Why it can help to treat your personal life like a business

After Clay Gillespie, CFP, CIM, got married, the 22-year MDRT member and his wife identified that his “workaholic tendencies” weren’t going to work for their family. Part of their safeguard for work-life balance involves scheduling annual trips during spring break and late December, with a floating vacation during the summer.

“The lesson learned is, no matter how busy you are, you can program in things that are process-driven because you  know you’re doing it when it’s in the schedule. Unless you actually program in these changes, they don’t happen, at least not for me. It’s got to be a process for me to actually even go on vacation,” Gillespie said.

“It was really important to actually think about your personal life similar as a business. That maybe sounds bad, but it actually helps tremendously to say, ‘What do I have to do to improve in my personal life?’ Which I never really thought of. And then just through discussions with my wife, it was quite useful and made her happy because she knew things were going to happen. Everybody was happier about that. So even in your personal life, you’ve got to think about changes.”