233 | How to Find Work Life Harmony by Throwing Out Work Life Balance

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Welcome back to the Show Chef.

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Have you ever tried to balance your work and life like a scale?

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Always teetering, adjusting, hoping it won't tip.

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Ever feel guilty for working too much or not working enough?

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Do you wonder if there's a better way to find peace, purpose, and performance

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in both your kitchen and your life?

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Well, you're not alone.

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And today we're unpacking the difference between chasing

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balance and cultivating harmony.

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We'll get into all of that and more right after this message.

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Welcome to Chef Life Radio, the podcast dedicated to helping chefs and culinary

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leaders take control of their kitchens, build resilient teams, and create

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a thriving career in hospitality.

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I'm Chef Adam Lamb, your host, leadership coach, and industry veteran.

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If you're tired of high turnover, I. Burnout and the

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daily grind, you're not alone.

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This podcast is here to give you the real strategies, insights, and tools you

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need to lead with confidence, build a culture of excellence and craft a kitchen

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that works for you, not against you.

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Because the best kitchens don't just survive, they thrive.

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Hit that subscribe button and let's get started.

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Work-life balance implies equal distribution in a constant juggling

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act where time is measured and divided like ingredients on a scale.

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Always needing to be exact.

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It creates an illusion that success in both personal and professional

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life requires strict 50 50 alignment.

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This mindset leaves many chefs feeling inadequate and guilty, believing they

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must constantly choose between work and life, and rarely feeling like

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they're succeeding at either work life harmony, on the other hand, acknowledges

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the unique rhythms of culinary life.

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It's not about striving for evenness, but for alignment.

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Making sure that the time and energy you invest.

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Wherever you are reflects your values and purpose.

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Harmony lets you blend your passion for cooking with your personal life in

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a way that feels more fluid and human.

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It allows for imperfection.

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It gives you permission to show up fully even if your hours aren't balanced.

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It's about presence, not perfection.

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Chasing balance can lead to burnout from unrealistic expectations while cultivating

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harmony builds resilience, clarity, and flow in both your kitchen and your life.

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Harmony is about integration, creating a rhythm that works for your

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values, goals, and season of life.

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The myth of a perfect balance, no day in a chef's life is evenly split.

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Harmony allows for dynamic flow.

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It's about being fully present wherever you are.

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The danger of chasing balance is burnout from unrealistic expectations.

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Are you trying to keep the scales even, or are you creating a life

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that actually works for you?

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I am sitting on the beach in a longboat key Florida.

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My girls are playing in the surf.

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My wife is next to me sitting in her sun chair, and I am being dogged by my phone.

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It's blowing up because I'm getting text message after text

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message from the guys back at work.

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At one point, my wife looks over at me, gives me that side eye, and then

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all of a sudden starts packing up and I'm like, what are you doing?

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She looks at me and she says, if this is what it's gonna be like

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now, we might as well go home.

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And I felt about this big because I couldn't create a boundary between

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my personal time and my professional time, and that really stung.

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What made it worse is I let her pack us up and I drove that entire

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three hour drive in complete.

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Silence.

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Knowing that I had failed the culinary industry doesn't

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lend itself to a nine to five.

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Schedule it making traditional work life balance feel out of reach.

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For many chefs, the idea of working eight hours and then clocking

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out to enjoy a calm, predictable, personal life is unrealistic.

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Ideally.

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Chaos, chaos, precision, artistry, and adrenaline, and none of that fits

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neatly into a corporate style calendar.

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I. This is why the pressure to achieve balance can feel like a setup for failure.

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It's not just the hours, it's the emotional toll, the physical

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demands, and the reality that our passion is also our profession.

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The traditional work-life balance model doesn't account for the fact that

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many of us choose this life because we love it, even when it's hard.

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But that doesn't mean we have to sacrifice everything else.

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Harmony invites us to reimagine success.

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Not as escaping work, but integrating our work and life in ways that

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feel aligned and sustainable.

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It asks not How do I work less, but how do I make my work

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and life support each other?

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Harmony gives permission for some days to be work heavy and

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others to be deeply restorative.

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It replaces guilt with grace, and it starts by letting go of what doesn't fit

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your reality and designing what does.

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Harmony is possible even in this high pressure world.

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Long hours split shifts, emotional labor, how chef life defines traditional

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culture, why flexibility and boundaries matter more than hours worked and

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redefining what success looks like.

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It's not about clocking out at 5:00 PM it's about finding alignment.

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Balance is about hours.

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Harmony is about energy.

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Now that my children are adults, I carry a certain amount of guilt for

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all those times that I wasn't present.

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You know, my kids didn't care about whether or not I was a corporate

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chef or an executive chef, or whether I had had this event coming up

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or that event coming up for them.

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It was about time spent with them.

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I. And I gotta say, just being there wasn't enough.

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There were plenty of Sundays where I was waking up, groggy, hungover, and just

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hating life and being there wasn't enough.

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I needed to be present to them.

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And that's the magic trick I had to learn because I recognized that

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there was a whole scope of things that were happening around me that

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I was completely oblivious to.

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So whether I was at work or I was at home, in both instances, I needed

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to be actually present to what was going on so that I could be a full

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participant even if there was no balance.

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And after struggling and failing or feeling like I was a failure came upon

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this idea of harmony, what would it look like if I was completely upfront

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and honest about what this week?

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This month, this quarter was gonna require from me in order to be successful at work

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so that I could also be a success at home, because that meant that if everybody was

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clear and the boundaries were set when I was there, I was fully there ultimately.

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The price I paid was one of guilt and shame, and let's be honest, that's a great

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story to keep me from actually doing what I need to do and be present where I'm at.

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Because as long as I'm guilty of feeling shame, I'm actually not

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present to what is because I'm actually living in the past in that moment.

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So I had to figure out a way to release that.

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So that I could actually be present in the present, and that meant forgetting about

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this whole idea about work life balance.

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You don't need to split your life evenly to feel whole Harmony comes from aligning

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your choices with your values and recognizing that a fulfilling life doesn't

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require rigid balance, but intentional integration harmony means creating a

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flow where your work supports your life.

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And your life fuels your work.

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Instead of constantly switching hats, you're weaving a fabric or

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each thread, chef, parent, partner, friend, creative adds to the

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same story, not competes with it.

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The key to achieving harmony lies in self-awareness.

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You have to know what matters most to you so you can make decisions to support those

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values instead of draining your energy.

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When you're out of harmony, it shows up as frustration, guilt, or disconnection.

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But when you're in sync, you feel purposeful, energized, and more

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grounded no matter how busy life gets.

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And I talked earlier about at that particular point in your life,

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almost every decade from job to job, your core values, the things

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that matter to you will shift.

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And so where you might think that work is the most important thing right now,

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that might not always be the case.

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And to be self-aware enough to know when that shift happens.

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And then to design your life around that, which matters most to you.

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In an upscale retirement community that I worked at, I promoted the

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sous-chef to executive chef, and after about six months of mentoring and

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coaching, he came to me one day and said, I'd like to have my old job back.

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I said, what do you mean, man?

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Like you're the executive chef now?

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He said, yeah, I, I, I don't want the job.

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I, I want my sous chef job back.

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And I thought for a moment and couldn't quite understand like

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why he was asking me that.

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So I said, well, why?

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He said, my kids are five and seven.

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I want to be there to tuck them in at night.

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They might not always want me to tuck them into bed, but right

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now it's important to them.

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So it's important to me.

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And I thought to myself, damn, now there's someone who understands his

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core values and if I'm being honest, made me feel a little bit guilty

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that I didn't make that same decision when my kids were five and seven.

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So I did what he asked and the executive chef.

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Who was underperforming became a sous chef who was a superstar.

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Harmony is a daily practice, not a destination.

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It's about building a lifestyle that's resilient, responsive, and

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reflective of who you truly are, not who the industry says you should be.

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Consider these three elements of work, life harmony.

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First thing is identify your core values.

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Let them guide your time and energy.

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Every single coaching client I have, we start with the same process

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around identifying your core values.

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Because without those, you are completely adrift and you're going

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from job to job, moment to moment without anything really guiding you.

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Forward practicing presence.

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Be fully in the kitchen at work, fully with your people at home,

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and designing the alliance.

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It's a phrase I got from friend Kristen Marvin, who's an incredible leadership

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coach, and she talks about designing the alliance with her coaching clients.

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But I'll bet you any amount of money that she sat down and designed the alliance

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between her and her husband as well.

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And the first thing she wanted to fit in there were the things that were

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most important to her, her self-care, her exercise, her mental wellness.

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So once you put those big rocks in the jar, then you can fill up

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that jar with other smaller rocks.

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Designing the routines and rituals that create margin and protect energy.

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So these are your action steps for this episode.

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Define what harmony looks like for you, not someone else's version of success.

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The easiest way to do that is to get a fresh piece of paper and write out

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your perfect day, your ideal day, from the moment you wake up to the

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moment you go to bed, because you're gonna end up focusing on those things

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that are most important to you.

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That's gonna give you a key on designing your life, not what you think

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is currently possible, but let your imagination run wild, 'cause that is

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going to give you your direction forward.

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Audit your week.

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Where are you spending your energy?

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And does it align with what matters most to you?

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Write it out like a schedule, like where you're spending your time doing what.

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This is also gonna give you some insight into what you are taking on that can

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be easily offloaded to somebody else.

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This is gonna be working that delegation muscle.

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You wanna be in your A game, you wanna delegate your B game and your C game to

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others whose a game are those things?

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And this week create one ritual.

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To mark the transition between work and home, I actually created a audio

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meditation that I call a midday reset because I recognize that taking

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the chef home was not a good thing.

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As a matter of fact, my wife Jennifer said to me one day, you know, as don't work

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for you, and I had to pull myself back.

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Like, what?

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Like you're talking to me like a chef because I didn't create a

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boundary between work and going home.

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I created this audio meditation, which you can get.

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The link is in the show notes for free.

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If it serves you, I want you to have it because it's important to create this

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space so that you can context switch successfully, finish up work, and

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then be the person you want to be at.

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Home.

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Harmony isn't about balance, it's about intention.

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It's not about having equal time.

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It's about being in alignment.

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If you've been chasing balance and wondering why you feel like you're falling

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short, maybe it's time for a new paradigm.

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Harmony offers freedom, flexibility, and flow.

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It allows you to be the best version of yourself, both behind the line and beyond

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it, 1% better than you were yesterday.

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Remember, this industry will take everything you give it if you

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don't intentionally carve out a version of life that works for you.

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You'll end up running on empty, burned out, bitter, and

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wondering what it's all for.

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Harmony doesn't happen by accident.

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It's built choice by choice moment by moment.

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And it's not about perfection.

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It's about being present.

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It's about knowing what matters and letting that guide the way

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you show up in your kitchen, at your table and in your own mind.

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So here's the question.

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What would your life look like if it wasn't split down the middle,

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but woven together with intention?

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What would it feel like to be in harmony?

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And what's one small change you can make today to move in that direction?

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Until next time, stay tall and frosty.

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And don't forget the lead with a heart.

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That's a wrap for today's episode of Chef Life Radio.

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If this resonated with you, do me a favor, subscribe, share, and leave a review.

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Your feedback helps us reach more culinary leaders like you who are ready

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to take their kitchens to the next level.

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Want more connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or join our Chef

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Life Radio community for exclusive insights and leadership tools.

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Remember, leadership isn't about perfection.

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It's about progress.

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So take what you've learned today and apply it in your kitchen,

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your team, and your life.

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Chef Life Radio is more than just a podcast.

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It's a movement.

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The focus is no longer just on career survival, but on transforming leadership,

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creating sustainability, and ensuring chefs can build kitchens that thrive.

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Remember the secret ingredient to culinary success.

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Isn't just in the food, it's in the leadership.

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Keep learning, keep growing, and as always, lead with the heart.

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See you next time.