Episode Details

This week's episode takes a totally different format as it's a discussion rather than an interview.

I recorded this episode with our spiritual guru, Damien Price, for another podcast called The Universal Man, a Not-For-Profit organisation dedicated to helping men operating at their best in the modern world.

You can connect with Damien on LinkedIn.

He's also been on the podcast before; check out episode 31.

Key Quotes from discussion with Damien Price

What is balance?

• When we are out of balance, there's a sense that you're just going around, you're spinning, you're on a treadmill. You feel a sense that you've got no particular power, and you're just rushing, rushing, rushing, go, go, go. You're out of balance.

Aligning balance to your life vision and life chapters

• We've got to look at the particular context of where we are in life; it's our vision, it's where we are at this point in time. What chapter of our lives we're in.
• There is a famous story where a university professor gets out a large jar. He puts in three or four relatively large rocks and says to the class, "Is the jar full?" And the class says, "Yes." Then from under the bench, he pulls out a container of fairly large pebbles. He pours that in, shakes it up, pours more in, and again, "Is it full?" They all say, "Yes." Then he goes under the counter, pulls out a container of very fine sand, pours it in, shakes it, pours more in. "Is it full?" And they're all very, very quiet. Then finally, he goes under the bench and pulls out a pitcher of water, pours that in and it fills the gaps.
• Therefore, balance is about the different stages of your life ie. the chapter of your life. What are your particular rocks and the pebbles at that point?

The role of core values

• You don't want to be so busy in life, that it's impossible to have any flexibility.
• So balance comes when you become aware of the particular chapter you're in, and then you work out your rocks, your core values, your core tasks, who you want to be, or what you want to do. You're deliberate, and you name them all and you plan around them.

Building your life scoreboard and defining achievable success

• A life scoreboard has a list of all the most important things to you in life. This might be a partner, your family, your wider family, mates, your career, any volunteering contribution to the greater good, health, fitness, finances, hobbies, travel, whatever's most important to you.
• Give yourself a bit of a score on each and every one of those, to tell you how you're currently going in each of them. And that gives you a sense of whether you're spending your time right, given what's most important to you right now.
• When you are clear in your planning and you know your achievable outcomes, you deliberately plan them, and they get energy. All of a sudden, you're getting up at 5am for that run or for the gym session or for the work, you've got into a pattern of it, you've got a discipline wrapped around it. You are ticking off a rock within your life. You've got a particular sense of balance then.

Beating guilt of not doing certain things

• If you're in one place and feeling like you need to be somewhere else, that's when the guilt comes in.
• If you have a partner, it has to be negotiated and ag