Work-life balance.

It’s the holy grail, isn’t it? If only we could seamlessly balance our professional obligations with our personal life, we could finally be happy at home and fulfilled at work.

And yet, it’s elusive.

Every time I think I’ve got it figured out, a few more work obligations show up and bleed into my personal commitments, or I decide to take some extra time for my personal life and return to an onslaught of emails and missed professional opportunities.

Does a happy medium exist? And if so, is it even accessible?

The Big Thing

I recently had the supreme honor of sitting down with my hero Seth Godin, who I’m now lucky enough to call a mentor and friend, on my podcast One New Person.

You’re probably familiar with his work, but just in case: Seth is often called the father of modern marketing. He’s a 19-time bestselling author of books like Tribes, Linchpin, Purple Cow, The Dip, and most recently This is Marketing. Seth runs one of the most popular business blogs in the world (a daily blog with over 7,000 posts to date), has revolutionized online education with the Akimbo Workshops, and is one of the most sought-after public speakers in the world.

Whoa.

When I asked Seth how he balances the need to get his message out with putting a priority on his own time, he gave me the world’s best answer:

“Balance is a really tricky word, because I don’t think there’s such a thing. There’s just time. There’s just where you are and what you do.

And it doesn’t make sense for me to have to spend time on something that feels like a sacrifice. I try to do things that are part of the big thing. You get to pick what your big thing is gonna be.

You know, the people who complain about work-life balance, well one of the reasons they say that is because work sucks the life out of them, and it’s a grind, but they do it ‘cause they need the money to live the lifestyle. Well, maybe they should change their lifestyle so they could have work that makes them feel alive.

Because then they wouldn’t need to worry about “work-life balance,” ‘cause then they would just have life.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Brian Miller (@bmillermagic) on Jul 1, 2019 at 7:00am PDT

Students & Educators

That’s only one small snippet of my 50-min conversation with Seth, which centered largely around teaching, the state of education and where it might be going, and how to connect with others.

Whether you are currently a student or someone who works with students or young professionals, I highly recommend carving out the time to listen to this interview.

It’ll challenge you to think about your own life and relationships to the world and others in was you have never done before.

Perhaps the most important takeaway is the question Seth asks all of us to consider:

What is school for?

So tell me, what is school for?

I’d love to hear from you. Take a listen to the episode, hear what Seth has to say about it, and then send me an email at onenewpersonpodcast@gmail.com with the subject line “What is school for?” and tell me what you’re thinking.

I’d love to do a follow-up blog post taking into account answers from educators, administrators, and definitely from students.