Episode 215： Work-Life Balance- Is it Possible for Entrepreneurs？
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
206.81999
Summary
When you say, "I want to live a balanced life," you forget that we are not machines. We have so many things on our mind that we can't be a machine. So what do we do when we're not a machine?
Transcript
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30 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start.
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Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, touch the stars up above.
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Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
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I'm Patrick Medebi, your host of Aletainment, and today we're going to talk about this one topic everybody wants to know.
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Work-life balance. Is it even possible for entrepreneurs?
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When you say, I want to live a balanced life, you forget that we are not machines.
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This here, his job, its job, is to light up the room.
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They usually don't have a million different things they're thinking about.
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They're single-minded, and they get the job done.
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And when we're not machines, our brain, right now, think about the last five minutes.
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What have you been thinking about all day today?
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Let me give you a few of them. Tell me if any of them is yours.
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You're thinking about who won the game yesterday.
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The argument you got into with your wife, your husband, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, this morning.
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That 877 number you got on your phone, you're wondering if it's a creditor that's trying to collect money from you.
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That ticket you got two weeks ago, you still haven't gotten an amount.
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You don't know how much the speeding ticket's going to be, if it's going to be over $200, and if you're going to get your license suspended.
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You don't know what you're going to work out tonight.
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Is it back, shoulders? Am I doing arms? I did arms.
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When did I do arms? I don't know when did I do arms.
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You're wondering that Facebook notification you just got right now.
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My mom is upset at me, Rhonda, because I forgot to call her on her birthday.
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So to live a balanced life, that utopian perfection balanced life doesn't exist.
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However, are there hacks out there for you to figure out ways to try to do your best to have a balanced life?
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I'm going to do my best to explain it to you here.
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So here's why even a person starts thinking about, do I live a balanced life or not?
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The reason why we think about it is because someone in your life, a spouse, a mom, a dad, a brother, a sister,
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You could be sitting there at a dinner table, okay, or having a conversation with somebody,
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You know, in order to have a happy marriage, you have to be home at night at six o'clock every night.
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Somebody will say, you know, it is not healthy to live an unbalanced life.
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Maybe I'm supposed to be doing it in a whole different way.
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They'll say things like, nothing matters more to me than family.
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Listen, John, nothing in your life should mean more to you than your family, right?
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And what does that statement really mean in the first place?
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Okay, if nothing means more to me than my family, why am I spending time on my job?
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Because nothing matters more to me than my family.
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Do you know how many people get confused over that single statement right there?
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Do you know how many people feel guilty over that statement?
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Nothing should matter more to you than your family.
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All his friends, his family, everybody pretty much is in LA.
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Selfishly, I can pay him all the money in the world to want to come and move to Texas.
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I come home on the weekend and we spend time together.
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I'm robbing him of his life and his routines if he comes to Dallas.
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So does that mean he doesn't love his family and nothing's more important than his family?
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I can tell you, my dad loves his family and the example is sick.
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By far, the most important thing that you have to answer before talking about work-life
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balance is you got to decide how clear you are about your vision and the life you want
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Again, if you follow Valuetainment, I think it's fair to say that you're probably an aspiring
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You're doing good for yourself or you run a business, but you're trying to grow and get
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And I'm giving you value and I'm sharing the mistakes and the things that I've done that
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hopefully give you some kind of direction on what to do with your life.
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If your clarity on the vision and the life you want to live is that clear, you won't feel
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Lowest level of a vision could be somebody saying, Pat, I want to figure out a way to make
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The second one could be somebody's watching and saying, Pat, I want to be a multi-millionaire
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Somebody else could be watching this, very few of you.
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Somebody else could be watching and saying, honestly, I can't do a lot with $250,000 a
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I want to do something significant that impacts the world.
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Because I've got so much flipping fire in my belly, I can't even describe it.
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Whoever you are, whether you're the first one, second one, third one, now you're clear.
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If you're the first one, after you're having a clear vision comes your timeline.
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So timeline could be, look, I just want to make $100,000, $250,000 a year income.
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Your timeline for being all out, hard work, could be three to five years.
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Second person says, Pat, I want to be a millionaire.
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Your timeline may be, you have to go all out for five to ten years.
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The third one may be, somebody says, Pat, I want to chase history.
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That may be a 10, 20, 30, 40 year type of a thing you've got to do.
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So it ain't a short term period thing you've got to do.
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But now you have your vision, and you're clear on it.
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So now, regardless of what level you're in, for those of you guys that asked me the other
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question, which is, Pat, do you think anybody can be an entrepreneur?
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I believe anybody can be an entrepreneur, but there's a problem.
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There's a problem in that answer that is not clear enough.
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Is everybody willing to do the work to become an entrepreneur?
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She was talking about raising kids and all this other stuff.
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She said, Pat, do you know what is the closest pain you will ever go through in your life of
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I said, I don't know what it is, but what do you think it is?
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She said, the closest thing you will ever experience is by you starting a company, being a startup
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entrepreneur, building a business, because it's absolute painful, annoying, challenging,
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You will have mental, emotional breakdowns at some point.
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Everybody wants to experience the history and all that stuff, but how many people want
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So now, for those of you guys that are watching and saying, well, Pat, I'm still trying to
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Because you first got to go back and figure out who you want to be.
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So the correlation between that, once I get clear, somebody can't make you feel guilty.
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Because you already know what it's going to take.
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You already know how big of a life you want to build.
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So I can't make you feel guilty and I'm your brother-in-law.
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I can't make you feel guilty and I'm your dad or your mom or your brother or your sister.
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The closest thing to wanting to become a professional entrepreneur is the following.
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So again, I'm trying to make this argument to you to understand this before I go and give
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The closest thing to becoming a professional entrepreneur is the following.
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Basketball players, they play 82 games in a season, not including preseason or playoffs.
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On the road, they're on the road six months out of the year.
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You're playing for eight months out of the year is what you're doing.
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Then the other close thing to becoming an entrepreneur is a musician.
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You have to constantly go out there and do certain things.
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You could be in New Zealand shooting a video and your family's back in town going to school
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to private school and you're in New Zealand Skyping with them every day.
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Do you really want to campaign for 18 months every single day and if you don't, you're going
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to lose to another guy that is willing to campaign every day?
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Do you really want to go campaign and get rejected every day and people spit in your
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face, they argue, they throw stuff at you and they say, I can't believe you believe
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I cannot believe you think America should have free health care.
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I cannot believe you think America shouldn't have free health care.
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No matter what philosophy you think, you have an opposition.
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Because that's what entrepreneurship, I believe you should own real estate.
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Half of people say you shouldn't own real estate.
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I believe you should put your money in the stock market.
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Everything has an opposition and that's painful for some people.
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That's why sometimes it's safer to go get a regular job and say, this is the route I'm
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And all of these journalists that are famous for getting up and talking about balance, guess
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The most unbalanced people in the world is who they admire.
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They admire the people who are willing to go out there and be unbalanced.
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All day long, journalists talk about the most unbalanced human beings in the world.
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They have a job because there are unbalanced people out there.
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If there were no unbalanced people out there, media and journalism wouldn't exist because they
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And who makes news to have people to write about?
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With that being said, I want to leave you with a couple actionable items you can apply
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right off the bat so you can hopefully have a little bit more of a balanced life at least.
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One, do you remember how earlier I told the story of the difference between machines and
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us human beings is because we wander and we drift and we think about things?
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The reason why we wander and we drift, why do we, is because we don't have a clear answer
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and we're questioning the decision we're about to make.
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Have you ever woken up in the morning spending 17 minutes in your closet wondering which jeans,
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which suit, which tie, which shirt to wear and which shoes?
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Have you ever gone on lunch and you're wondering where to eat?
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Now let's go over here, you know what, I don't know about this, 32 minutes was spent just
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When it comes down to your mind wandering and it's making a decision, ask yourself, what's
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the level of priority on this decision I need to make?
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If the mind goes and it's saying, well, I'm wandering, I'm making it, I don't really know
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So pause, ask yourself level of priority, then take your time on decision based on the
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Remember how earlier I talked to you about guilt?
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You're working too hard, you're not spending enough time with your family.
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If you don't have dinner right now with your family, you're not a good parent, you're not
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If you are feeling guilty, write out your values and principles that you want to live by.
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And these values and principles are going to match the life you want to live and the
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When your values and principles are committed to your vision and the life you want to live,
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And the conflict is, some of your current friends and family are not going to like your
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They're going to say, you know, honestly, Patrick, I just want you to know that you ought
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to really be thinking about your current schedule and what you're doing and da-da-da-da-da-da.
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I don't know if this is the right thing you're doing.
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See, they don't know your values and principles matches the vision and the life you want to live
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You can't judge them because they don't know what your vision is.
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Now, if it's somebody that's very important to you, wife, husband, kids, you know, spouse,
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mom, dad, sit down and explain to them, here's my values.
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The next three to five years, I'm going to do this.
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Babe, I want to go on a 5-10 run and I need you to support me.
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Mom, dad, I'm going on a 10-20 run because I want to do this for my life.
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But, and expect opposition, expect laughter, expect people to say,
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I've never heard you use the word clarity before.
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What are you talking about values and principles you want to live by?
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It doesn't matter because you either have to compromise your vision that you want to live,
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your life, the vision that's clear to you, or you have to compromise certain relationships.
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And when it says relationship, you don't need to compromise mom and dad, brother, sister.
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But some friends, you've got a lot of them you can get rid of.
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You've got a lot of them that they no longer want the life that you want.
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And if you don't cut it out, they have so much influence on your vision that you don't even know.
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They're going to prevent you from having some of your visions become a reality.
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Take your time to make the decision so when you're wandering and drifting.
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Two, you feel guilty, have your set of values and principles match your vision you want
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to live with the timeline and the sacrifice you need to make.
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Then at that point, hopefully you have fewer things that you have to attend to in your life
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so at least you can be a little bit more of a balanced life that matches your vision
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And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
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And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
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And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.