Chasing balance- Time to re-stack the pancakes.
I think most people that follow me and read my content know that I am very busy. Traveling at least 3 weeks a month, writing a few newsletters (this one is weekly), doing speaking gigs, advising corporates, investing in startups, and of course more broadly supporting a thriving ecosystem that encompasses all of the above. Throw all the usual family and friend obligations in there and it’s mad chaos. The last several months, I have been in a massive imbalance. Many of the things that provided great stability, like our home of 14 years (just sold), moving in with my in-laws temporarily and getting a new home in Northern California has made for unsteady ground. Then throw in a hurricane at our North Carolina home and well, surprise. So last week when my son said “Hey Dad, It’s like you don’t even take the advice from your own book. What’s up?” From the mouths of babes (well, he is 24 years old, so not exactly). He is referencing my book “What you know about startups is Wrong” and yes he called me out on it.
Here is the rub, maintaining balance isn’t easy but it’s even a bigger challenge when you take on more activities. It reminds me of those people on unicycles that are balancing a spinning plate on their chin. The degree of difficulty to stay balanced with one plate is hard enough. Then they keep adding more and more. Then they start skipping rope and then they start twirling an inflamed stick. I think that’s where I currently am with my life. So what’s the answer? You can just keep throwing things on the pile without rebalancing along the way. If you just keep piling things up, and all the minor imbalances along the way start to geometrically add up.
The answer, keep balancing and rebalancing along the way. As we enter a holiday week, that’s my mission. Take a break and take all the things off my pile an restack them. If you don’t think I had to unstack and stack this pile of pancakes around my 2 year old a few times to get this picture, you are out of touch. Also, my affectionate nickname for this guy is “Kaiju”. If you don’t know what that means, use the Google.
This is my technique for this week, it’s definitely not proven and it’s definitely not proprietary. Honestly, I have never been at this point in my life. If you read my book, you may think that’s an insane statement (because I almost died once). The difference is that this time it is of my own doing and not to sound like a jerk, due to my own success. Before, things were going terribly with a lot of external forces.
So let’s restack the pancakes by taking them all down and spreading them around. First, get rid of the less than perfect ones. In our case, my 2yo ate them. But in your life, these are the things that are not going well. They are unpredictable and maybe taking up more effort than they are worth.
Then sort your pancakes by size. Take the ones closest to size and pre-stack them. What are the things that you are doing that “go together”. Personally for me, diet and exercise go together. Maybe it’s your content creation efforts of blogging, podcasting etc.
Start re-stacking, take your time (1 hand on the kid and one hand on the pancakes). Guess what? You won’t restack the pile the first time, and also you may have to take some stuff off the pile. In a practical way, I try to do this with “time blocks”. I take a 7 day calendar. Block off sleep, lunch and other personal time. If I don’t have space, I have to give something up. Just like you may need to take some pancakes off the pile. Just like you stack and re-stack, think about your time blocks and see if you can dual task (not multi. That’s a lie. But most of us can walk and chew gum). For example, I may take my son on a stroller walk and listen to recorded Zoom calls. In this case I’m getting some excercise while I work. I do not count this as family time, that would be a lie.
Once you stack out your time blocks, you at least have a plan. Two things I left out, that are a must. The plate is the foundation. My plate if my wife and 3 sons. Whenever I don’t get enough quality time with them, I get wobbly. The inner voice of being a “bad dad” and terrible partner starts to take over. That voice is a massive imbalance.
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The second thing is the maple syrup that you pour over the stack. That’s the FUN. FUN like syrup will touch most of your pancakes, but not all of them will be soaked with syrup (FUN). Try to get some FUN on every bite.
Disclaimer : I am a diabetic. I would probably die if I ate a stack of pancakes soaked in syrup.
There are about 3 work weeks left in the year. First week of the year is slow. So you have some time between now and 2025 to stack some pancakes. Also, use the rest of the year to tweak your time blocks. Maybe setting your alarm for 6am to get up and working out, and hitting snooze every day isn’t working. Try something different. (You know who you are).
With the holidays approaching, spend time with people. Your friends, your family, your barista..Especially family, you don’t have to actually like them but you do have to spend time with them.
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