How do I manage stress as a dad?

I couldn't die. I couldn't respond to him. I had nothing in like I. I just started to well up, my eyes started to well up. He's like you're not good, are you? I'm like no, he's like there's nothing anatomical about what's happening, nothing like what you are experiencing right now stress related, what. What is going on? What are you trying to balance? So I just like to my doctor, who's a medical doctor, not a psychologist and so I just like here's everything that's happening. He's like, okay, here's what's going to happen, I'm going to put you out, I'm putting you out on medical leave. I know I'm not going to give you the letter to give to your employer because you won't give it to them. That's who you are. I'm going to shut things down. And he said I'm a doctor and I'm going to prescribe you something, because that's what we do. My doctor looked at me.

Welcome back to the 2% Solution Podcast, where we dive deep into strategies for achieving not just success, but the filmings in every area of your life. I'm your host, Dai Manuel, and today we're talking a topic that's close to my heart and, I bet, on the minds of many of you the myth of work-life balance and why we should be seeking work-life harmony instead. You've heard it all before right, you need to balance your work and your life to be happy. I don't know where that voice came from, but you know it's that voice that sometimes is inside our head. But here's the thing, and I'm going to say it straight work-life balance is BS. Yeah, you heard me right, and over the next few minutes I'll share why that is and what we should be aiming for instead. Buckle up and let's get in here. Let's start with the myth of work-life balance. Work-life balance it sounds ideal.

But as we've chased this balance, we've seen spikes in stress and burden. According to a recent study, about 66% of employees in the United States report insufficient work-life balance, as two-thirds of the workforce feeling like they're falling short. Now let's talk about work-life harmony. Imagine life as a symptom. Each part of your life is an instrument contributing to the overall melody. Sometimes the work trombone plays louder and other times the family violin takes the lead, but together they create a harmony that's uniquely yours. Life harmony recognizes that there's a time and a place for everything. It's not about dividing your time equally, but about finding a rhythm that suits your current situation, your goals and your responsibilities. It's fluid, flexible, dynamic, but, most importantly, it's also realistic. So how do we achieve this harmony?

I made a decision to put my family and personal health ahead of my career. Over time, as I committed to daily physical exercise, I found it that my health improved and my stress decreased. I spent focused time with my wife and daughters every single day, no matter what else I was doing. They came first, and you know what? My career advanced. I found I was even more productive at work because I knew that I had to maximize my time on the job. My mindset has shifted full 180 degrees and I now cherish time with family and friends along with my daily ritual of physical exercise. One of the first things I did to get back on the positivity train was giving up alcohol. I had started to use booze to calm myself.

Right, there's only so much I can pour in and so much energy behind that and so much time. But one thing I did take away from my dad over the years was I set by so many deathbeds. People reached out over the years. I listened to so many people lament the important things in life. There's actually a nurse Bonyware, five Regrets of the Dine. Nurse who wrote about it. Yeah, bonyware. Yeah, okay, five Regrets of the Dine. Yeah, I mentioned on previous episodes, my key notes. I talked about it quite frequently because I just it was one of the most impactful books I think I've ever read. To be honest with you, it's up there with, like there's a couple other books, like Bitter Frankles books and a couple other, but I mean that was so impactful. So please, yeah, stand on that, because I think this is great. I lived in this with my dad being a preacher and my dad was a picturesque minister.

As time went on, I kept trying to balance the priorities of my life, striving to attain perfection, but I was constantly disappointed in myself. I was never able to truly balance it all. When I let one part of my life become the shining star, all other aspects of my life would dim in comparison. If I focused on family, my career suffered. When I turned my energies towards my career, in particular when I was building my company, my family felt it, and so did my health. I just never seemed to have enough to make everything work. Do you know that feeling? Like many people, I found happy distraction in activities that didn't propel me forward in life Pub nights, boys trips, nights out with my colleagues and long days on the golf course. I kept telling myself that tomorrow would be the day to reset and get everything in order. Tomorrow is the day to start my new habits.

There's a lot of room for improvement Now. Balancing kids, jobs, health. I know it sounds like a juggling act, or, as I say, the juggle With the struggle of life. Right, or the struggle with the juggle of life. You know what I mean. It's about prioritization and time Management or, more appropriately, it's actually commitment management. I know when we try to manage time, it's like this isn't tangible. We can't really grab hold of it, mold it with our hands. I mean, we can conceptualize it, but the thing that we can do that make it more tangible is how do we commit our blocks of time every day, and so if you manage how you're committing to do that thing or share that energy Well, you're gonna find it's much more realistic when it comes to looking your commitments on a calendar, as an example, because you only got so much inventory, you only got so much time in a day.

If you find that old unresolved issues are bubbling to the surface, it will undoubtedly help to talk them out. So confide in a trusted loved one or seek the help of a professional therapist. 4. Do what makes you happy. One of the best ways to bust stress is to live in the moment and to do the things you enjoy most Play with your kids, go for a long walk, read a book or listen to uplifting music. By making these life-enhancing activities a priority, you are telling yourself that your feelings matter. It's kind of like giving yourself a big hug. 5. Adopt a healthy lifestyle. Unhealthy lifestyles are hard on the body and mind and will inevitably exasperate your stress levels. Strive instead to maximize your energy levels in every way. Ditch the junk food, caffeine and sugar and go for fresh, home-cooked meals and snacks.

Energy now, maintenance later. Run that for a decade and later arrives. That is the fatigue. It is the interest payment on ten years of borrowed energy. Gallup's most recent global workplace data puts 40 percent of employees experiencing a lot of stress on any given day, with only 20 percent engaged in their work. Those two numbers together describe a very specific exhaustion: high activation, low meaning. It is the most draining combination there is, and it is the water most of the men I coach have been swimming in since their early thirties. Nobody arrives at a coaching call saying they have chronic autonomic overactivation. They arrive with a pile of separate small complaints they have never connected. Not needing the bathroom.

The #DadBodyProject. As a dad, husband, brother, friend and community leader, I know all too well how challenging it can be to try to fit it all in. As men, we're often pulled by careers, family, community, and our own dreams and ambitions. That's life. And it's beautiful. And yet. We often have a tendency to put our health and wellbeing, our self-care, on the back-burner of life. Not just the physical, but the emotional, psychological, and spiritual parts that make us who we are. We focus much of our energy on the external world, helping others before helping ourselves, becoming a martyr, sacrificing ourselves and in the process becoming a fraction of what we set out to be. In our 20's we were headstrong and had a metabolism to match. We could get away with a lot.

Most men who tell me they are exhausted are not sleep deprived. They are running a stress response that never gets switched off, and the body has quietly downgraded them to save power. FIG. 01 The part nobody photographs. I have had this conversation with more men than I can count. It usually arrives about ten minutes into a first call, in roughly the same words. I'm not unhealthy. I'm just tired. All the time. Then comes the list of things they have already tried. Going to bed earlier. Cutting coffee after noon. A sleep tracker. A blood panel their doctor called unremarkable. Sometimes a second panel, from a private clinic, because the first one felt like it missed something. Here is what I have learned from twenty years on my side of that call. Most of these men are not sleep deprived in the way they think.

In June 2019 I published a post looking for four dads over 40 to beta-test an idea. Seven years later that idea is the whole of my working life. This is the full version: where it came from, what it actually involves, and the promises it refuses to make. FIG. 01 The work is small and repeated. That is the whole trick. Every man in this work arrived the same way. Successful at his job, good at being a dad, present at the things that matter, and quietly falling apart in the one area nobody could see from the outside. He had usually tried to fix it a few times. A gym membership in January. A diet that lasted until the first work trip. A burst of running that ended when his knee or his calendar gave out. Each attempt confirmed the same story: I know what to do, I just cannot make it stick. That story is wrong, and the DadBody project exists to prove it. He does not lack knowledge.