Real Estate Investing & Work-Life Balance

Episode Title

39 - Real Estate Investing & Work-Life Balance

Episode Notes:
 
In this episode of the Life By Design podcast, hosts Jessilyn and Brian Persson discuss the intersection of real estate investing and work-life balance. They explore their personal experiences and practical strategies for achieving financial goals while maintaining a fulfilling personal life. 
 
The conversation delves into the evolving definition of work-life balance, the impact of the gig economy, the benefits of remote work, and the importance of managing household responsibilities. They also address financial pressures in real estate investing, the guilt associated with parenting and work, and the significance of setting clear expectations and intentions in both personal and professional realms.
 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Real Estate Investing and Work-Life Balance

01:01 Redefining Work-Life Balance

04:28 The Gig Economy and Flexibility

08:07 The Impact of Remote Work

15:06 Managing Household Responsibilities

21:44 Financial Pressures in Real Estate Investing

26:28 Guilt and Unrealistic Expectations

30:51 Key Takeaways and Conclusion

Transcript

Jessilyn (00:09)

Welcome to Life By Design podcast where Jessilyn and Brian Persson from Weekend Wealth Investments. Are you struggling to align your financial goals or confidently invest in real estate?

Brian (00:18)

That's why we created this podcast to help you build your wealth through real estate. Visit weekendwealth.ca to take our quiz and discover your real estate investor profile. Let's create the life you deserve together.

Jessilyn (00:33)

Today we're going to talk about real estate investing and work-life balance. In this episode, we're going to explore our experiences with real estate investing and work-life balance because building wealth should feel attainable. So we're going to unpack our experiences and the practical strategies we use so you can grow your portfolio, protect your time, and have your investments support the life you want to live. So I'm going to roll right into this because the whole concept of work-life balance has been...

in the media and around for quite a few years and I think that typical work-life balance is not actually achievable the way it's perceived in the media. And I say that and I've had a lot of people approach me over the last couple years talking about work-life balance and it's like, well actually there's work that sometimes takes away part of your life. There's times where there are stressful moments or deliverables do

or tenants calling or things you need to fix and you have to deal with it. So you balance what you're doing in that moment. But then you know if you've worked extra time in a week or a month, you later take that time and put a little extra time into your family or your life. And you balance that in the moment as well.

So as long as you're balancing what you're doing in any kind of given moment or day, and don't hold yourself rigid to life, work, balance, because if you're sitting there going, I got a clock out at four o'clock, I can't take any more calls for the rest of the day, I need life balance, and then a tenant calls, that's not reality.

Brian (02:13)

Yeah, if you're managing your own properties, it's definitely not reality. So I guess that's one of the things what we should define is what does sort of the general culture consider to be work-life balance? Is it nine to five and then you manage to leave your job at home or your job at your workplace? You know, what does it actually mean? In my opinion, think culturally, most people look at it as I work from nine to five, my job doesn't follow me home, you know, I get to sit and...

eat supper with my family and watch Netflix later on. And you know, have my weekends completely free. I think that is what most people would consider to be a true work-life balance.

Jessilyn (02:54)

And I would agree, but I think that's old school. If you look at how the times have changed, in one of my contracts that I'm working, I had a contractor join me and he came back and he said, you know, I've taken up pickleball. I'm like, that's fantastic. He goes, yeah, it helps keep me healthy and I've lost 20 pounds. He goes, but it's 10 a.m. on Tuesdays. I'm like, so? He goes, well, I gotta work. I'm like.

I don't fully agree with that. mean, if you're putting in, say you got to do 40 hours a week and you take two hours off from 10 till noon on a Tuesday, I personally don't care if you want to make up that extra two hours in an evening, on a weekend, however it works for you. But that is balanced for him because he didn't want to give up his pickleball and his lifestyle that was helping him for work.

Brian (03:47)

Yeah, which rolls right into our first kind of point here is like the inability of you to be flexible around your employment or your contracts, whatever that might look like. And that can have a big impact on how you might go about investing in real estate. Because if you have an inflexibility inside of your job, whatever that looks like, how do you then achieve more time to do real estate investing?

like ⁓ your fellow contractor there, he just didn't see the way that he could arrange his time properly.

Jessilyn (04:23)

Yeah, and when I helped him, he was super excited, signed a contract, joined my team, no problem. ⁓

Brian (04:28)

Yeah, yeah, and one of the things that's been going on in ⁓ some economists that you hear talking about is this thing called the gig economy. And they say that, you know, in the future, not too far in the future, everybody will be in a gig economy. So you won't have ⁓ employment per se, or you won't have like a contract. You will have a number of small gigs that you are stringing together throughout your...

career or throughout your employment, whatever that looks like. And if you can string together a whole bunch of gigs like that, then you definitely can control your time and you can work around, you know, the nine to five so that you can invest in real estate properly.

Jessilyn (05:12)

Interesting. I imagine though, stringing a few gigs together, there is some balance you got to find in there. I mean, we might call them boundaries, but like, if you've got five gigs, even if they're smaller, the clients could be demanding depending on what deliverables are due and when. But again, it's not like you could only do this for today because you got to take time off because you've worked too much. It's a matter of

Okay, I've just spent two weeks solid working on client deliverables. I'm taking four days off, right?

Brian (05:47)

Yeah, yeah. And a gig lifestyle or that type of work does create more of a turned on environment where you are kind of always on. So maybe a gig happens later on in the day when you expect it to be off or your client contacts you. Now you have this attitude of like kind of always being turned on to your job. so how do you turn that off? And that's where ⁓ my

sort of perception of work-life balance comes in and that's all about just what are your intentions towards your life? What are your intentions toward...