like. But also when you're done,Get that
technology free time going. Yep. OK, now we've got #5, the last piece of integration for work and life integration. Here we go. Money, financial integration, developing systems that allow your business success to directly fuel your personal financial goals. Too many entrepreneurs put everything into their business while neglecting their personal wealth building. And that's why here on the Wealth Liz and Financial podcast, we're
talking about both. You have to have your business finances going well, having that cash flow management so that you can pay yourself. But you also need to not waste every dime that your business pays you so you can build more and make sure that you end up in financial freedom and not in more of like unemployment when you're retired where you have no money too. Yeah. And this is why strategies like the infinite banking concept find it
particularly powerful. By creating properly structured whole life insurance policies, us as business owners are able to establish a personal banking system that bridges our business and personal finances together. And you can use these policies as a place to warehouse business profits, creating tax advantages while building personal assets that aren't tied to the value of
your business. I was just talkingto a client about that just today, and why we have these policies and and how it is pretty powerful integration tool, both personally and business. Yeah, so here's the thing about financial integration. It accomplishes something very remarkable. It ensures that the hard work that you took to build your business and you know directly results in personal wealth creation, regardless of what happens to your business in the future.
The economy changes, industries change, technology evolves. Your business future is uncertain. I think we could all agree, no matter what business you're in, there can be a new competitor, a tariff change, whatever. Oh, you're in tariffs again. I'm in tariffs again, yeah. Too many entrepreneursreach retirement age with a valuable business, but limited
personal assets. And that creates a pressure to extract maximum value during that business sale, leads people to make some really bad decisions, pay too much in taxes. Start thinking about this now, and it can result in a lot of great value for you when your work finances and your personal finances, they're not co-mingled. But they're integrated. When we discuss work-life integration, we often hear several objections, and we're going to cover those after our little break from Ben.
Ready to take the next step towards securing your financial future?Whether you're planning for retirement, saving for your dream home, or you just want to make your money work harder for you. The team at Wealth Wisdom Financial are ready to assist you, and now it's easier than ever to see how we might give you a boost on your financial journey. Schedule a 15 minute discovery call with one of us today and let's discuss your questions and your financial goals together. Don't
wait any longer. Your financial freedom awaits. Schedule your discovery call at www.wealthwisdomfp.com/call. Okay. We're going to go through this pretty quickly with some side detours brought to you by Brandon, because everybody loves and Brandon interrupts me, and and that's the best part of our show. You don't love it when I- No, it's fine. It's fine. You're good. So, you questioners, with your objections, we love you. We love that you're thinking
deep about these things. Here's one. My clients expect immediate responses. OK, well, this expectation exists because you created it. If your clients expect you to respond immediately, it's because you've trained them to expect immediate responses. Remember Sophia, the bakery owner I mentioned at the top of the episode?Initially, she believed her custom cake clients needed 24 hour
access. seven days a week. When she implemented a communication system with clear response times and emergency procedures, her clients adjusted quickly. In fact, many appreciated knowing exactly when they would get a response, rather than wondering if their messages were received. All it was, was hey, thanks for your request for a custom cake. We'll respond to you within 24
hours. Done. easy peasy lemon squeezy right okay I think that one's a hard one sometimes for you wasn't it to to build or or is it easier to say well48 hours. Yeah, all good. Yeah, especially with e-mail. Don't respond to emails often. The more you e-mail, the more you get emailed. It's a bad snowball. Okay, next one, next objection. My industry doesn't allow for flexibility. While some businesses have fixed operation hours, most entrepreneurs have more control than
they realize. Let's think about James, a construction company owner who initially scoffed at the idea of integration. But his breakthrough came when he separated job site supervision, which required physical presence at specific times, and he separated that from business development and management, which he could schedule with much more flexibility and do it at his best
thinking times and stuff like that. This distinction made him and allowed him to create an integration while respecting the realities of his industry. He did need to be physically present at a job site at certain times, but that was a very small part of his week. And I also wonder, maybe as you're growing, you might have to be available for certain times or or around, but then you might have staff that staggers, right?Umm And so then you're not available.
all the time, but you have a, a team that's in different, different parts of the time. Yeah. YeahSaturdays, Sundays, whatever you're gonna do. Right. Because if you're an international company and you have to meet different time zones, you have different staff that are able to do that, even if you can't. Yeah. The third objection we'll cover is I can't afford to be unavailable. And when Brandon was started talking about growing companies, it's like, is he going
to say this?This fear though, often masks deeper insecurities about your value beyond productivity. Caroline is a great example. She's a consultant who struggled with this belief. If she wasn't available, she was going to lose clients and she can't afford to lose clients. So she conducted an experiment without telling anybody else. She just tracked urgent client requests that arrived during her personal time. Oh, ohh there was one, right?Like,
let me make note of that. And over three months, just noticing what happened, less than 5% of them genuinely required immediate attention. A lot of them could have been resolved in the next day. The 95% of them just could have waited, right, until the next morning for her to respond to, and there would have been no negative consequences. So if she loses 5%, right, of her clients, that's what she could probably afford to lose, cuz then maybe she even gets
clients that are even better. I also think on some of this that I can't afford to be unavailable idea is as you build your team, you might still be unavailable, but it's taken care of by other people, right?I, I can now, they're used to talking to me. Um, but, uh, it shows, hey, I'm unavailable, butthis person is going to take over that task for you to make it better. And they're a specialist in all
those things. Yep. And then I kind of mentioned this one before, but when people are, when we talk about integration of personal and business finances, everybody, you know, like, oh, I thought they have to be totally separate. And yes, while they're important legal and tax reasons to maintain, you know, proper business entities and separate bank accounts and all those kind of things. Financial integration does not mean commingling
funds. Um, it means creating intentional channels where business success flows seamlessly into personal wealth building. And who doesn't want that?The more successful your business is, the more your personal wealth grows, not the opposite, which is what usually happens. Yeah, for example, with Banking Yourself, you're not directly moving money between personal accounts inappropriately.
Rather, you're creating a systematic approachto compensating yourself as the business owner and directing a portion of those funds into assets that you control personally. This creates a tangible link between business growth and personal financial security. Yep. Okay, so let's wrap this up. Work-life integration It's not about finding perfect harmony every day. If you found that, then you've reached enlightenment and you need to
share that with the rest of us. Nobody reaches a perfect harmony every day unless you know, unless they they, you know, are a monk on the side of a mountain or something like that. Instead, work-life integration is about creating a sustainable ecosystem where your business and your personal life both are flourished and they're nourished and all those things, rather than them depleting each other and fighting and you know
being in conflict. And the business owners and entrepreneurs who master this integration, they have several characteristics in common. They're intentional about how they structure their time. They focus work periods and generally disconnect their personal time. They utilize technology as a tool rather than it becoming their taskmaster. They create clear expectations with clients and team members about availability and response times, their communication, right?
And they also think about their identity, and it's much bigger, right?They're not just who they are at work. And then finally, most importantly, they ensure their business success translates into personal financial security. And this is where Bank On Yourself provides a powerful advantage by creating a personal banking system that entrepreneurs can systematically move money from their businesses to their personal assets in some really cool
tax-advantaged way. As you were saying those characteristics, I was like, oh, that's that's us. We made it. We made it. We're getting there. We were not always there. So as as you listen to these stories, you know, we've been doing this. I I remember as we record this episode, it's about 14 years ago that we opened up our coffee shop. business. And we thought we knew everything at that point. We've grown a lot. And we probably will say the same thing in another 14 years. Yeah. So we've learned
a lot, what not to do. One, don't open up a coffee shop if you don't really want to, or anyway, a lot of other things. But that was us. I feel pretty good. Yeah. Let's go back to Sophia, our bakery owner. doing all these things, you know, for three years. And previously her profits went back into growing the business, leaving her personal finances vulnerable. But with Profit First and Bacon Yourself, she established a flow of capital from her business to her personal assets that she
controls. And today she has a significant policy that provides both financial security and available capital that she can access when needed without loan applications or credit checks. So about 14 years ago is when we opened our business. About 13 years ago, no, 12 years ago was when we started our bank and yourself policy. And I would say that's led to a lot of our growth personally and professionally. Yeah, so many. We were able to overcome things, overcome
some challenging things. and be able to do that growth in our business because of the systems we have set up. Yeah, and those systems really gave us and Sophia financial confidence, and that can entirely change your relationship with your business. Knowing your personal financial future is not entirely dependent on selling your business at some point, just allows better operational decisions, feeling comfortable, taking time away, all kinds
of really cool things. Now, integration, doesn't happen by accident, just like showing up to meetings and all that other stuff. Uh, it is being intentional, right?So we want to be intentional. It requires intentional design of your business model, your schedule, your learning, your communication systems, and your financial structures. But the reward is a life or work and personal pursuits doesn't compete for your attention. They
complement and enhance each other. And that's about being intentional and and building that whole thing. Yeah. So, are you ready to be intentional about work-life integration?Are you ready to create work-life integration? Well, today, right now in the Wealth Wisdom Financial community, we've published our Integration Blueprint. It's a comprehensive workbook that walks you through designing each aspect of integration for your specific situation.
It includes schedule templates, communication frameworks, financial planning tools specifically for business owners. We've also included a special section of how Bank on Yourself can create a financial bridge. between your business success and your personal wealth building. You can get it now as a premium member of the Wealth Wisdom financial community at wealthwisdomfp.com/community. I'll have a link in the show notes to
that as well. You can access this resource as well as lots of others and start creating true integration today. And I would add, if you want to do a financial analysis with one of us, it might not beUs, but it might be somebody on our team. Go to wealthwisdomfp.com/call. That's wealthwisdomfp.com/call. And you notice I said someone on our team because as we're growing, we want to build this. We want to impact more
people's lives. We want to also be training up and delegating other people that can do the work that we thought only we could do, but it is so much more than just us. So you might also see in the next episode one of those people talking that that or two of them or two of them yeah that you could interact with. So wealthwisdomfp.com/call, we would love to serve you and see if the concepts that we do can serve Okay, this wraps up our work-life reset.
Happy spring. Hope it's really great weather wherever you are and you get some great time in life as well as in work going forward. Thanks for joining us. Hit that subscribe button. If you're dealing with some debt, you're not going to want to miss the next episode. Debt is on the increase and so we made a special one-time episode about five debt myths that could be keeping you from financial freedom. Don't miss it and live long and
profit. The topics presented in this podcast are for general information only and not for the purpose of providing legal, accounting or investment advice. On such matters, please consult a professional who knows your specific situation.