Hey y'all. Welcome back to the podcast, the Kaleidoscope Podcast. Okay, so this is the big one. My business is taking a toll on my personal life. Should I continue y'all? I just want to fully acknowledge that there are hundreds of thousands, millions of people that are probably going through this. Whether or not you're a retreat leader, I am there so often. I've had the hypertension emergency where I thought I was going to be on blood pressure medication forever because that's what they told me. In reality, I was able to clear it up with food and exercise and a punch of karma in India. I know that not everybody has that kind of mindset or ability or means, but there is a way to do it naturally. Specifically with hypertension, I used to be one nineties over one 40, like I was ready to stroke out and now I'm tempered without medication for life.

But what I realized in that journey was I was literally working myself with a false sense of I had to, in order to be able to achieve or stabilize or to be in contribution to the team rather than I get to and the have to versus get to versus want to versus love to on the emotional scale of things can really make things go downhill very fast. I think this is a critical question that many entrepreneurs face. My business takes a toll on my personal life. Should I continue? Should I exit? Should I sell it? Should I shut it down?

I think the first thing to talk about in relationship to this is something that I've been learning a lot about, which is burnout and what burnout is and what it isn't, and I'm fortunate enough to have a relationship with one of my shareholders who has funded quite a bit of research through the Imperial College in London and has done some extremely high level coaching. He's invested in companies that have gone public and he has studied and has teams with him that study the psychological mental health and wellness of professionals and organizations, and so I'm able to glean a lot of knowledge from conversations with him, and one of the things that we've spoken about is burnout and what it is and what it isn't, and according to the research that he's privy to, a lot of people think that burnout is how much they're working, but what the science is starting to show us is that burnout is actually how we spend time When we're not working, how are we recuperating?

Are we present when we go out to dinner with our friends after time when we're relaxing? Are we off our phone or are we still distracted by our devices? It's not about the time that we spend working. It's how we are recuperating. How are we resting? How are we sleeping? How are we being with friends when we're not working and when we're not up to par with that, when we're distracted after work on our phones or we're drinking or we're not exercising or whatever it is that is leading to chronic burnout. There are, at least in the Western society, at least in 2024, there are immense trade-offs between business ambitions and personal health. Passion drove me to succeed. Actually, it wasn't passion that drove me to succeed in my twenties. Many of you know I was the youngest host in late night TV history on a, b, c after Jimmy Kimmel and I got there through blood, sweat and tears.

One of my most favorite articles at the time, not now that was written about me on the front page of New York Magazine, was Saville is going to get a late night talk show whether or not it kills him. That was what reporters were sensing of my 21-year-old version of myself running around New York City. Tribeca is where our offices were, and I had college on the Upper East side and I was juggling both for a couple of semesters. That is what reporters were seeing. That's what people who were documenting this fledgling rise to, whatever it is I was trying to do, they literally thought the headline was just going to get it. Whether or not it kills them, I mean, think about the energy that I had to be giving off for them to actually tune into that and write about it, and then I was proud about it.

It was a badge of honor. Look what New York magazine wrote about me. We work ourselves with a sense of pride in reality. What I had to start getting really clean and clear on is I was trying to fill the goddamn God-sized hole that was blown through me in my childhood, watching my brother die in my parents' arms, watching my mom no longer be able to be there for me and choosing to drink quite a bit until her death 20 years later from alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver, watching my dad become a shell of himself as he retreated to his single wide trailer that I grew up in, plagued with the grief of having lost a child, of having Parkinson's that was progressive and early onset. These pieces created a hole inside of me that through inquiry and through a lot of therapy and compassionate inquiry, thanks to Dr. Gabor Mate and a lot of support and a lot of friendships, I've been able to articulate it so that I could stop trying to fill the goddamn God-sized hole with success, with nonstop attention seeking. We don't live in a culture that allows us to be who it is. We are who it is. We're meant to be where we live in a culture in the west anyways, where our destiny is shaped by what we have access to.

So if I think that I'm here to impact the lives of millions of people, culture tells me that the only way to do that, at least at the time when I was in my twenties, was through a television show. So then I pursued being famous. I didn't have an option of a retreat center. I didn't recognize that I was actually trying to fill the pain that I had no idea how to deal with. Does it sound familiar? Are you able to be with the loneliness? Even if you have a family or children or coworkers or business, are you able to really be with it?

These are the things that we ought to be journeying with and questioning rather than my business is taking a toll on my personal life and my health. Should I continue? Yeah, that's an important question. That's a jump off question. That's the dive, but when you actually get in the pool and you start swimming down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 feet, you start to realize that what's fueling the show is often unknown until you excavate it. What's fueling the work is often unknown, and once you start to get familiar with it, it's time to turn up the grace and the compassion. I mean, I realized that I was trying to fill the goddamn God-sized hole for years in my twenties, but I did nothing about it. I tried to ignore it because I was like, well, if I'm doing that, then the whole thing is empty and meaningless. What happens if all of life is empty and meaningless?

And then at 32, after starting in Maa and nearly losing it because I was so out of control in trying to control everything around me, I hadn't dealt with the big question of empty and meaningless. I nearly lost everything, and much like appreciative inquiry would show in terms of focusing on what's good about somebody, my ex-business partner, who I have many good reasons to loathe back in the day, one of the things that that person provided to me was an invitation to landmark, which got me to finally see what was true about empty and meaningless, all the religious inquiry, all the spiritual inquiry, all the meditation, all the conversation couldn't get me to the depths that I was trying to get, which is that if life is empty and meaningless, then what? Because if life is empty and meaningless, why should we move forward? And unfortunately, I can't tell you why you need to discover it yourself. I'm just sharing with you the journey that I went through to realize that I had to stop trying to fill the goddamn God-sized hole that was blown through me in my childhood when I was very young, 16 years old, that all happened to me. My mom started drinking heavily. My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's. My brother died all the same year, all the same month.

The beginning steps of having a balance and really being in the inquiry though is obviously a work-life balance and boundaries. The necessity of clear boundaries between work and personal time is essential. Techniques for setting boundaries include practical steps that entrepreneurs can take. This is not just drawing lines in the sand and then enforcing it. That feels a little exertive of yourself will. It's the walls that we do that protect our mental and physical health. I've decided, I stare at my sneakers sometimes for multiple minutes in the morning, and I realize sometimes you just got to put the damn sneakers on and go for that three and a half mile walk because it will have its positive impact later on in the day, and it usually does, and then the next day, I can't walk so well mostly because I end up pushing it to 5, 6, 7 miles, whatever it is. It's also really important

And I'm constantly doing this, constantly thinking about goals and models for achieving the goals, why I want to achieve the goals, who it's in service of. Is it in service to more than just me? Will I enjoy the journey of achieving the goal? I had the goal when I was in my teens and twenties. I wanted to be the youngest host in late night TV history, and I did just that, but I had no idea the journey that it would take to achieve that, and in hindsight, I would never want to do something like that again. I now am so choosy when it comes to my goals, whether it's business or life, is this life generated? Do I want to spend my time doing this? Do I want to spend my time being in a certain area? It's been a consistent thing for me of do I want to be in Costa Rica building Imiloa? I know that sounds silly. Imiloa is successful as of now and it's in Costa Rica, so why wouldn't I want to be in Costa Rica? But I'm constantly in the inquiry and journeying with that because I have felt more fulfilled personally in other areas outside of Costa Rica, and yet there is an incredible fulfilling part of this for me in Costa Rica. This is where these conversations don't have to be set. They don't have to be rigid. It's just about being able to be in the discomfort of the inquiry, which is so much why your business is taking a toll likely on your personal life is because you aren't able yet to be in the inquiry. Are you able to be in the inquiry?

Are you able to not judge it, but just be with it, whatever it is.

I've been learning how to delegate, how to downsize my responsibilities, how to automate, but guess what? These three things don't work. If I haven't dealt with the core of what's going on, the reality is I have a hard time delegating and fully letting go because I have my identity wrapped up in my business. That's true for me right now. That's what I'm currently sorting through, thinking about, talking to people about, and I'm aware of it and I'm able to be with it, but it's a really hard reality, right? Because I have all these people that I delegate to and yet they don't feel that I fully delegate off to them because I'm still holding on. That can start to take a toll. It's not the business that's taking a toll on my personal life. It's actually my inability to get distinct and to start making separation because I feel like that there's something that there's that I'll lose in that we've got to be with it. There are

Steps for decision making that can help unwind this. It can be practical stuff like identifying goals and assessing situations, considering alternatives, evaluating risks. We also got to get into your heart. We have our head to deal with. We have our heart and we have our gut. We have to nourish all three in order to be able to be a really great decision-making machine, especially if we're at high levels or even within our own organizations. It's really important to be able to nourish all three things so that we are able to be optimized and make good, clear decisions. Otherwise, we'll get decision fatigue. That happens to me too if I'm not optimized. Using a structured framework can actually help clarify your thoughts. Journaling is very good for this, which can help in making tough choices for your business

Through issues with your personal health. Deciding whether to continue on the same path or pivot even pause or depart isn't just about financial calculations. It's about considering your happiness, your health. Are you looking at the things that you need to be looking at? Because if you're not, you can leave this job. You can quit this retreat, you can leave this partnership, whatever it is, and it will continue to follow you. Unless you look at why you feel like the business or the situation is taking a toll on your personal life. It's not enough to say it's taking a toll on my personal life. I got to get out. It's not enough. I mean, I've tried that. I've tried to cut and run. It doesn't work until I deal with the core doesn't work. You got to get underneath. You got to get underneath it. I encourage you to be in open conversation with each other in the community about this.

If you're going through it and it's taken a toll, sure, talk about it. Get current, be open, be vulnerable, but also look at what you've been willing or unwilling to look at in relationship to it. Taking a toll to why you found yourself in this place in the first place. Excuse me. Be open to other people being able to ask you about it. Keep your palms up so that you can let go what no longer serves and let through whatever's meant to be let through. This is the key to starting to deal with life, head on, dealing with what's right in front of us so that finally the pass gets put in. The password belongs.