Monday Motivation: Balance: Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right, But…..

Good morning, Cadre. It's Luke here. Let's give you one second while everybody arrives. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Again, our theme has been balance for the month. So so far we are eight days in, and hopefully you're starting to achieve balance. But I'm going to share a story today of a way in which I was able to find balance through kind of just falling on my face. So it's a good thing. But, you know, sometimes you have to go low to get back up. And that was definitely the case for me. But I also want to share.

This weekend was amazing. It was a phenomenal weekend. We had a Cadre event in person. There was about 10, 10, 11 people that showed up live. It was remarkable. It was so much fun. It was just able to spend time together. The sound bath. If you haven't had a sound bath before, I would highly encourage you to try one. Oh, my gosh. It is this relaxing, deep thought, just incredible moment for yourself, I think, of reflection. And so if you haven't had one before, I'd highly encourage you doing it.

So good morning to everybody and thank you for being here. But again, I wanted to share how, you know, two wrongs don't necessarily make a right. But in this case, it did for me. So I'm going to be very blunt, which we always are here. It was about October, November of last year, and I would say I was kind of, like, hitting my breaking point of work. I was working a lot, and when I was working a lot, what ended up happening was I was missing things. And anybody here knows how much I love jc. He's one of my favorite human beings on the planet.

And still not gonna get emotional with it, but it still hurts. So we have a breakfast every Thursday morning at 7am Just connect. We connect with each other, you know, talk life. What's he doing? What am I doing? All of it, right? And it was, like I said, around October, November, ish. And I missed the breakfast. I totally just biffed it. Missed it. His text messages were so kind and nice, but the reality was, like, it was too much. I was out of balance. I was out of whack. Um, then this was my next one.

It was. I was dropping off my son late. I was dropping off my son late to school. And I know that he has Mrs. Ebner. Like, I know it. And we're dropping off late, and the front desk individual is helping me, and your son is. And I'm like. And I couldn't think of the teacher's name and. And I was like, oh my gosh, like I am losing it, like I'm out of balance, I'm out of whack, all of it. And so I just, I sat down with my wife and I talked to her about this and I just said, you know, I, I, I'm really off right now.

Like, how do I get back to balance? And she's like, you know what I would suggest you do is every night review your calendar for at least a half hour before bed right now. So that's what I started doing. So I literally made that a game plan. And my goal, my goal for the year was I would never miss a meeting that was on the books, be late, nothing like that. Like, I'd always be on time and I'd always be present and what has ended up happening. So anybody who now sees Luke in 2025 knows if I say I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there.

Because there were some times in 2025, 2024 that I missed 2025, I, I've, I've yet to miss a meeting. And so what I do is every Sunday it took me almost two hours last night, but after the kids go to bed, I go through and I go through every basically minute of my next two weeks. So the previous week I have reviewed now twice and then the following week I've only reviewed once. But then the next Sunday I will have reviewed twice. So I have planned out my week, right Monday is this, Tuesday is this, Wednesday is this.

I have everything down my to do's, my follow ups, what's up, coming the next week, what do I have planned for the weekend, all the kids stuff, it is all down here. And so it takes me two hours on Sunday again. So two hours on Sunday and then every night I do now it's like 10 to 15 minutes. It used to be a half hour plus to review, but now it's 10 to 15 minutes. So this little extra time, this little extra time that I give into my balancing act, if you will, on Sundays has turned into a plethora of extra time for me.

Like I find little times, like literally you can see it like here, it'll say right here, open. So I get it. There's a lot of individuals that use, you know, Google Calendar and Microsoft Calendar and all of it. I need both. What I found is I need both. I cannot do just the Google Calendar. I can't do just one or the other. I need to do both. And this is bringing the best me out. And it's bringing the best balance in me out. So I am proud of this cadence, but it's taken me a lot to get there. It took me embarrassment.

It took me embarrassment. It took me frustration. It took me all of it, to get to the point of saying, I will not miss one thing in 2025. And here we are in June, and I'm 100, 100% right. I'm batting 100%. I have had many people miss things on me, but I've yet to miss anything for somebody else. And that has been my goal. But to establish this habit and then to live through this habit is everything for me. I got to do this every day, every night, walk through this. Like, being intentional about balance takes planning, takes preparation, and it takes execution.

So you need to do all of them right? And I don't have an executive assistant. I don't have somebody that's running my calendar for me. Probably at some point I should, but I don't now. And if I don't, I need to really lean in to organization to ensure that I do not let people down and most importantly, let myself down. Because one of my values is doing what you say you're going to do and all the things. So I need to be able to do that, which means staying on track, staying on balance with that. I hope that this gives you some hope in finding your balance, because I'm telling you, seven months ago, I wasn't there.

But where I am today, I'm very proud that it took the work, took painstaking work, but now I enjoy it. Like, I cannot wait. Last night, Sunday, my wife's on one computer. I'm on one computer. We're just kind of working next to each other, not saying we're even talking for a while, but we're working on our things for the week. And, you know, establishing, like, that culture for us is really good. And it's just made a big, big difference in my life. So I encourage you to try again. Here's my cadence of finding balance.

It's Sunday night. I review two weeks ahead. So I have June 9th, as you can see. And then I have the next one, right? So each one of these, you go out one week, two week. What I find is two weeks out usually doesn't have as much stuff, but it's the big things I know, right? So if somebody just randomly says, hey, are you available on Thursday? I already know the answer is yes or the answer is no. I'm full. I got an XYZ day. So, you know, preparing ahead and Seeing ahead can only save you time, but it can help you achieve balance.

Have a wonderful week, everybody. Hopefully this one helps you. If it doesn't and you already got a system, that's amazing. But all of us are speaking on behalf of Balance this month, and I hope this is one of those things that really impacts your life. Take care, be good to one another. And again, the next Cadre event, I hope to see more people there. That was awesome. It was almost like in this really weird way, it was almost like therapy and authenticity meets practice. What do I mean is we just kind of came and shared and was open about a variety of different things.

There were tears, there were all of these things. It was amazing. But then the practice of the sound bath to end, really special. I had to dip out slightly early for soccer, but it is what it is. It's life. So everybody have a wonderful week here. And I have the little guy say hi. I have the little guy there and grandma that are off running to. Is it basketball? Cameron, go knock it out of the park. Okay. I love you. Okay, have a great day. So that's what we got going. Summer's in full swing. 8:30, basketball.

Let's go. Take care, everybody. And I cannot wait to see you at the next Cadre Live event. Peace out. Bye. Bye.