Hay House Radio Episode Recap
- Episode Name: “Girlfriends’ Guide to Work/Life Balance”
- Live Broadcast: October 24, 2017 at 3:00 pm Pacific Time
Episode Summary Re-cap
Do you always wind up at the end of your to do list? Are you struggling to stick to a self-care routine? Do you fantasize about leaving your job for your dream career or leaving the rat race altogether? This show is for you! Join 3 girlfriends who each took the road less traveled to create a more balanced, joyful life and better health! What went right, what went wrong and tips to get you on the path of your dreams!
Special Guests: Lillian McDermott & Jean Courtney
Lillian McDermott is the owner of Lillian M. McDermott & Associates. Having spent most of her career in sales and marketing, she specializes in legal and medical marketing. Lilly is also a Certified Life Coach and host of The Lillian McDermott Radio Show. Her show airs weekdays at 12 noon on AM 1510, FM 94.7, FM, 99.9, FM 100.7. Lilly’s show is heard from Daytona Beach to West Palm Beach, and she has listeners all over the world through the internet and on demand at iTunes, Google Play Music, and iHeartRadio. You can also listen live online.
The purpose of The Lillian McDermott Radio Show is to Empower those who have forgotten they matter, and create 100% responsibility for everything we do. Each week, Lillian shares friendly and respectful discussions with interesting guests, ranging from wise unknown people to internationally renowned celebrity experts sharing inspiring lessons in health, hope, and wellbeing.
Lillian’s created her show to offer a different perspective and a place to turn when you need a friend. Her belief is that life is perfect, and can be a huge classroom full of gifts and lessons; if you choose to look at life with gratitude, be a good friend, and trust your intuition.
With everything she does, Lillian’s mission is to create healing and to make awareness, responsibility and truth a part of your everyday, empowered life.
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube
The Lillian McDermott Radio Show ~ When You Need a Friend:
Weekdays, 8 am to 9 am – The Biz AM 1600 & FM 100.3
Weekdays, 12 pm to 1 pm – WMEL AM 1510, FM 94.7, FM 99.9, and FM 100.7
Saturdays, from 11 am to 12 pm – WBOB AM 600 & FM 101.1 The Answer
You can also find Lillian on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music & iHeartRadio.
After spending her career in the legal field, Jean Courtney made the bold decision to trade money for time and health. She left a job where pulling 18-hour days was the norm and decided to see what would happen if she focused on crafting a balanced, intentional life. For the past 7 years, Jean has been an early retiree. She wakes up with gratitude and spends her days helping others learn about health, wellbeing, possibility, and the road less traveled. While she’d tell you that on paper, she was in no position to retire, she has found a way to downsize her life and upsize her joy for living. Her group of friends are convinced that she’s figured out the real secret to a life well-lived.
Is Work/Life Balance Even Possible?
For too many years, I was all about work and my to-do list. I truly believed that I had to take care of everyone and everything before I could begin to do anything for myself. I was great at making plans. And all my plans had backup plans. If you asked anyone, they’d say I was successful at work. At the same time, I was completely out of balance in my life. It’s no wonder that during this time, I was also struggling with my health and wellbeing.
Until finally, I got scared. And I knew it was time to make a change. It would take a few years of serious lifestyle and health rehab to transform my beliefs about what it really meant to balance my work and my life.
What I found interesting though, is that toward the middle of that 3-year journey, I got a big promotion and raise, along with having the highest performing team in my division. All at a time when I stopped being a workaholic and started honoring self-care and balance. You can read more about why I believe Self-Care is the New Success Paradigm here. This article includes the 5 steps I took to create work/life balance and still achieve success in my career. And why I ultimately decided to leave my corporate job anyway.
10 Tips for Achieving Work/Life Balance
While companies talk about work/life balance, let’s think about what it means from our perspective. I think one aspect is feeling like we have time and space for self-care. Time and space for the rest that precedes the feeling of renewal. It also means the time and space for connecting…to your higher self, to your source energy (God/Creator/Spirit), and to other people. What else does it mean and how do we accomplish it? Let’s find out!
I asked my dear friends, Lillian McDermott (Lilly) and Jean Courtney, to join me in a discussion to reveal the most important aspects of work/life balance. Since both of them have a unique angle on balance – Lilly, a full-time job with a passion side-hustle and Jean fully retired at an early age — I knew we’d have a robust discussion!
#1 – Say Yes to Each Step That Feels Right
You don’t have to have all the answers, or even the big picture. In Native American medicine, there’s a concept of knowing when to take action and when to be led. Most success principles tell you to have a 5-year plan and identify your outcomes. However, there is also a lot to be said for knowing when to be led, or when to allow things to show up. Lilly talked about this when she described how she ended up creating the life of her dreams out of what could have been seen as a disaster.
She and her husband were ready to retire with their real estate business when the real estate market went under. Instead of retiring, Lilly ended up starting a business to pay the bills. In the course of her work, she was interviewed on a radio show and did so well that they offered her a show of her own. She described her journey as one of saying yes to the opportunities life offered her. She said yes to starting a business after thinking she was about to retire. And she said yes to the radio show, even though she didn’t have radio experience. How did she say yes to the things that mattered, so that she didn’t get out of balance? See #3!
#2 – Your Currency Is Your Life
Decide how you want to spend it. Jean decided to leave her job and try out early retirement, even though a financial advisor might tell her it’s a “bad idea.” She didn’t do this on a whim. She actually looked into all of the people who had found a way to make early retirement work, even without a stash of retirement cash. One of her favorite resources was Mr. Money Mustache.
What Jean learned from these innovative thinkers is a twist on long-standing business wisdom. There are two ways to be rich:
- Accumulate wealth
- Need less
Jean chose to focus on needing less. She leaned some cool tricks, like having clothing swaps with her friends, potluck parties instead of dinners out, farmer’s markets for healthy food. She lives on a frugal budget that still allows her to eat healthy, organic food and enjoy amazing life experiences. Disconnecting from needing all of the “things” in our consumer culture made it easy for her to do this.
Ultimately, Jean says that since her currency is her life, she wants to be clear on how she’s spending it. She’s focused on having enough money to meet her minimalist needs and she feels that when you have that, money worries fall away.
#3 – Listen to Your Intuition
Lilly, Jean and I all agree that listening to your intuition. It’s that still voice within that led us all to changing our lives. Lilly was listening to what she wanted to say yes to, so that she could say yes only to those things that would bring her balance, passion, and joy. Jean was led to retirement when she realized she’d like the person she was much better if she had time to truly enjoy her life the unknown – then how will you ever know?
While Lilly and Jean were being lead in a balanced way, I recall myself feeling terrified about leaving my job. As the major breadwinner of my family, I worried about how we’d pay the bills. I remember feeling like leaving my job was like jumping off a cliff without knowing if there’d be a net. Yup. I was that scared. The reason I did it was that I kept hearing this tiny voice in my head saying, “If you don’t try this how will you ever know? You’ll have that trapped feeling forever.” So I decided to take the risk and all these years later, I’m so glad I did!
Intuition speaks in many ways…maybe you get a yes, or feel energized. Maybe you feel drained when it’s a no. Perhaps you get signals or symptoms to guide you. Whatever it is, trust it. You’ll never know unless you do!
#4 – Let Go of Fear
Lilly says that instead of looking at what could go wrong, look at what could go right. She suggests that we reframe fear as “follow every avenue required.” Take the first step, then the next and the next. Ask for help. Gather your friends around you. While fear may show up, don’t let it stop you from taking those steps.
#5 – Be Willing to Revise Your Plans
The truth is, even though we like to think we’re in control and our plans are infallible, we are not in control of anything! Whether you follow all the rules or chuck it all and take a risk, you may need to revise your plans. You take a job and find out it’s not for you. Or you try something new and it doesn’t work out. Maybe it works and you get so busy that you’re no longer in balance. This is where you have to be willing to adjust your plans in order to create balance.
I found this out when I started my business. Seeking time to rest at first, I thought I’d work a few days a week and finish everyday by 4:00 pm. Within the first year, I was working full time. Since I loved what I was doing, that was fine, so I went with it. Until I found myself working overtime, you know, those workaholic ways were creeping back in. I started to feel that old, trapped feeling and knew it was time to adjust my plans. With some rehab, I brought my schedule back into balance.
You can dabble or experiment in anything and you can change your mind and revise anything! As long as you are listening to your intuition and honoring balance, you’ll know when it’s time to adjust. Remember, you don’t have to stick with something just because it was your plan. Change your plan so that it’s working for you!
#6 – Mindset Matters!
Instead of thinking you are making sacrifices, think about it as making choices. Jean suggests that when you are living on a budget, instead of falling into a common trap of thinking you are making sacrifices, you can embrace the idea of making choices. This is a great way to start making changes in your life, or as Jean said, “making change by choice.”
#7 – Set a Passionate Intention
Make sure that whatever you are spending your time on is something you are passionate about. This can help you decide what you’re focusing on and what can be deleted, moved to a later date, or delegated. When you have a clear, passionate intention about how you want to spend your time – including the self-care and balance you need – it’s easier to choose among all the options life will put in front of you.
#8 – Be the Curious Student
Lilly and Jean are both great examples of this because they are always asking questions and learning from the people and experiences they encounter. It’s almost as if they are squeezing every ounce of discovery out of everyday experiences. All for the joy of being present with the situation and for the love of learning. What I’ve observed when with them, is that this joy of discovery is contagious. It’s fun for everyone involved and each experience, no matter how mundane it could seem on the surface, contains a goldmine of information to be discovered. The fun is everywhere you look! I’ve also noticed that with this approach, you can also meet people who are excellent contacts for some next phase in your life or career, even if you didn’t realize it at first.
#9 – Gather With Your People
Spending time with the friends you feel safe, nourished and nurtured with is critical. You’ll know when you’re out of balance if you are putting work and to-do lists ahead of time with the people you love. Or if you don’t have “rocks” (people you can count on and trust) in your life. I used to go isolate myself in the name of work, of if I felt tired or depressed. As I healed my life, I realized that spending time with the people I loved was part of the healing. Gathering with friends and family (or family of choice) promotes the release of oxytocin, the love and social bonding hormone that can help heal adrenal fatigue, depression and anxiety. Friends and loved ones can also support you in taking those steps toward your dreams. The key here is to spend time with people you truly feel safe and nourished with. Not the ones who you feel anxious with or whom you feel you need to impress.
#10 – The Abundance is Always There
This is a great way of saying that everything is always working out for your greatest good, which is something Louise Hay always said. If you trust that the abundance is always there, then why wouldn’t you choose self-care over too much work? Wouldn’t balance be a natural choice if you knew everything would work out for your greatest good? This is a big change in mindset when most of us have been told to save for a rainy day, or worry about what could happen in the future. What if you spent one week trusting that the abundance is always there and making decisions from that frame of mind? This is a key shift in thinking that Jean, Lilly and I all had to make in order to trust the choices we made. Each of us took a path less chosen. Anyone taking the path less chosen will get that “what if” and “be careful” advice from well-meaning friends who’ve learned to come from a place of fear and lack. We are all on this journey to change that paradigm. It will only change if we allow ourselves to think differently. After all, as Louise Hay always said, “it’s only a thought and a thought can be changed.”
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