And as I’m working these three jobs, one was inside sales. One was coaching, which I loved. And one was stuffing boxes in a warehouse, which I hated.
And I remember working these three jobs and looking at my life. Living in the front den of a house. I had three roommates and a curtain was the door to my bedroom. I also had a roommate who was depressed for about six months, who listened to Sex and the City every day outside of my curtain. So that song is stuck in my head forever.
But while I was there building my little business online in my spare time, like I had any working three jobs, I remember looking around and seeing my vision of traveling the world. Helping people. Making a difference. Giving back. Having the ability to give something back. Even monetarily, at that point. I didn’t have any extra.
And looking at my actual life in that moment and being like, wow. This is nothing close to what I’m dreaming of. And it was almost discouraging in that moment, because it felt so far away from what my dream was.
Now, this is crazy. If you fast forward eighteen months, I remember just getting done giving a speech to like three hundred people. I had been hired to give a speech and teach people how I grew my coaching business so fast online, in London. Hopping a train under the river, over to Paris. Sitting having lunch under the Eiffel Tower.
Taking out my journal where I had written this original vision in. And reading my vision of traveling the world and helping people. Getting paid and using the money to give back and make a meaningful difference in the world. And I remember having this gigantic smile on my face and realizing 18 months later, it happened. I was living it.
Jack: That’s remarkable and so inspiring. And you said something that I think so many people face. That when you actually stopped and thought about this, that the grind that you were in was not even close to what would be your ideal day. And I say some people are afraid to look, because they’ll be faced with that.
And so I know there are a lot of people that are thinking you know what? But, you know, Jairek, I got on the hamster wheel. I’m on the hamster wheel. I can’t just get up and go in any direction that I want to do this.
And one of the cruel ironies of success that you seem to be able to beat, because you have the same, maybe probably more obstacles and things in your way that a lot of people feel or think that they do. But one of the cruel ironies of success is that success encompasses your health, your fitness. It encompasses success in personal relationships. Success in finances and money.
And one of the things that never seem to get in balance is to have those three at the same time. And you talk about, in the book, how people are generally sacrificing one or two of those for the other. That it’s so difficult for people to achieve that together.
And I think some of the things that you have in there that are real metrics. Because most of the people think their job, career, making money equals that’s what I have to do. And then you talk about being able to go out and do what you want to do. And help others. And have these missions. And passion and mission, that equals “get to do.”
A lot of people can’t reconcile that your “have to do” and “get to do” can actually kind of be folded together, if you do it right.
So let’s start with that. How do you get over the obstacle of sacrificing health, relationships or finance, to be able to balance those out and actually achieve success in each of those areas?
Jairek: Absolutely. And understanding the natural tendencies, the natural stages of life give you some ability to calm down and not feel like you’re out of balance.
Most people talk about workplace balance. Balance, balance, balance. I learned from a great mentor of mine, she was like balance is boring. She said, I don’t know about you, but if you ever got on one of those teeter totters as a kid and you sat there with a friend.
And you’re like, okay, let’s make it perfectly balanced. And then you work for twenty minutes to get the thing perfectly balanced. No one’s going up and no one’s going down. Perfectly balanced. And she’s like, what do you want do to? Just sit there for the next three hours, staring at each other? She said, no. That’s boring.
She’s like, you’ve got to shake it up. You’ve got to jump. And then he’s going to jump. And then you’re going to shoot in the air and they’re going to shoot in the air. That’s what makes the ride exciting! What’s this whole perfect balance stuff? That’s life.
You’re going to go to work on your body and all of a sudden, it’s going to jack up your financial business stuff, because you weren’t focused on it. Then, you go, oh, shoot. I need to make more money. And you back to that direction. Your relationship starts to slack. But that’s natural.
She said thinking anything that is not natural is what makes you feel that something’s wrong. She said knowing that it’s going to be out of balance is okay.
Now, once you let go of trying to be perfect and say, okay, you know what? It’s natural. Then you’ve got to figure it out, and this is the important factor, not how do I make all these major categories of my life perfect. How do I continually improve on all of them constantly?
