Welcome to Daily Confidence for Entrepreneurs Show Episode 43.
In this episode, join my friend Julieanne O’Connor and I talk about Bridging the Gap between your Personal & Professional Life.
Listen to the podcast here:
KEY POINTS:
What are the top challenges your audience is experiencing?
How do you bridge the gap between your personal life and professional life?
What kind of mindset do you need to get started?
Can obstacles and internal blockages affect your personal and professional life?
What are some tips for this work life balance for the people that are working from home?
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:
13:41 – Burnout is the buzzword of the season, it’s like they are overworked and they often truly feel like nobody appreciates them.
25:37 – The greatest gift that I ever gave myself was getting a coach because they can help with the mindset piece on so many levels.
31:41 – When you’re clear on your values, you do find a way. So part of my budget is earmarked for accomplishing the things I need to do within my home right now.
36:31 – Kids are in the moment and they don’t have concept of time. But if you continue to follow through, they will start to see that your words mean that there’s some reward at the end of it.
TRANSCRIPTS:
Mostafa Hosseini 0:02
And we’re live Welcome to Daily Confidence For Entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini, your host for the show. At Daily Confidence for Entrepreneurs we share tips, actionable advice and strategies with business owners to help them boost their confidence on a daily basis when it comes to running their business.
During the show and after the show we give away gifts and to enter the draw for the gifts, you need to like the show, you subscribe, comment, ask a question and or tag a friend who could benefit from the conversation. If you’re having a topic you would enter your name into the draw, for the gifts will be given away and the rest of it. So I have an amazing guest today my dear friend Julianne O’Connor. Welcome, Julia.
Julieanne O’Connor 0:49
Thank you.
Mostafa Hosseini 0:51
How are you?
Julieanne O’Connor 0:51
I am awesome. I’m so excited to be here. I love your show and I’m thrilled to be honest. So thank you so much.
Mostafa Hosseini 0:58
Thank you. Great to have you. Today we’re talking about bridging the gap between your personal and professional life, which is an important topic and I’m looking forward to this conversation. Let me do the proper intro and then we’ll get started.
So dedicated to putting the relationship back to the relationship world, Julieanne O’ Connor is committed to helping high achievers to bridge the gap between their careers and their personal lives because they are overworked and often feel taken for granted.
Julieanne O’Connor helps people to uncover their deepest purpose, leveraging their influence, and reconnect with what matters the most. She’s an award winning author, actor, TEDx and NSA speaker, wife, mother, adoptive mom, foster mom, and the founder SIO Dream Fund. Welcome, Julieanne.
Julieanne O’Connor 1:53
Thank you so much. I was laughing. That’s an introduction that long. Like, wait a second, but let me tell you the muck of it. Thank you for those really, really, really kind words and for that introduction.
Mostafa Hosseini 2:07
Welcome. Great to have you. So how’s your day going so far?
Julieanne O’Connor 2:11
Gosh, it’s been really good. I know we’ve had the opportunity to spend a little time together. So you know that we’ve had some intensive work that we have done, thanks to your Simple Marketing Formula program, which was awesome. I’m implementing it and I’m still tired.
Mostafa Hosseini 2:36
Yeah, same predicament today, three full days with an awesome group of people, as it’s rewarding, but we also get tired. There’s a lot to digest on my end as the guy that runs the shop, fork shop. Then on your end, I’m sure there’s like a ton of information and follow up and all that. So Julianne, what is your story?
Julieanne O’Connor 3:01
Oh, boy, that’s such an awesome question and overwhelming. But so let me let me do the short version of the backstory, which is probably that I grew up in a family that was really not wealthy. In fact, we were pretty poor. We had no plumbing, we used to literally sneak to our neighbor’s yard to take showers and they’re like, well, water because we had no plumbing initially, my father had bought an old test site where it was like we had to remodel it. Then we found out it was badly contaminated.
It kind of led me on my journey into this discovery of what mattered in life. So that’s kind of where the long story short was going from. At the time, I had no idea by the way that we were broke as all got up. I just thought that was normal so people lived.
Mostafa Hosseini 3:55
Wow, was that outside of Reno?
Julieanne O’Connor 3:58
Nevada, in the hills, in the mountains and very strange life in America. People couldn’t come to my house unless they signed release forms that they wouldn’t sue my parents, if they got hurt. It was pretty crazy.
Mostafa Hosseini 4:13
Well, what’s the rest?
Julieanne O’Connor 4:16
Well, when we found out the property was really contaminated and my father passed away, I was pretty young. We realized what the cause was, we had to move off the property. It’s under a forever cleanup program. No one could ever live on the property again, at least not for 100 years.
So it made me go on this discovery process of what mattered which really kind of boiled down to if you’re stripped of everything, what’s left, it’s the people that you surround yourself with. It really put me on a path to discovering what building meaningful relationships was my mission. It still is today, actually. So to my life, yeah, with good people.
Mostafa Hosseini 4:56
What’s the story behind getting into what you’re doing?
Julieanne O’Connor 5:01
It’s interesting because one thing led to the next. After all of this discovery, I kind of got to the point where I’d seen so many things that people were doing wrong year after year in terms of not keeping the priority of their relationships and their family in perspective with their careers. So I ended up writing two books, one on relationships, one on careers. It wasn’t that I set out to be an author, but I thought I should put this in a book, and then everyone will have the tips.
What the one in 10 is doing is different from the rest who’s having fun. So I wrote these books, which led me into this whole process around social media, and how do you mark it and all of that. One thing kind of led to another, I also went on a path of doing what I loved most. I ended up being an actor and other things combined with my entrepreneurial side of things.
Mostafa Hosseini 5:52
Very interesting. You have a diverse background, like acting and speaking and being a foster mom, adoptive mom, and you’ve done quite a bit.
Julieanne O’ Connor 6:09
Yeah, because I think when you check your values throughout your whole life, and if you start that process really young, it’s interesting, because you keep coming back to what matters. What do I desire? What do I want to try? It kind of reminds me of, you know, like Tim Ferriss, he’s taken that diversity thing of what he’s tested and tried to another level that I could not even imagine, but it’s that idea of always kind of readjusting along your path, your journey of life to do what you can while you have time on this planet.
Mostafa Hosseini 6:45
Absolutely. That is important the true now we’re talking about bridging the gap between your personal and professional life? Tell us what you mean by that?
Julieanne O’Connor 6:56
Well, it’s really this idea of, and this really stems from coaching, and primarily dentists believe it or not, which is where I’ve kind of ended up in my career. But it’s really in this idea of realizing that you have a finite amount of time on this planet. And if you work backwards from what it is you’re trying to achieve, if you will, and you really also check that was why you know that the constant thing we learned that we, you know, what’s your why behind everything, and oftentimes, what I’ve seen people doing is that they work so hard, and then they get to a point where they recheck their values and their why and they realize all this time has passed, and they neglected the very thing they were working so hard to such a degree that there’s a tremendous cost.
So my belief is that you should be checking it all along every single day, and that there should be this balance. And I don’t mean the balance, like everything’s equal. But I do believe that if, if you’re doing stuff that’s neglecting your family, or causing you to do things that takes away from the very thing that you love, you need to look at what can you do to make sure both are incorporated in a single place, and that you have both that are being that are receiving the attention they deserve.
Mostafa Hosseini 8:18
How did you come up with this concept of bridging the gap between personal and professional life?
Do you have a story on that?
Julieanne O’Connor 8:33
I mean, the story really still stems from a young age, when I was told that I could likely get cancer from the stuff that I had been exposed to. What it made me realize is that I really wanted to do these certain things in life that were these ideas, these dreams, these aspirations that I had, but I equally knew that relationships were the only thing that really truly mattered. And, and so, okay, they both matter, right?
It was really this idea of how do I achieve things but not forget to see my mother when I’m young? And how do I achieve things but then also not forget my own family now that I have my own family? And how do I give back while I grow? So it was this idea of bridging these things so that you were never there was never a day that went by where I felt like I would have regrets if I were to die tomorrow or this afternoon.
It was really like I still live my life this way every day that I check I have would have no regrets I can tell you if something happened to me and I know my my family would be fine and they would know I gave all I could.
Mostafa Hosseini 9:38
Was there like a period in your professional or personal life where the personal life was maybe hurting the professional life and vice versa and you had to like bridge the gap and like connect and make sure that you know you got some harmony or balance in between both.
Julieanne O’Connor 10:00
There have been times many times in fact, where when was causing, you know, an issue with the other. I mean, I remember having boyfriends where they cost me agents because there was so much drama in the relationship. There are things that happen, right, we end up with relationships sometimes that don’t support what it is that we’re trying to accomplish.
Really everything comes down to trying to figure out how can you stand by your partner, and love them with self worth, and allow them to go on their own ups and downs, and grow on their own, you know, level with or without you, but hopefully, that you can stand by him while they do that. And it’s not about you’re not supposed to complete them, you’re supposed to be there, you know, 100% each of you, and then whatever comes off the top is great.
Sometimes it’s checking your relationships and looking is this really a healthy relationship? Right? Obviously, I will maybe not obviously, but I ended up meeting a man who I had a list of criteria that met all of these needs and he met all that criteria. So he’s that part’s in place. So now it’s the flip, right? It’s I have this career that requires a lot of time, effort, energy and requires that I show up, right.
For me, I just tactically speaking, I do block time, I use block time, and I will even calendar, my family if I need to, if I find that I’m neglecting them, I’ll calendar time and my career cannot step over into my family time.
If somebody asked me to do something, that day is off the schedule, you know, so I blocked time, either one. That’s one way that I bridge the gap there. I have other systems and ways of checking what matters to me.
If you want to measure, whether or not you're living your life in a fulfilled way. You can measure it by how you feel in your gut at the end of the day on whether or not you did kept your values in check.
Mostafa Hosseini 11:43
I love to tap into those systems if you’d be open to share and talk about them here in a bit. So what you do and who you serve these days?
Julieanne O’Connor 11:54
Yeah, so I work primarily in marketing and advertising, especially with social media. And I serve primarily dentists, also some high achieving CEOs. I provide them with marketing services that help them raise their influence in a way that they’re allowed to, again, go back to their family time and really take back their quality of life. So when he gets the other and so I helped them in that arena, how people kind of like attracts.
Mostafa Hosseini 12:21
I need to grab my notepad to take notes here.
Julieanne O’Connor
I was actually back in the day helping chiropractors and physios so they can spend more time with their family.
Mostafa Hosseini
Family, I’m sure family is one of your top values.
So you help others do the same, like spending time with their family, because I’m pretty sure they get consumed with their business. Next thing, you know, they don’t have time to energy to spend time with their wife and kids and, or husbands. That’s how they get in trouble.
Julieanne O’Connor 12:57
100% and, you know, I love that you did the same same thing. Because you do you hear stories from people who are especially seasoned, where now they’re going wait, I realize what matters. I did all of this for my son or my daughter. Now they’re doing the same thing. I can’t get their time. It’s like they have they figured it out but too late, and it’s now it’s not too late. They can do things, but it’s very difficult because it’s like we pass on our own traits, right, to our loved ones.
Mostafa Hosseini 13:29
So you teach them, so they just copy you, right? What are some? I know we briefly touched on it.
What are some of the top challenges that your audience is experiencing?
Julieanne O’Connor 13:41
Man burnout, and I know it’s the buzzword of the season, but burnout, it’s like they are overworked. They often truly feel like nobody appreciates them. And they feel like their families don’t appreciate them, they feel like their employees and or their team doesn’t appreciate them and what they’re doing. Oftentimes, they don’t even know how to run their own business truthfully. That’s why I love your Simple Marketing Formula, because all of them could use those. So we’re gonna talk more about that.
But yeah, you know, so it’s really it’s this ongoing cycle, right? These continuous things that you see over and over again, and oh, I shouldn’t say all there are people who keep this in check, right? There are people who use systematic approaches to doing it. Systematic sounds so formal, it’s not a formal thing. It’s just a habit, right of, you know, keeping in front of you. What’s my priority? What is my my one thing I got to get done today? You know, like, all of that stuff matters. So I don’t even know if I answered your question.
Mostafa Hosseini 14:45
I think that’s a good start.
What are some of the top myths about what you might call it combining and bridging gap between personal and professional life?
Julieanne O’Connor 15:00
Oh, that’s a good question. It’s funny, I was just on Sharon Lector’s Show. She has this belief that you can’t have work life balance. I think you’ve heard probably a lot of people say the same thing. And I do think that there’s a myth that you can balance everything. I almost feel like people are trying to either quantify it or measure it as if it’s the same thing on two scales, right? The reality is, it’s not measured that way. It’s sort of unique. If you want to measure, whether or not you’re living your life in a fulfilled way.
You can measure it by how you feel in your gut at the end of the day on whether or not you did kept your values in check. So there are ways that I keep track. Don’t get me wrong, but ultimately, it comes back. If you’re neglecting your work, you have guilt. Right? If you’re neglecting your loved ones, or your friends, you just know.
Mostafa Hosseini 15:56
Absolutely. One of my goals in life is to have harmony in life. I used to say that I need to have balance in life. Later on I learned somewhere that you can’t have balance, you can only have harmony. But you can have a balance between 50% work, 50% family. They just have to all play together. Like you said, you have to feel good about it and feel that harmony that “Yes, I’m working hard. But I’m also spending time with my family, my kids or my loved ones.” What’s your take on that?
Julieanne O’Connor 16:33
I’d love that and I truly agree with that. I love the word harmony, I love when people talk about you’re vibrating at a certain level, you just know that sometimes that means I might work five days around the clock truthfully, but then I know that my weekend, I am going to pour into my family. So it’s not a five days within five days, and then sometimes I’m on vacation, and I have to come back to my work, but at the end of the day, I know from a gut level.
If I start to question it, what I do is if it gets off, if it’s not synchronized, I’m not feeling harmonious, if you will, then I will write a list of where I’m at, like what’s going on, what I’m feeling, I will just write it down and really down and dirty, I’ll sit in my bed, if I have to just be like, I feel spent. I missed my kid today, man, I should have picked up my daughter and not made my husband do it today or whatever, and I need to do this or that.
Then I’ll go move on to like the next piece of that, which is, you know, where do I want to go? What do I want to do differently? So I’m not quilting myself. I’m just getting clear again. What is it that I do need to do? So one of my ways of going about this? Then I’ll check my life, I’ll go back to my life. I’ll know why is it so important. Why do you need to make so much money? Why do you want this house, whatever, why? Then when I answer the why, I say why to the why. I do that until I remind myself and then it’s like this weight lifts because you get back to your values. Then the next day, strategize the easy part, you just implement what you realize.
Mostafa Hosseini 18:15
Absolutely. I love that like prioritizing going back to the why. And then the go with that. That’s one of the things I do similar things. And then one thing that I bring to answer the question of what’s a priority is looking at my quarterly goal or the annual goal. Like yes, I did the end of this quarter. I’m trying to bring in 30 new customers? And is this going to help me get there, because that’s my most important goal, if that is your most important goal, or whatever that is. So that is like prioritizing, which I think I feel that’s what you’re hinting to, is absolutely essential.
Julieanne O’Connor 18:57
Yeah, I think it’s prior to prioritizing everything. 100% and that’s why I think I love your program so much. Now that’s really specific to your career, but you could do the same thing for your family life.
Surely you could spend a three day boot camp on how to get back to your priorities and give your family everything they need. Or maybe you don’t even have a family, maybe you’re somebody who’s just trying to go and create a philanthropic enterprise or something, but whatever that is, your fuel behind it all.
I agree about that. And there’s other micro bits of this, like the one thing that you got to get done each day and not letting everything distract from that.
Mostafa Hosseini 19:39
Yeah, there’s the book, The One Thing, the name of the author,
Julieanne O’Connor 19:44
oh, after Google, Eric Taylor.
Mostafa Hosseini 19:46
I think it’s Gary Keller, or maybe the title is The One Thing and that’s the one question that really was life changing for me and the question was, “What is one thing I’ve got to do to today so that by doing it, everything else becomes easy or unnecessary?” Finding the answer to that question makes literally makes everything else a lot easier.
Julieanne O’Connor 20:08
It’s so true. So you had like this list of books that you recommended during your your sessions that you had with everybody. I swear, every one I was like, check, check. Yes, these are great books. But that’s another one. And yeah, The One Thing, man, it’s like, you know that I think the problem that we have oftentimes as human beings, it’s not even entrepreneurs, it’s human beings, right? Is that we tend to think about I need to do that and what my priorities are. I know my why, you know, but we don’t write it down, or we don’t stick it on a sticky in front of us. Right?
It’s like it’s so crazy, we start to go through the motions of life, knowing that we should, because we should write a business plan, but we don’t have any idea how many people? Is it that you said, actually write a business plan? What’s the percentage?
But at the end of the day, once you're clear on your values, you can meet certain levels of whatever that is for you that's going to feel right. If it's not right, then you might want to do some work around what is that's blocking you because there are things that block us.
Mostafa Hosseini 20:59
Do you know less than 1%?
Julianne O’Connor 21:01
I mean, that’s insane. Because we know that it affects your your results and your success. It’s like what everyone knows they think they’ve got it. They think they have it. It’s like because you can conceptually think all this stuff. But until you stick it in front of you, there’s something about that. It’s like, you could think you needed to take a shower, and if you didn’t have a shower to use in front of you every day, you probably wouldn’t shower. You gotta have it there analogy, but, you know, it’s like you need it in front of you.
Mostafa Hosseini 21:37
I think we talked about this. I mentioned this, I’m sure before that, Greece in the past few months, I realized that I’m done with thinking that I’ve got it. I’m done being smart, I’m dumb. Just tell me what to do.
Julianne O’Connor 21:57
I love that my daughter had a meltdown the other day. She’s 11, one of my daughters. I have a three year old I adopted them, fostering right now. But my 11 year old was having a meltdown. I think it was yesterday.
She’s like, “You know, daddy said something, my dad”, my husband said something by accident, you know that thing that she said? “He’s embarrassed that I didn’t do my homework or something” I just told her, “You know, honey, so you’re gonna go through this life, and you’re gonna realize we’re this age. And we want you to have this knowledge so badly, like we want you to know. But the truth is, when you learn learn this, you’re not going to learn this. You can’t No, no, no, no at all.”
And I just told her, “You know, at the end of the day, you’re going to find out the more you learn, the more there is to learn. And it’s never ending. It’s literally inexhaustible. So relax, don’t worry, you can’t learn all. And that as soon as you surrender to Oh, my gosh, and then get the help, where you need it, when you desire it.”
Mostafa Hosseini 22:55
Oh, yeah, that’s surrendering pieces. It’s a big one, to surrender and, and do that. So let’s go back to what we we kind of drifted a little bit but I think rightly so.
What are some of the obstacles and or internal blockages that people have about their personal and professional lives?
Putting it together like you mentioned somebody saying, that’s impossible? Is there any other fears, doubt internal blockages about this whole piece that you work on?
Julianne O’Connor 23:25
There’s so many, right? I think this is a constant process for people because we have been taught things. There have been certain times in our lives where we know that our brain development was affected by an instance in our life when we were five, or when we were eight, or whatever. We start to believe we develop these belief systems, right? Where we believe that you have to work hard. You have to know, money doesn’t grow on trees. We hear all these things that we’ve heard from our parents.
I do think that there’s a lot of damage done, so to speak, that creates these obstacles that make us believe that, you know, one thing begets the other. I think the key is really being so crystal clear with your values, what really matters to you. It may be that you resigned to believing you have to work hard, that may be your thing, and that’s okay, too.
I think we have to have some grace. But at the end of the day, once you’re clear on your values, you can meet certain levels of whatever that is for you that’s going to feel right, it’s going to feel good. If it’s not right, then you might want to do some work around what is that that’s blocking you because there are things that block us and prevent us you know. We have beliefs that there’s a ceiling of how much money you can make or whatever.
We all have them like nobody’s kind of immune to this right? So I think it’s getting clear on what that is and then looking for people like you looking for mentors looking for people who can help us that you know to use proven ways to kind of get through that?
Mostafa Hosseini 25:02
Absolutely. What if someone is trying to figure out these pieces of connecting the personal and professional life, and they’re having a difficulty. They’re just like, either my family’s hurting, or my work is hurting. I’m just like juggling between the true or they just did their internal doubt or blockage is stopping them from making that happening.
What kind of mindset do they need to get started with bridging the gap?
Julieanne O’Connor 25:37
Okay, so I don’t know if I can label them what that mindset is, but I can tell you that one of the greatest gifts that I ever gave myself was getting a coach. And the reality is like if you can join a mastermind, if you can get a coach, you can get a mentor, somebody who can identify with where you’re at, and they’ve been there, but they’ve crossed the road, and they’ve gotten to the next step. I really believe that can help with the mindset piece on so many levels.
There’s so many methods, right? There’s hypnotherapy, there’s coaching, there’s just a ton of different resources truthfully, that have been proven time and time again, no matter what you’ve been through in your life. I can tell you, we’ve all been through things. We all have stories, they’re all over the map, and how every individual deals with it is so different.
But the question is, why is this person so successful when they’ve been through what sounds like the wringer you know, like they’ve been through the worst case scenario? What are they doing, that allows them to thrive? You want to find out those people in your area where you need to grow, I think and then find mentors there, because that’s been my gift to myself, truthfully.
Mostafa Hosseini 26:44
So what does the coach then do that I’m not able to do?
Julieanne O’Connor 26:49
Yes. So. So it’s really kind of a reflection, right? It’s, it’s reflecting back to you in, you know, the mirror so to speak, so that you can see what you don’t see. And I think the biggest problem is we think we know, like what we talked about earlier, right? We think we know that. Okay, we might even identify with what our obstacle is. But we don’t actually have the answer on how to get past it. If we haven’t gotten past it. Or we’re not being held accountable for doing that thing that we need to do that we know we need to do.
So one or the other. It’s either accountability or the understanding of what the options are for you. And so I think I mean, I hope that is helpful. But I think that’s the most straightforward thing, I can’t do it by myself, I can tell you that I’m not going to grow on my own. I have to have people in my world. So
Mostafa Hosseini 27:40
Oh, yeah. I mean, the analogy that I use, as long as as long as I’m in my own picture, I cannot see the picture that I’m in. Look at me, and be like Mostafa, you’re doing this wrong. I actually saw you doing a few wrong things during your workshop, because I was attending your workshop, because I saw how you were running the show. And here are a few things that you can improve on. By the way, if you have any of that, please.
Julieanne O’Connor 28:04
Ah, great. So that’s the other thing is the humility and you bring this to the table on a completely different level. The humility to be okay with really not having the answers is the key. I really feel like in this world, we go around comparing ourselves looking at other entrepreneurs are doing and thinking, oh my god, they have so much success, but what we don’t see is where they have neglected their family or where they have neglected something else in their life that was important to them.
It’s not a comparison game. It’s more a question of what really matters for you personally, and having the humility to ask for help and the humility to be able to say, “Hey, I’m messed up, man.” I’ll tell you personally, that during 2020, I was teaching about burnout, and I fully burned out. Like I completely burned out and once I decided to do something about I recognize the signs I was well aware.
But it wasn’t until I said “Okay, muster it up, like you got to do something about it, do what you teach.” It wasn’t until I sat down and did it that I created change. Now I have a different experience that I can share when I teach. But the reality is I didn’t need to go there like I didn’t need the burnout because I neglected myself during that process and sometimes we’re just too tired to do it, you have, but doing it sets you free.
Mostafa Hosseini 29:32
Oh and this in this day and age where we’ve been sitting in front of our computers on at home for like a year now. And we all have our zoom bots and and our bodies are all like, slowly I don’t feel as healthy. Now as I was a year ago, and I’m a healthy guy. I mean when you sit around for a year that’s not good on your on us mentally and physically. burnout is a huge issue.
Julieanne O’Connor 30:03
Yeah, it’s horrible. You know, people take for granted what burnout means. But you know, it’s a medical condition they’ve turned it now. The reality is that you’re burning out by all these signs. You’re getting depressed, you don’t want to get out of bed. You don’t want to turn on your computer and work another day. Right? So there’s all the science, that’s the easy part.
But the reality is, with the burnout piece is it’s all preventable. It’s really not complicated. It’s super easy to overcome. But the society that we’re living in with everything that’s happened, we do need community so desperately, I think that it’s a matter of taking a step. It’s a matter of connecting with somebody, it’s a matter of getting up and saying, “Hey, scheduling at 930, I’m going to do my workout. And if I do it on Zoom, fine, but I’m going to be not sitting in a chair when I do my workout.”
The humility to be okay with really not having the answers is the key.
Mostafa Hosseini 30:57
Exactly. Look, can you touch on here’s what I just come to realization, the work life balance right now is at home. I’m sure that happens to you. It happens to me where my kid just literally walks into you during an interview. Right? So the work life is at home. It has been at home for about a year now and doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.
What are some of your tips for this work life balance for the people that are working from home than they have to handle themselves handle their family and their work?
You got to in tips and your toolbox? Let’s get into your toolbox.
Julieanne O’Connor 31:43
Yes well, one of my highest values is my family. So I never want to shush my kids or send my kids away. This is like something that’s really important. So if I have blocked off time, and like let’s say, right now I’m doing an interview, I make it crystal clear to my family, I have to have quiet time for this 30 minutes, or whatever the case might be, and can you go for a walk or whatever it is that needs to happen. When they check back in with me, I pour into them again, right.
But in addition to that, sometimes the time is like we’re stretched, I’ve got to spend 10 hours today or something. There are times where you have to block it right. So I think and I learned this actually writing my first book, my little girl would come into the office and at first I would always put my book on hold and I pick her up and I’d honor her. Then over time, I was getting close to my timelines that I needed to meet for the publisher. As it got closer, I was like, “Oh, just a minute, honey, just a minute, honey.” Pretty soon, I’m like, I just need to concentrate. Just go do something else here, go play, go eat candy, you know, like it was for and then I went, “Oh my gosh, I’m doing this to leave a legacy for my kid. I’m not going to do that.”
I made a commitment to work through the middle of the night and take my kid in still every day. I was like, “Okay, come here, honey, come in.” So I made a sacrifice that I will never regret. That was the greatest gift of my life, which is that I worked intense hours to accomplish my book completion on time. I never put my kid on hold. It was really grueling and really hard and I was super tired. But there is nothing that I’ve ever felt better about. Because the very thing that I was doing it for was right there. If God forbid something changed, right.
I think in our homes, it can be hard. But when you’re clear on your values, you do find a way and one of my things that I do is if I need to put my kids to be busy, I’ll hire a babysitter. Not everybody can do that. For me personally, though, I earned money to have a chunk of money to hire somebody who can play with them and give them good quality time. I don’t have to always put them on a TV or whatever the case might be. So part of my my budget is earmarked for accomplishing the things I need to do within my home right now. So I hope that’s helpful.
Mostafa Hosseini 34:03
Absolutely. So what do you think of the idea of dedicating say, an hour a day to play with your kids?
Julieanne O Connor 34:12
Oh, I love this. Okay, so I’ll share a share the story that I just heard. So they were doing an experiment with abusive parents and and it’s gonna be extreme sounding. But this will give you an idea of how important that is to me. They were trying to rehabilitate abusive parents. So they made them take five minutes, just five minutes every day, and do child driven play, which meant five minutes where your kid is in charge, and they had to really help these parents to let go and just let the kids be totally in charge.
Every time you know, it’s incredible because we don’t realize how much control everything has parents, right? Yeah, but the second they started doing that they rehabilitated this massive percentage of parents who never abused their kids again because they started to see that their kids were connecting with their own agenda, you know, like they didn’t have, it wasn’t what the parents thought.
It’s incredible not only because you set aside that time, but because you start to see that your kids are not coming from where you’re coming from. When you take an hour, and you truly like hold the space for them, and you know, you’re not there to tell them what to do, but you’re there to just be just be with them.
Let it be imperfect, let it be messy. If it needs to them let them go their way. Like whatever it is, whatever age they are, it’s one of the most powerful things in my opinion that you can do. Daily, weekly, whenever you can do like set it aside, make it a priority.
Mostafa Hosseini 35:42
That’s one thing I do to my kid, I have a one year old and a five year old. The five year old constantly wants me to play with him. So he shows up, like on a regular basis, and I attend to him as much as I can. But sometimes when I can’t, I tell him, “Honey, I’m sorry, I cannot play with you right now. But when I’m done, I will play with you and he understands that.”
Then it becomes a matter of pulling myself together and coming up with the energy to actually play with him when I’m done with work or whatever I do, which I will handle it.
But when I tell him that I’m sorry, this has not happened, I give him the I don’t waste his time. I say this is not happening right now. But I will come to you when I’m done. Usually it works out good.
Julieanne O’Connor 36:31
You know, I mean, kids are in the moment, right? So sometimes it’s hard. The younger they are, the less they may understand it, and they don’t have concept of time. But if you continue to follow through, they will start to see that your words mean that there’s some reward at the end of it. The mistake is when people promise things and they don’t follow through. That’s the biggest thing. And, you know, we learn as I’m guilty of that. Yeah, but so with your own child, you’ve banked a certain amount of trust.
It’s different, but like in foster care, you can’t mess it up. If you’re going to Disneyland, you don’t tell them you’re going to Disneyland, because if something happens, and it changes, they will never trust you. But if you show up and you’re in the parking lot, then you can say, we’re going to Disneyland, but not till you’re in the parking lot. Because you can’t bring it. Yeah, that’s a good rule to practice with your birth children. Because, you know, the the less that you disappoint them, the more they will trust you.
Mostafa Hosseini 37:31
I have a perfect example because my kid loves McDonald’s and a Happy Meal. Right? That one time we went out and we didn’t have access to McDonald’s, we ended up going out and having a shawarma or some other thing. Then he’s like, but you said McDonald’s, I’m like, I’m sorry. There’s no McDonald’s around. So that’s a good point. I’m gonna tell him next time that we’re going to McDonald’s when I’m in the parking lot.
Julieanne O’Connor 37:54
Yeah, don’t say where are you? You can say “Hey, I have something special planned. But don’t say what until you’re there.” I have to be that way with all of my children. I have to try to make that a habit. My husband did that with me too.
Mostafa Hosseini 38:10
Yeah. So Julianne, this has been an amazing conversation and it seems like he could go on for hours and hours but we do have to kind of start wrapping up, so where can people find out about you?
Julieanne O’Connor 38:26
Sure. So they can visit my website which is spellingitout, which is short for my book titled Spelling It Out For Your Man, Spelling It Out For Your Career, but again, spellingitout.com
Mostafa Hosseini 38:43
Yep. So you can get reach out to her spellingitout.com/contact. There you can secure a 15 minute complimentary power coaching session with her. Yes, I think to get the composition goal going and start tapping into her wisdom. Julianne, what are some of your top favorite books that have made a massive impact on your life?
Julieanne O’Connor 39:17
I love that question. Because I love when other people give me titles. But I would say some of the classics. My dad had me reading, Think and Grow Rich and How to Win Friends and Influence People, when I was like eight years old, and I didn’t really get it till I was older. But those are just classic, still valid, incredible books. Then there’s one that I read recently and it’s called Big Magic or something like that.
Oh my gosh, now you asked me and I would have to look it up but there’s some others that I read more recently, a lot of really good ones and all of the ones that that I think you’ve recommended you know from good to great. And, you know, all of those, I like the business books as you can see. But back to the psychology.
Mostafa Hosseini 40:08
Got it. Thank you. Those are amazing books I’ve read, Think and Grow Rich and Win Friends and Influence People. Both are books that you have to actually read multiple times. Right? So if you had ad, like a Facebook ad, or a Google ad that everyone on earth could see, what would your message be?
Julieanne O’Connor 40:34
Ah, my gosh, you know what it would be live up to your down another words, we strive to hit these peaks. We forget that it’s okay to have these down moments. And it’s everything in between that creates life.
Mostafa Hosseini 40:53
Love it. “Live up to your down.” It’s like, to me, when I experience down times are a necessity. It’s part of the process. It has to be there. With some social conditioning that we’ve had, we try to avoid the down times instead of embracing them.
Live up to your down. In other words, we strive to hit these peaks. We forget that it's okay to have these down moments. And it's everything in between that creates life.
Julieanne O’Connor 41:18
I agree. It’s really lonely if you cannot share your story. We’ve all had some bad moments, some bad days, and honestly, you know, my kid, she’ll ask me, tell me a mistake you made like, anytime she’s having a rough day, “Mom, tell me another mistake you made?” Why does she asked me that? Because it makes me relatable. She remembers that it’s okay to be totally flawed and fully imperfect. And that is life, you know, and it makes us better people. We are more generous to help others if we can live up to and embrace our junk as much as we do. Brag about our accomplishments, which mean nothing to most people.
Mostafa Hosseini 42:01
Absolutely. I love how you talked about teaching your kid about that, like being vulnerable? Opening up so you could teach them that. Love it. Is there anything else that you’d like to add that we haven’t talked about?
Julieanne O’Connor 42:21
No, I can’t think of anything else. Honestly, it’s been a lot of fun. I just I really love human beings. And I hope that we can continue to be kinder to one another and really embrace each other because then we can’t go it alone. We need each other and all of us depend on one another.
Mostafa Hosseini 42:41
Absolutely, it is a lot easier when we tap into other people’s wisdom and get help and trying to figure it out on our own, takes at least 10 times as much time and it costs at least 10 times as much more. So why go through that route? It’s lonely, it is challenging it it’s costly. So tapping to other people’s was done. There’s a lot of wisdom around so do that people if you’re watching or listening, it’s a lot easier to go that route. So again, if you want to tap into Julieanne O’Connor’s wisdom and go into her website, it is spellingitout.com/contact. Book time with her, have a conversation with her and see where that goes. If you go there tell him that Mostafa referred me to you.
Julieanne O’Connor 43:32
Perfect. I love it.
Mostafa Hosseini 43:34
Alright, thank you for joining me, Julieanne, it was a pleasure.
Julieanne O’Connor 43:41
Thank you so much.
Mostafa Hosseini 43:43
Thank you. Gang, for those of you who are watching or listening again, for you to enter draw for the gifts that we give away, you like, subscribe, and comment or ask questions on whichever channel you’re watching, whether you’re listening to the podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts, rate the show, give us a thumbs up and or ask a question and we’ll get back to and you can follow the show obviously on your favorite platform. Thank you for joining us. My name is Mostafa Hosseini, your host for the show and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
- Complimentary Coaching Session – Gift from Julieanne O’ Connor
- Spelling It Out For Your Man: Insider Secrets to Sex, Love and Attraction by Julieanne O’Connor
- Spelling It Out For Your Career by Julieanne O’Connor
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Big Magic : Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
- The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
- Simple Marketing Formula
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