Work Stress & Burnout Reset: How to Separate Work from Home Life + Set Boundaries (The IDGAF File)

SPEAKER_02: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the spiritual grind. SPEAKER_00: Good morning. SPEAKER_02: We're back again. Aren't you excited? Everybody's excited. I know. They're all clapping right now. They're all like saying. Yeah, James and Jimmy. Yeah. SPEAKER_00: I'm hungry this morning. SPEAKER_02: You got it. Well, it's probably the energy you're being absorbed by with that cat on your lap. The fat cat. The job of the cat. SPEAKER_00: Fat cat on my lap. SPEAKER_02: And constantly wanting food. It's insane. She constantly wants food. I don't understand. SPEAKER_00: I guess it's her comfort. You know, at first when she did that back in the day, we thought maybe it was her dizzy thing, her vertigo. Yeah. Maybe she was eating to keep the nausea from the vertigo down. SPEAKER_02: But I don't really know. I think my mom forgot to feed her for a couple days. I think it caused this. That's what I think. I don't know. SPEAKER_00: A separation anxiety between her and her food. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, pr pretty much. Where she didn't have food or something, she was hungry. SPEAKER_00: I don't know. SPEAKER_02: For a couple days, and maybe it caused this. And so she has to check it all the time to make sure it's there. SPEAKER_00: Right. I don't know. She's lived a good life though. SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, she had a good life. SPEAKER_00: We were told that with her disabilities and her genetic malfunctions, she probably wouldn't live to see two years old, and she's nine, so whatever we're doing, we're doing it. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she's had a definitely had a long good life. Yep. So far. SPEAKER_00: And still very sprightful at nine years old. SPEAKER_02: I know. I remember what a year or so I told her in the closet listening, either go die or get up and quit doing this. Because she didn't, she was just hiding in the closet for days. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Just very lethargic. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. But actually let me pick her up that time, remember? Yeah. And I was like, wow, she must be feeling bad. SPEAKER_00: Not these days, girl. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Nope. Now she's right back to wanting to kill me every time she sees me. But for some reason, I don't know why. It is what it is. SPEAKER_00: It's probably on the days where you haven't had a bath and you stink. SPEAKER_02: Oh, are you giving away my secrets? I've had my my monthly shower yesterday. Anyway. Well, everybody, welcome back. And we're glad you're here listening to us. And uh our our we got great news that App Store is actually testing our app. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Blue Cityumworld.com. You can check it out. SPEAKER_00: Very exciting. Yeah, it's a we actually got to put it on our devices now as kind of a pre-beta beta. SPEAKER_02: Uh there apparently the beta thing is no longer exists after the new uh changes that they made. SPEAKER_00: Uh huh. SPEAKER_02: He made it sound like that it's not a beta test anymore. SPEAKER_00: Ah. SPEAKER_02: And so I didn't ask him as well. SPEAKER_00: Essentially that's what we're doing. SPEAKER_02: Yes. SPEAKER_00: It's now on our devices, and we're going through each thing, checking for functionality and so apparently they have created spelling and AI software on the App Store that tests. SPEAKER_02: So you don't have to go through a beta anymore. SPEAKER_00: Ah, I see. SPEAKER_02: So, which is what we downloaded. It's an AI thing. SPEAKER_00: Oh, I see. SPEAKER_02: And so it's uh pretty cool. SPEAKER_00: It's very cool to see it actually in existence. SPEAKER_02: And animatingly. I like it. That's pretty cool. And it's exciting. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've waited a long time for it. Actually, you know, I say that it hasn't been that long, honestly. It went relatively quickly. Yeah. It's just that sometimes as humans we become impatient and we want it now. Yeah. But the reality is, you know, we're March and we started in October. So that's really a short amount of time considering what we know now about what it takes to code and the layers and everything that it takes. SPEAKER_02: The integrations is the hardest part, I think. He's one of our coders. He does the integrations from the anime from the still photos to the integration to the uh actual animations. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. And so it's like uh it's very exciting to see it on my phone. SPEAKER_02: It is, it's kind of fun. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: I enf I enjoyed it. SPEAKER_00: It's very fun. SPEAKER_02: We'll be able to show it at the expo too. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and all of our different products are beginning to flow in from the printers and stuff, and they're turning out really, really good. Yeah, for sure. Uh, we did some affirmational uh you you created some affirmational like uh cups. They're the tumblers that are insulated. SPEAKER_02: I can't believe I picked it up and like I actually created this. That's crazy. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they turned out really, really good. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: So we got those bags. Some of the t-shirts are starting to trickle in, they look really good too. I'm excited. SPEAKER_02: I think we get do the cards today. I don't know. I'm gonna send an email after the podcast. I think we get all our birthday cards and the greeting card stuff today. It'll be fun. Anyway, so uh y'all check it out. They'll be loaded up into the store over the weekend. So if y'all want any of those products that are integrated in or that are created by and not integrated, created by us, that will be in the store. They're all uh manufactured here in the US. So it's pretty cool. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Even the Gar cards are all made here in the US. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER_02: The only thing I'm still I'm not sure where the cups come from, but I think she said she gets them somewhere in local like Indiana or something. SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah. SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't remember. SPEAKER_00: The only thing I'm still having trouble with are the Oracle cards and the printing. Finding somewhere that will do a good job and still keep the price down to where I have to charge an arm and a leg. So if anybody out there has a uh reputable place to get the decks printed. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, please put it in the comments or send us an email. SPEAKER_00: For sure, because that's the only part that I'm still having a challenge. SPEAKER_02: For sure. You can send us that to our emails if you want to. It's Dr Jenny at the Merccenters.org, or you can send it to support at the merchcenters.org and our team will take it on. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Definitely. SPEAKER_02: But anyway, you ready for today's topic? unknown: I am. SPEAKER_02: So this is a topic that's on my mind because I've had one of my YouTube people give me this question on comment yesterday. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And uh this is a uh shout out to Alec97, something or other Jay, I think is that he is. And thank you for the comment. But he questioned about my mirror moments. SPEAKER_01: Okay. SPEAKER_02: Posting about how we change hats every all the time, and and you ha we have a tendency to confuse our true self by switching hats and becoming different people throughout the day. Like when you get up in the morning, you're you. You take a shower, you become a mom when the kids are up, or you go to work and you become an employee and you become a different person while you're at work than what you really are because you put on a professional attitude. SPEAKER_00: Is that why I can never find my hills and my skirts because you get out of the shower and you become a mom? SPEAKER_02: Ah what just happened? SPEAKER_00: What was what was that? You said we get out of the shower and we become a mom. You didn't say dad as well. SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, that's a good point. SPEAKER_00: I was just wondering if that's what happens to my skirts and my heels because I can't find them. SPEAKER_02: No, you get you threw all those away, remember? SPEAKER_00: I gave them to goodwill because I don't dress like that now. I don't have to. SPEAKER_02: Well, then you didn't trust all of us. SPEAKER_00: I don't have to wear those characters. SPEAKER_02: But anyway, so throughout the day, we become different people. And uh you be a mom, you be a dad. Let me add that in there. You become an employee, a boss, a manager, an executive, a server, whatever it is. SPEAKER_00: Right. SPEAKER_02: You know, you become different people throughout the day because you we from the interior want to be the best at what we do no matter what it is that we do. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_02: And so we will by nature put on the hat of that person that we're being throughout the day. Now, the question was about how do you know you've taken the hats off? Because there's times he's because he's uh apparently he said in his comment that he is a uh manager and he has like a like 40 employees that he handles. And he had his son yesterday uh or last weekend, last weekend say to him, I am not your employee, Dad. SPEAKER_00: That's the best indicator right there. SPEAKER_02: And he said, Well, I I thought I was home. And I always say to myself, When I come home, hey, I'm home. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: But apparently I'm still putting on that hat. SPEAKER_01: Yep. SPEAKER_02: And he said, How do you know you're confusing your identities? SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, the best way is whenever a loved one or a family member or friend calls it out on you. SPEAKER_02: Right. He's talking about I think the question he's wanting to uh put out there is is how do we do it ourselves? SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I get it. SPEAKER_02: And is there some kind of he actually asked, is there some kind of a ritual that I can do or a something that makes me identify what hat I'm wearing. Yeah or just to make sure I remove all the hats and become a dad again. SPEAKER_01: Right. Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And so because and and then like I I told him in the comment, you're still not being you, you're putting on your dad hat when you're around your son. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And you you're the true honest self of you, if you identify as dad as you, then you know, you have to make sure that you still have you. Right. Because that's where the one of the biggest confusers are for people, is they have a tendency to say that I'm a dad first. I'm a I'm a I'm a boss first. You know, they put those things in perspective in a way that they tell their subconscious mind that they're not being themselves anymore. Right. Which is what detours, I think, in my opinion. Now I want the Dr. Jenny version of this, but in my mind it detours them actually being themselves because what they do is we actually talked about this the other day about self-sacrifice. If you put on the hat all the time and you identify yourself as I'm a dad first, then you're self-sacrificing your own time because when you don't have your own time to be you, to even if it's just fifteen minutes a day to set in who you are, then you'll lose track, I think, in the long term of your internal goals. Like 'cause we hear it all the time. You know, people say, I don't know, I I've I got married and I have no goals. I I become nothing. You know, I I watched a TikTok this morning of a girl that was crying on there because she always wanted to be a nurse, but she had become a mom and quit trying to be a nurse and lost track of that of that goal in life. And now she don't know what to do and she's in her thirties. She don't know how to even start becoming a nurse now because everything's so much different now. And and and it kind of just all falls into place is it's the identities that's doing it. And we lose ourselves into our own identities. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. You ready for me to take the mic? SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Ginny. SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's break it down. Wicka wicka wicka. SPEAKER_02: Wiki wiki wiki wiki wick. SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the ultimate goal here is to be able to switch identities or switch hats, but still maintain your underlying identity of yourself and your essence. That's the ultimate goal. Right. Um, but that takes some practice over years. And so what we do unconsciously or inadvertently, however you want to word that, is we compartmentalize because we don't always know how to be ourselves. And what I mean by that is the self that loves to, and I'll use me for an example. Myself loves to just be ostentatious. And can you smell that? No, absolutely not. I have different things uh that I enjoy doing. I have certain ways that I enjoy dressing if I'm lounging or going to town or whatever, whatever I define as me when I don't have to put on any other hat. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: Then there are the different compartments that we've created, such that you've talked on. I am a manager, I'm a parent, I'm a daughter, I'm a, you know, whatever those are. If they have from your perspective, a job description or a character description that doesn't allow some of the characteristics of your natural self to be part of that identity, then that's when the identities will be very different. SPEAKER_03: Yes. SPEAKER_00: So let me break that down a little farther. What I mean by that is if you have a job in corporate America, and again, I'll use me, I love to cuss. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I love to just say cuss words because I don't know, that's just who I am. And if I go to my corporate America job where the rules and regulations say cussing is wrong and impolite and unprofessional and not allowed, then I have to tether back or I have to hold back that aspect of me in my job title. SPEAKER_02: Yes. SPEAKER_00: So in the permission slip that we run is okay, I'm gonna get to be me when I go home. But when I'm in this job, if I want this job and I want the things that go along with it, usually it's a paycheck, then I'm gonna allow myself to become a different identity that doesn't say cuss words all the time because I've made a contractual obligation with this company to abide by their policies and procedures. That's a conscious choice that I made by taking the job. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: But in doing that, there are parts and pieces of me or aspects of me that I have to sit on the shelf until I get off and punch out for the day. And that still is a conscious choice by people. Yes. But sometimes you can get lost in that and you can forget to go back and take those parts and pieces off the shelf and reintegrate them back into the authentic you. And if you're not consciously reintegrating you back into your life, you inadvertently can stay in that character of office manager, for example, as the example you brought with you, where the son called him out and said, I'm not one of your employees. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: That's the easiest way to tell that you're not changing hats, um, is when somebody else calls it out on you. But the self-check on that is again. SPEAKER_02: Well, that's the I wanna I want to interject right there. Yeah. Is first of all I want to say to this is if anybody, especially in your immediate family, your kids, your the people you entrust in your circle, uh say that to you, like like I'm not your employee, or you know, or any of that kind of stuff, don't take that disrespectful. Use it as a pilot or as a plant, because this is what somebody is truly perceiving you as. That's right. SPEAKER_00: So and don't sit there and say, Well, no, I'm not. I'm not doing that. Right. You devalue their perspective of being treated that way, and it's denying you the opportunity to look at yourself. Well, you should be guilty of the same thing all the time. Accountable for what may truly be going on underneath. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: Really take the criticism and look at it and check in with it and make sure. Because when you're running around in your world on an unconscious level and not actually creating a habit to change roles, it could very well be happening. And if you have a loved one that's gone out on a on a branch and gotten the courage up to say to you, listen, I'm not your employee. Right. It took great courage for them to say that to someone that they respect and they meant no disrespect for it, but that but you're doing it often enough that it's bothering them. Yeah, bothering it's aggravating to them. SPEAKER_02: Yep. SPEAKER_00: And uh you you need to be aware of it. So don't discount it by saying, No, I'm not, right. Being argumentative because it's not beneficial. SPEAKER_02: Correct. And it's and that's a defense mechanism. SPEAKER_00: It is, it's a denial. SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of people don't look like to look at themselves, and I'm one of them. I used to be guilty of the same thing all the time. I still do it occasionally now. SPEAKER_00: I don't know. According to the mirror, you stand a long time in front of the mirror, gooping up and putting your hell are you talking about this morning? SPEAKER_02: What are you why are you focused on me in the bathroom this morning? SPEAKER_00: I'm just ribbing, yeah. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, apparently. I don't know what's going on. I'm the brunt of Dr. Jenny's jokes this morning. If you're if you all think that she's being mean to me, please put a comment. SPEAKER_00: Oh me, stop being a baby. SPEAKER_02: I'm picking on me. SPEAKER_00: CC, get him a bottle. Anyway, so when you want to make sure that you are um changing hats to the appropriate venue that you're in or to the appropriate part of your life that you're in, you you kind of you you do a check system, you put in a check system, especially whenever you're trying to catch habits that have been running. Because we do, we do tend to, I even did it, you know, 24 years in the ER nursing career, I treated everything as as though people were gonna die if I didn't follow a process and a procedure. And one day in a restaurant that you and I created together, I was sitting over there tell the whole story focusing on the pickles and how whether they were one inch away from the edge of the bun or two, and the whole ticket line was backed up and people were mad because they weren't getting their order. And you said, People are not gonna die if you don't get the pickles touch. And I immediately had this existential crisis. I threw the the bun down, I went off into the office and closed the door and just like I think you laid down and meditated. Because it uh he was right, is completely right, but I had drugged that over into the other areas of my life. And I didn't know that I was doing that. I didn't know that I was doing it. It was totally on a subconscious basis because I had worked so many years in that career, six days a week, it became inbred in me and and a part of my fabric. Yeah, and I wasn't making the differentiation. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: So what I began to do when I broke that habit is I I began to ask myself, okay, what character are we currently playing and does it fit the circumstance or event that I'm in? Right. I asked myself that question and I I did some checks and balances. Um, you know, does this circumstance or this situation or this event that I'm experiencing warrant me having my nurse hat on? And when I answered that, then I which was usually no, yeah. Then I mentally envision myself stepping out of that uniform. I like to do mid mental middle, mental imagery. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: Uh that's what that's what works for me in my bag of tricks. Right. Um so I would mentally imagine myself stepping out of that uniform and stepping into whatever costume or character that fits what I'm doing at the moment. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: And each one of those costume changes in my visualization had a very purposeful job description attached to it while I was training myself out of the habit. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: Eventually, you get to a place when you've practiced the habit and you consciously can be aware that you're doing it and um practice not doing that anymore. Right. You get to where you can integrate your true self into life, just life in general, and you'll have less and less characters um that you have to create to navigate the reality. Yeah. Um especially when you get a when you come to a place of because part of the reason you can your characters are created is because you've run as a system that says if I act my normal self, I'm not gonna be accepted into this group. I'm not gonna be accepted by the them. SPEAKER_02: Or I'm not gonna be the best at my job, or yeah. SPEAKER_00: Right. Or they are not gonna accept me exactly the way that I am. Yeah. So the underlying key to it is once you get to a place where you accept you exactly the way that you are, with unconditional eyes, so to speak, to look at, a lot of that will fade away, and the need for multiple different identities or characters will fade away because you're not trying to impress other people. You're not trying to live your life according to their standards or their beliefs or their expectations. You're truly living life from your desires and your wants. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: And so you'll find that as you grow and train into that, a lot of those descriptions or characters will just dissolve because they're not necessary anymore. You'll find that they're attached to when when you go to the neighborhood barbecue, you've got to be uh the character of the Joneses so that you can keep up with all of them. And then that has its own storyline, that character of, you know, you gotta wear certain clothing so that it puts out a certain image, and the stories you tell while you're sitting around gabbing at the local barbecue are stories of possibly that you have this thing or you have that thing, so it makes you look like you're in a social status that's equivalent to what you view that person holding the barbecue has. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So you know, that's uh um for those that don't have like visual capability, because we had to I have met many well, we have met many people that say, I can't visualize those things. SPEAKER_04: Right. SPEAKER_02: Um and what came to my mind when you were saying the story was I remember back in the day um I used to work at a place called George Moore's Fish Farm in Oklahoma. I was like 13 or 14, yeah. And every time we would go over there, he would always invite us for dinner. SPEAKER_03: Okay. SPEAKER_02: He had this huge house, this huge table, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when we come when we get to the door, he would say, Shoes here, hat's here. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And and then finally one day, my buddy that worked with me there, he asked him, Why do you always take your boots and your hat off? He said, When I walk through this door, I'm not a fish farm owner anymore. I'm now me and my wife's favorite best friend and husband. And so I'm when I'm going in here, I'm gonna be loving and caring and and he just totally the way he explained it was a ritualistic style. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Where he came out of his hat, literally. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: He took his hat off and hung it on the door and changed personalities because his wife does not like it when he is doing it being a businessman. SPEAKER_00: That's right. And that was gonna be the next thing that I recommend. Yeah, is that some people have to physically do that when they walk in the door. Yeah. And if you notice me, when we were working in the corporate America, what was the first thing I would do? I would come in and change clothes. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, always. SPEAKER_00: That would and cause you would always say, Wow, you that transformation didn't take long. Like that was the first thing I did. I walk in the door and I'm already peeling clothes off and changing into uh a different Sometimes those clothes are still laying in the floor. Whatever, absolutely not. And so that would be the next recommendation is if you're not there yet on visualizing or that maybe doesn't work for you, physically come on off, come home and take your uniform off, but do it with intention and do it with a conscious mindset. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: Don't just do it because you know, maybe you work in a uh maintenance position where your clothes get dirty and you're just changing because you want clean clothes on. SPEAKER_03: Yep. SPEAKER_00: Do it from a conscious mindset of I'm changing costumes so that I can become a different character. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: Another thing you and I would do, and we still do a little bit, especially though when we were working in corporate America, is I set the tone that, all right, we have 10 minutes to do work debriefing. SPEAKER_02: Debrief, yep. SPEAKER_00: Get anything and everything that's aggravating you or want to talk about off your chest about your job, then we leave it there. We had a place on the patio where we would go and we would do that. SPEAKER_03: Yep. SPEAKER_00: We got 10 minutes apiece to kind of talk through anything that was still um I guess open-ended. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: Wrap it up, bounce it off of our person that we bent with, our friend, whatever. Yep. Which is you you and I, each other for us. And then at the end of that, we both knew that okay, that character's done. It goes in the closet till tomorrow at 8 a.m. when it's time to take that put it put the hat back costume back on, and then we made conscious decision to have our communication, our interaction be about our our family life. SPEAKER_02: Right. Yep. And that's one of the things that uh I think you have to catch it consciously. SPEAKER_00: Yep. It can't run subconsciously in the background. So again, awareness is the key number one thing first. You've got to catch yourself doing it, right, and then put some kind of technique in place that makes you change characters. SPEAKER_02: Right. You know, and that was another thing that he did, by the way. I was gonna throw into the comment in here, is you know, he always invited us to dinner. And uh we would go sit down at his table, and uh his wife was very service-oriented, man. She loved to to serve people and dote on them. Dot on the situation. And but there's one thing she never did. She never asked about the fish farm. She never asked about any of that stuff. It was about personal. How you feeling today, babe? You know, is that is your heel, you know, whatever. Right. Because he had a bad heel. And uh she would ask about how are you feeling? Never once did she ask about the fish farm. SPEAKER_01: Right. SPEAKER_02: And or any of the business transactions going on, including the hay, because he had a big hay business too. Yeah. And uh uh if she wanted to talk about the business, she came out to him working. SPEAKER_01: Yes. SPEAKER_02: And they they had those boundaries very much set because he would not talk about the business inside, would not. SPEAKER_01: Right. SPEAKER_02: I don't know how many times I heard his employees try to talk about it, and he'd say, Not inside this house. SPEAKER_01: That's right. SPEAKER_02: And uh and so he became very ritualistic um about it to help himself get through things and him and you know, and that's one of the things that we have in today's world that has really changed that kind of relationship in this exact scenario from the comment from the listener. And that was is one hundred percent that the two the the uh single family worker that's you know is providing for the entire family is no longer exist. And so now you have two people work. SPEAKER_04: Right. SPEAKER_02: And and so when they get home, they normally get home and now they're everything's so frantic because they're trying to get kids homework done and they're all this stuff goes on, you still have to find a new ritual or a new visionary place, or even a new some kind of a new way to trigger the thought. Because man, you know, like he was very, very good at it. SPEAKER_00: And uh and even just the question when you've got both people out of the house all day working their corporate job, when you do come home and you wanna look at your spouse or loved one and say, How was your day? They're need your response because statistically we spend a lot of hours at our job, most people. SPEAKER_03: Yep. SPEAKER_00: When when you're asked how was your day, you automatically go to that place if you're not consciously aware of it, of well, you know, Betty Sue screwed up on the documents and it made the customer mad. So you immediately go into the story of your work day, yeah. And that begins a conversation where you're both constantly talking about work inside of your home, and that gets all tangled up and twisted and confused. Right. So you have to make a conscious decision like he did. Yeah, and you and I do the same thing. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally. Yep. SPEAKER_00: You've got to have work-life balance. That's what I call it. I call it work-life balance. SPEAKER_02: So when you do anything with balance, everything's gotta be balanced. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've got it, you've you've got to balance everything out. And so when you walk through the threshold of that door, that needs to trigger to you somehow, some way, that okay, I am working, uh, I'm walking through the threshold of my home. And so now in this space, what characters am I? And practicing changing into those. Because when you go to work, most places will say, When you walk through the door, all of your personal stuff gets dumped outside right there, leave it at the door. SPEAKER_02: Leave it at the door. SPEAKER_00: I don't want to hear your stories. SPEAKER_02: I used to teach this seminar. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. And you know, so your workplace doesn't want to hear your personal life. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: So why in the world do you bring your work life into your personal bubble? SPEAKER_03: That's right. SPEAKER_00: You need to create the same standards and the same expectations in your home bubble. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: That needs to be your personal sanctuary with you and your family. And like I said, if you need five or ten minutes to debrief with your best friend or your sounding board, which is your spouse or whatever, then give yourself a time frame. Right. And if you literally, until you're practiced at it, have to set an egg timer. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, used to, we would look at our phone and we would say, okay, it's this it's this time now. We have 10 minutes. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: And at the end of 10 minutes, whatever you weren't finished talking about, you just put it in the closet until tomorrow because it's an IDGAF file. Okay. SPEAKER_02: But crickets. Yeah, you know what that is? SPEAKER_00: I don't give a fuck. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. And so we'll put it back and come back to it. But you know, I wanted to add to that comment to the is you know, we've been talking about changing the hat from work to home. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Because what I think where some of the confusing comes in to this, the comment was about more about him being a dad time. Uh-huh. And he was confusing the work to the dad time. Uh-huh. And I think that the process behind this is making an understanding that you have to create a ritual for every scenario in your mind. SPEAKER_01: Right, for every character. SPEAKER_02: Right. Not only do you have to r have a ritual for what you're not going to do, but you have to make a ritual for what you want to do. SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly. SPEAKER_02: Yep. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I just hadn't got there yet. SPEAKER_02: Right. SPEAKER_00: And so This is a pretty meaty topic because even when you're not a dad, you still are you. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have a daily routine that allows you to be you, whether it's five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes a day, where you get to just have that segment of time to do whatever you do. Whether it be meditating, whether it play arcade games, whether it be just vegging out, whatever your routine is that allows you to be exactly you in your little she shed or your little he shed or wherever. Man cave. Man cave. Doing whatever you get to do, want to do to bring you into balance personally, then you're gonna be shit to to provide for anybody or do anything for anybody. You're gonna burn out. SPEAKER_03: Right. Yep. SPEAKER_00: And so you've got to have balance in that as well. You've got to give each character their um identified space that they get to exist in. And then the the the true you that is you that has your own enjoyments, not the you that's the dad doing what the kids want, not the you that's the worker who's taking and checking emails after you freaking get home. SPEAKER_03: Yep. SPEAKER_00: The you that enjoys getting in your sweatpants and going and working out, yeah. Or the you that enjoys getting in front of the sewing machine and crafting, or sitting in front of the um PlayStation gaming for a certain amount of time. You've got to give yourself, you've got to become selfish. Let me say that again. Selfishness is not wrong and negative by nature. SPEAKER_02: It's healthy. SPEAKER_00: People who call you selfish are calling you that because you are not doing for them what they could and should be doing for themselves. Or you have to get selfish and embody your own routine very staunchly and not let anything waver from that. SPEAKER_02: Well, and that and also self people that when when people start labeling you with things, that is a projected expectation. That's on their part. That's on their part. That's they had an expectation of you coming home and not being a and and not being a a boss today. I wanted you to come home and spend time with me, but that was uncommunicated. And so when you don't meet that criteria, like the son telling the telling him that I'm not your employee, Dad, you know, that was an expectation that he was having that you're gonna be a dad. And at that time, that wasn't really communicated, but there are certain kind of situations that that kind of communication doesn't happen, so you have to create your own process. SPEAKER_00: Right. And and so if your day looks like you need to go and sit quietly in your own space before you can put the dad hat on after having the corporate America hat on for a little bit, set those boundaries. SPEAKER_03: Yeah, totally. SPEAKER_00: And give yourself the space to do that. If you need to go and sit in your bedroom and set a timer and do whatever it is you do for 30 minutes when you first get home to come out of one character and get ready to go into another, set those boundaries that way the expectation is clear to everyone and nobody's guessing. There's no guesswork. It's perfectly fine to do that. And so we need to talk about a new and up-and-coming uh avenue of this as well, because this can be very challenging. And you and I have lived in this lifestyle of working together and working from home and working in the same place that you live. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: So when you work from home, that has to look even a little more different, correct? And you have to put those guidelines in place even more strictly. SPEAKER_02: Yes, because confusing the lines a lot more. SPEAKER_00: That's right. Otherwise, those lines will bleed together. And, you know, if your office, your desk, and your podcast station are literally two steps away from your living room and you have a thought of, oh crap, I didn't get that done, it's very easy to pick your phone up and send that email right quick, or pick your phone, pick yourself up and go sit at your desk and say, you know what, this will only take two seconds. I'll do it while the, you know, while the noodles are boiling down. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: You have to stop yourself and say, Will this not keep until tomorrow? SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: And catch yourself doing that because the last thing you want is for your work from home job to bleed into your family life to where it makes you feel like you're working all the time because that can create burnout as well. And your partner that's taking the journey with you can begin to feel like that all you're doing is working as well. SPEAKER_02: Well, it creates a domino theory when you when you start creating that imbalance, because I used to be very guilty of it. When you when you gray the lines and you now you're behind becoming the different hat and become behind becoming something else, and it puts you behind, and then you end up, well, I'll just do this and this at the same time. And because I used to do it all the time. I did it all the time. And those kind of things, it just puts you behind on everything else, but this which is what makes it even easier in your own mind to multitask those hats. Yeah. And and you shouldn't do that. It I know it's easier to say than done, and I get that. But what I what I if you just bring it to your awareness, you'll find out over time, you'll start putting those hats in the right place. SPEAKER_00: Right. With practice. With practice, yeah. And consciously catching yourself doing it. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I used to do it all the time. I would check my email and I'd be like, dang, after my after you would after you and I had the conversation about it. SPEAKER_00: Well, we definitely had a conversation about it. And I'm like, I don't I don't like this version. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: And I would really enjoy it if you could actually come home from work and be home. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: You know, don't have one foot out the door still at work. If you still have work to do, I would rather you work late for an hour and get it all done so you could feel like you could come home and actually take the work costume off at the door. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: Because it starts to, you know, as the spouse of that person, um, you know, I I begin to feel the the imbalance of things. Like I didn't feel like I ever was able to get your undivided attention on things. You would definitely, and you know, I don't want to sit here and badger, but I can just talk about my experience. And so therefore, I had to sit down and I had to say, okay, listen, as your loving wife and as your partner and all of this, we need to knee maybe negotiate the terms of our contract a little bit differently because I would like to have a different experience. SPEAKER_03: Yep. SPEAKER_00: And what that did was allow you to know what I was wanting, what kind of experience I was wanting to have. SPEAKER_01: Right. SPEAKER_00: And it it let you Know that um some of the things you were doing were weren't providing me that experience. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: Then it gave you the opportunity to say, okay, is this something I can and am willing to do differently? Right. And that's how uh I think uh a spousal relationship works is when something's bugging one of you, it's okay to bring it to the table in a very calm manner and say, listen, can we renegotiate this and have a conversation? Because I would just like for things to look a little differently. Yeah, you don't come with ultimatums, you don't come with you're gonna by God do this differently or you're out on your head. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, bring it to the awareness um when it doesn't quite look like you want to as a spouse is perfectly okay as long as it's done with uh letting find your time. SPEAKER_02: Even no matter what it is, if you're married, you're whatever, find your time. SPEAKER_00: That's right. SPEAKER_02: And still within the still within you, because if you don't find your time, then you will have no time for yourself. SPEAKER_00: And you will burn out on everything everywhere in the life pie. SPEAKER_02: I used to be bad about it, man. SPEAKER_00: Burned out on the job, you'll get burned out on being the spouse, you'll get burnt and it'll change your perspective. SPEAKER_02: It will. And still And then you start blaming everything else. SPEAKER_00: Right. Even like with the spouse situation that I just described, when you get to a burnout place because you're not balancing everything, it'll feel like she or he is nagging at you when they're just really trying to have an honest, loving conversation. SPEAKER_01: Right. SPEAKER_00: Then you go to work and it's like, oh my God, everybody's just fucking bitching at me and pounding on my head because this and this and this. It will literally change your perspective. And and it'll usually nine times out of ten, it becomes very negative when you begin to get into that burnout place because you're not finding your own personal time to give yourself permission to go do the things that you need or want to do to keep yourself internally healthy and happy and whole and peaceful. SPEAKER_02: Right. Because if you're not internally balanced and healthy and peaceful and whole, you're not gonna be a hundred percent at any of the other hats. No, you're gonna be impatient, you're gonna be grumpy, you're gonna be that's like I used to uh used to tell people was is the best thing that you can do is give yourself the time to heal because your employer hired you because of you. Your wife, your spouse, whatever, married you because they married you. SPEAKER_01: Right. SPEAKER_02: And it's the and just like your your kids expect you to be that that support, that loving, caring person, parental figure, whatever that is, in their life. And when you come home and don't take the hat off and become that person because that's what you have taught, then you're you're screwing yourself because you're not taking care of your own time. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, ten times out of ten, what happens is is whenever you take on a new identity, like a new job, or you get married, before that happened, you were doing some sort of ritual that made you you. Right. Whatever that looked like. Going out, hanging out with friends every, like, you know, Thursday night, Sky's night, you're going to play poker or whatever. Whatever that looked like. Ten times out of ten, what ends up happening is you start sacrificing those moments that were your moments and giving them to the new spouse, the new job, the new child, the new whatever instead of pocketing things and categorizing things a little differently. Just because the new child comes along and the baby's here doesn't mean that it's no longer okay to set aside your personal time so that you you stay being the person that you were when that person met you or when that person gave you the job. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: You got to continue to do the routine that kept you you, that showed up for that job, or showed up for that relationship. Because if you stop, then you will morph into somebody that's not peaceful and happy and balanced and bubbly and and calm, cool, and collective. You'll begin to be agitated and irritable and short-tempered and resentful and I hate my job and I hate my life, or whatever, whatever that looks like. That feeling is just you missing the routine and the authentic you that you were before these different chapters opened up in your life. Right. And people forget to give themselves permission to go and do some of those things. Oh my god, I'm a parent now, I'm a new parent, so I can no longer do the things that I love to do. This has got to go away because I don't have time. And it's perfectly okay for you and your partner to sit down and say, you know, even though the new baby is here, we still have to have time for ourselves. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: And so it's okay for the the wife to say, okay, here's the child, it's your turn. I'm gonna go take 30 minutes for myself. SPEAKER_03: Yep. SPEAKER_00: Bubble bath, sit and color, whatever that looks like. And it's okay for the the dad to say, All right, it's your turn. And if you have to make a schedule at first to keep it in your awareness and to actually create a habit, that's a very healthy routine to do that. SPEAKER_02: Well, you see, and you know what it causes those kind of things is like the example I gave earlier with George. Uh his wife never bugged him because there was times he worked a lot. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Uh, because you know, especially when he's trying to build this business and he was did a very good job of it. unknown: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: But she never nagged him about anything because when he came home, he came home. SPEAKER_00: But he did it himself. SPEAKER_02: He dead it himself. That is that's where exactly what I was saying is because nowadays, for some reason, people seem to think that self-sacrifice is honorable. SPEAKER_00: Right. And what they don't know is that inadvertent consequences come out of that. SPEAKER_02: That's right. SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is you may be okay sacrificing yourself and your own time to put more time in a job or whatever, but who is in your bubble that's also sacrificing time with you? That's right. You've got to think about the other people sometimes, and that's different than them esteem or trying to satisfy, because you know, if like when you have a spouse, if you all went into a business agreement, it's called a marriage, and you said, I'm gonna spend this much time with this person creating what's called life and a family, and then all of a sudden you get this new job and you think, Oh, it's fine, I'll just spend some extra time and give the boss what he wants. Who's in the wake of that decision? SPEAKER_02: That's right. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, who's your wife's experiencing the inadvertent consequences of that decision? SPEAKER_02: That's correct. SPEAKER_00: Like who's it affecting? SPEAKER_02: And then and the and the more it happens, the easier it becomes for you to do. SPEAKER_00: That's right. SPEAKER_02: And then what happens, and which is one of the biggest problems of you know uh why new marriages end up with so many troubles in the first five to seven, you know, three to they say three to seven years. And that's because people they turn into this hat like like I think a real good example that's in my head was is say, for example, y'all, y'all you you somebody has been dating another person for say two years, and then they get married. And now who's in the responsibility lanes or files, it becomes, oh, we have to build a home, we have to we have to build this whole thing, and we you know, we have to have money in the bank, we have to buy cars, we have to we have to get ready for kids, and we have to go through all this stuff, and then you start self-sacrificing in all directions. SPEAKER_04: Right. SPEAKER_02: And the bad problem about it is is that other partner, whoever that is, that's with you, they married you prior to all of this. SPEAKER_01: Right. And you were a different person. SPEAKER_02: And you were a different person, and now you have turned into this because you took yourself into a different hat with that's uncommunicated, and that you're not coming out of. And you're not coming out of, and that's where that's why you have so many divorces in relationships. I don't like talking about negativity about that kind of stuff, but the reality behind it is it's not the other person's fault ever. If you're not giving them the things and that you have put on a different hat, or you're confusing your time and the time that you they have come to expect, then that's what's causing the problem. That's the the the issue. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. And and so my add to that would be because we all do it. When you're new in a relationship, you carve out extra time to cultivate that relationship. Totally. When you're in a new job, you carve out time to cultivate that's the courting stage, right? And we do it when until the routine balances back out, but that's the catcher right there, is when you don't balance it back out because you're not consciously aware that you've given it extra time, be it a job or a relationship, and you don't balance it back out, say for example, on the job, and that's where you get into a little bit of the wonkiness of the rubber begins, please, yeah. Versus like an intimate relationship with a partner or now a spouse, when they're when you've carved out extra time to spend with them cultivating that relationship and spending less time at work to temporarily get this relationship off and running, that partner comes to expect that from that relationship as part of the negotiated uh view of what this relationship looks like. So then when you go to try and balance everything out without communicating it, then it makes it feel like you were faking it or under a facade. Like, oh, now I'm seeing the true colors. You're right. You're really a workaholic and you spent the last eight months pretending like you were, you know, something different. So don't get them used to a version of you that doesn't truly exist. Right. SPEAKER_02: Or don't become something either. SPEAKER_00: Don't change them into a version that you don't like later. So just be careful. SPEAKER_02: Don't change something you don't like. That's right. Yep. SPEAKER_00: And and so making sure that you when you're going into these different areas, these different characters, just a uh be aware. That's the key, I think, number one step. SPEAKER_02: I no, I totally agree with that. And uh, you know, I think keeping keeping the uh internal peace within you and realizing that you need to have time, like every single morning I get up, I I spend probably an hour sometimes too, just by myself. SPEAKER_01: That's right. SPEAKER_02: And then when when I go in the shower, you spend an hour by yourself. SPEAKER_01: Sometimes two, and sometimes two, whatever it takes. SPEAKER_02: And the reason why we do that, it has nothing to do with I don't want to spend time with my spouse. And if people, if spouses seem to think that, that's their problem. SPEAKER_00: That's right. It definitely needs a conversation. SPEAKER_02: That's right. Because that's not that's not a you problem, that's a them problem. SPEAKER_00: Right. SPEAKER_02: You know, like you and I, everybody talks about how good our relationship is, and we are together literally all the time. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: But we also have our private time apart. SPEAKER_00: That's right. SPEAKER_02: That we spend, you know, sometimes it's 15 minutes, sometimes it's uh two hours. SPEAKER_00: Well, and even still like, you know, sometimes if you have to run an errand in town, you'll ask me if I want to go, and if I'm needing just an extra window of me space, I'll say, uh, you know what? I think I'll stay behind and um, you know, just have me energy, or letting you have your energy, yeah, whatever, you know. Or sometimes you going to town by yourself gives you the opportunity to have an extra time to think or whatever. Time to think about whatever. And so it giving each other that space too. When your spouse comes to you and says, I uh I need some me time, yeah. Don't run them in the ringer and say, Okay, well, the laundry's not done, the trash is not taken out, right? You're so fucking seen you all week, haven't seen you all day. Like, give them the space to become balanced and calibrated back into the them that that you fell in love with, and don't be so um gritty with them. SPEAKER_02: Well, every every relationship book I have ever read, listened to, any of that kind of stuff, every one of them say spend time apart. SPEAKER_01: Yeah, excellent. SPEAKER_02: Don't you know? If you don't, then you you don't first of all, it does you you never get a alone time and you never get a chance to meet to miss them. SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's not only that, but you know, before you got together, we kind of turned this into a relationship thing, but I think it's necessary. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: Before the two of you got together, this individual quite possibly was a single individual. Being able to call their own shots in their reality and no way you're new to their own daily routine of what makes them them. Right. And so if you want them to continue to be the them that you fell in love with or that you enjoy being around, give them the space to do their routine that they were doing prior to you coming along. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_00: So that they can continue to check in and to balance out and to recalibrate every um day to who they are as they learn, grow, and um, you know, transcend the different things that they're going through and integrate all of that. Right. Give them the space to breathe, man. SPEAKER_02: And I and I will throw out a little secret hint. SPEAKER_00: Ooh, tell a secret. SPEAKER_02: You want to teach your other significant other, your spouse, whatever it is. You want to teach them something one day, walk up to them, give them a hundred dollars, and say, here, go do something and take a friend. Take your best friend. Or go by yourself. And just let them go do whatever they want to do. Yeah. And you'll you'll learn two things. A, how appreciative they are, and B, how appreciative you are. SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah. And that's giving you a few years. That is a huge step to do. Space that from the energy, from the breathing, just just no control, no giving yourselves permission with un that unconditional, no strings attached, no judgment. SPEAKER_02: Don't care what you do. SPEAKER_00: Just giving that opportunity. SPEAKER_02: Right. Without any, you know And I find guys are better at this than most people are. Then in when it comes to what to doing things like that. Like uh most of my friends in Texas, every single morning they go golfing with their friends. SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh. SPEAKER_02: Um and then they come home in the afternoon and they take their wives to supper. And then in the evening they watch a movie with their family. That's like a ritual that my friends, for some reason, they all do it. Yeah. They go golf on they go golf on Saturday morning, they spend the afternoon with their wife, and then the evening with their with their uh uh kids, and then every night they'll go like uh one guy I know he goes sits on his back patio and he has a bird with him and he just sets to himself. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And it's a great ritual, and every person or every uh uh acquaintance I've ever had in this scenario that have what I would view as an awesome relationship, they had this kind of a r uh of a routine that they would always do. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. And it's a type of a relationship that you can create with any type of no, what I mean is it it's not just a spousal relationship. Right. It's a parental relationship, it's uh uh parental. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: You can create and establish that type of relationship with any of those titles, you know. Um create boundaries, create different things and put them in place, but communicate them. SPEAKER_02: Right. Totally agree. Totally agree. SPEAKER_00: Like uh one of the are we Yeah, we're pushed go ahead. Well, I was just gonna give another example. A lot of people as their parents age into that age group of the child actually becoming now the caregiver, and the parent is very, you know, much in the elderly state, they become quite needy. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_00: And the children think that they've got to go running to their beck and call to honor and obey and respect them. That relationship has to be defined with boundaries and stuff as well, or you'll get lost in that type of relationship as well. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally will. SPEAKER_00: So ever all the different relationships, you've you've got to decide what they look like and then structure them accordingly. SPEAKER_02: Agreed. I agree. Well, uh, I think we're kind of pushed on time. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it may be that we come back to this. Come back to this market, target out on another layer, but we'll see. Because this goes deep. SPEAKER_02: It was a great it was and and uh thank you, whoever commented now. I can't remember his name. Um, I assume it's him. I don't know, didn't have any pictures. But anyway, uh hey guys, don't forget to go to the website, check it out, www.themerkcenters.org. Um hey, check out the new store, it'll be loaded this weekend. You can get all the products in there, even the custom made cu uh cups and the shirts and all that stuff will be in there. SPEAKER_00: Fun stuff in there. SPEAKER_02: And uh um don't forget to check out uh Ozark Research Institution dot com. SPEAKER_00: It's dot org. I double check. SPEAKER_02: Oh, it is dot org? SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Oh, damn. Ozarkrees Research Institute dot org. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I always put the link in the description. SPEAKER_02: Okay. So then you just click on it. So we'll be there the first week of April. April 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. Um, and uh we look forward to seeing everybody there. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Uh don't forget to like, follow, share, or share, and ring that bell. Hey, we hope you all have an awesome day. SPEAKER_00: Love ya.