24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. Junior investment bankers regularly work 80-90 hours a week. Many other high profile professions require the same level of commitment. Often those on the outside claim that working 80-90 hours a week is bad/wrong/terrible/silly/etc but we’ve spoken with so many folks who say working that much has been the best decision of their life – it allowed them to develop a deep and strong skill set far faster than would have been possible otherwise. In other words, by working 2x the hours, they were able to generate 5x or more the rewards. And depending on where you are in your career, investing heavily in your skills and competence can pay dividends for a long time.

Dethra U. Giles | CEO and International Speaker

Work/life balance is a term we use to make ourselves feel comfortable with living our lives out of alignment. I get to coach high-level executives around the world and I am always asked about how to balance work and life. My response is the same “Don’t don’t even try.” I teach my clients to live the GUD Life (Getting Up Daily) and the GUD life is about making sure your work and life are in alignment. This means going back to basics and accessing what it is you value and making sure everything, both work, and life aligns with those values. For example, I value service to the community, I am not going to work with or at a company that does not allow me the leisure or time to do community service. Read more>>

Ciara Sanders | Visual Artist & Industrial Designer

Work life balance for me has its highs & lows, which I appreciate as an Artist. I am aware of problems will surface in any & everything we do or have going on, but it’s all about how you handle it. I whole heartedly know God doesn’t put more on us than we can bare, but I still try to be realistic with myself, my clients & supporters. It use to be me, squeezing in 15 orders & a class project all due in the span of 1-2 weeks. Now, since I’ve graduated, it’s solely work & just meeting my or the clients deadline. I try to make sure I’m on top of my orders & making sure I give each order the same attention as the last. Sometimes I do need to step away & take a breather & restart my mind with idle work or just some distressing creations of my own, until I’m ready to get back to work. Sometimes I want to get carried away in my own work, but that’s where that balance kicks in & I’ll put the customer back first. Read more>>

Erica Sullivan | CEO of MomE Clean & Brand Coach

My work life balance has been an revolving door. Some times I’m really great at it and other times I miss the mark. I had to say to myself “you need help” and know that it’s okay. So currently we have a nanny and are looking into getting someone to come and clean the house twice a month. It’s not that I can’t manage it all. It’s just that we have to be able to admit when we can’t give it our all. I have given all of myself to my kids. But for at least 3-4 hours of my day I need to give to my small business baby too. Read more>>

Netalia Gutierrez | Fitness Trainer

I’m still figuring out how to balance of work life and family life while living in this pandemic. Before COVID-19 I wasn’t really taking my business serious and being proactive like I should’ve been. Once the pandemic started there was an immediate shift in my motivation and a fire under my butt. My motivation started changing when I realized I don’t have a job to fall back on. After losing my job I decided to focus more onto what exactly I wanted to do and try to figure out how to help people and build my business. We’ve been in this pandemic for a while so it gave me time to research and learn new softwares and build a stronger community virtually. Not being able to be around multiple people like before really started making my home life a new lifestyle. Read more>>

Huelani Mei Fogleman | Artist & Metal Fabricator

I have always known I wanted to be a full time artist but being a part time bartender and part time artist I never put my full attention into building my own art career because I had the security blanket of a steady income. In the beginning of this year my art business was booming and I was about to quit my part time job to finally work for myself! I couldn’t believe my dreams were turning into a reality! Then covid hit and I lost about 20 jobs in one single day and I knew leaving a steady income at the restaurant was no longer a possibility. I didn’t let that get me down and I continued to stay positive about my future. Then quarantine happened and I couldn’t work at the restaurant like I normally did and for the first time in a long time I had the opportunity to take on the endeavor of building my vision and the art I wanted to create. Read more>>

Latoya Moore | Author, Podcaster, and Educator

Work life balance has constantly evolved throughout my life. I’m finally at a place in my life where I feel like I’m finding creative ways to balance everything that I have going on in my life. I work as a full time science teacher, I’m a wife, a mother of 3 beautiful girls with a son on the way, an artist, an author, and a co-host of the podcast “Becoming Eva.” I wear many hats during the day. I had to figure out how to take things off of my plate to make more time for the things that I was more passionate about such as writing, painting, and being a voice to women by means of the podcast. I decided to take coaching volleyball off my plate, as well as working in a traditional school building. I currently work as a virtual teacher from home, which allows more flexibility in my schedule. Read more>>

Jessica (Sawyers) Cohen | Artist

Work life balance is constantly changing for me. When I was single, I spent most of my free time creating, or thinking about creating. Then I met my husband and needed to make room for time with him. I remember one morning waking up at his place and saying “man I’d love to paint right now” and he was kind of offended and suggested that I go home to paint (whoops!). Of course since then Ive learned that my passion for art needs to be channeled into the appropriate time frames. Fast forward to today, we have a 1 year old… and as for this past year? I think I found time to create some greeting cards, and that was it. Honestly, at first I resented not being able to have time to create, and I wondered how others found the time. Read more>>

David Dodge | Art Direction/Motion Designer

It’s a constant struggle. I love what I do and I’m always thinking about it so the line between relaxation and ‘working’ is always blurry. The most useful thing I’ve learned in my time doing this is to appreciate the quiet moments. Working for yourself is always somewhat unpredictable. After several years of putting in the work, making relationships and dealing with the crazy schedules, you gain the resources to take back a little more control of your schedule to create that space for yourself. Basically, down time has become a conscious effort that I have to actively try to implement. It’s a really tough thing to master but practice really does make perfect in this case. Read more>>

David Cole | Bandleader- Band X

Everything is a balance, but I’ve always said that if you do something you love, you never work a day in your life. For musicians, it’s who we are, not just what we do. Being happy in all areas is a really great place to be. Read more>>

Carrie Morey  | Founder/Owner Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit

Work life balance for me has definitely changed over time and is continues to do so. When I started Callie’s Biscuits, my goal was to be able to create a food business that allowed me the freedom to raise our daughters AND have a career of my own. I would say for the first decade of this journey, the balance was very defined and easy to achieve. As you can imagine, once the business really started to grow, there have been times where balance hasn’t come in the day to day, but in week to week. So sometimes I have to work a little more one day in order to get more balance the next days to come. So, the balance is still there, but it’s not the same each day. In my opinion, the key to achieving balance, is always keeping it in the forefront of your mind. Read more>>

Mary Boyle | Jewelry Designer/Artist

Work / life balance is a tricky topic. For many years, I resisted any idea of having my own business because I wanted to be able to walk out of a work place and into my home and private time in a clean way. I had seen many people where the work bled into personal time and I didn’t want to live that way any more than I had to, especially when I was already working long days. What changed for me was getting worn out from the structure of corporate life and feeling like I wasn’t adding much value to the world. Becoming a creator can be all-consuming if I’m not careful, but I love what I do and no longer feel that I need to keep that clear delineation between parts of my life. In this way I feel more like a “whole” person–but it is a challenge to carve out time (my long-time partner Ron would say I’m not very good at it, but I’m trying!). Read more>>

Denise Benson | Branding Photographer & Insurance Agency Owner

Work/life balance is something I definitely struggled with in the early parts of my photography career. Because I operate two businesses I often found myself burned out and without a personal life. I knew I needed to make changes so that I could create a good balance for myself and create a better experience for my clients. Some changes I made included batching my work so that I could be more efficient with my time, setting boundaries for my clients by informing them that I would only be responding to emails or phone calls between set hours (no texting at all), and setting work hours for myself so that I’m not up at 10pm still editing. When the work day is done, it’s done. And finally, taking necessary time off. I make sure to set a schedule for myself and only work on the days that I set as work days. Read more>>

Tyrone McQueen | Photographer

Work and life can be seen as the same thing especially if you’re doing something that you love, you don’t really consider this work. I love what I do so the way that I would look at the question , work is my photography and my life such as my kids. The two have started to intertwine. My children love to watch me work and they are interested so I allow them to work along with me. Which means bringing them to some of my photo shoots. Allowing them to shoot some shots teaching them to edit and look for detail. So my balance is nurturing the artistic talents of my children for their future. I have a son that is an amazing artist and a daughter that is very interested in making her own music. Both also love Photography, so it is my job now to teach what I have learned over the years doing this with them. They keep me balanced they keep me grounded and they keep me grinding. Read more>>

Julie Rich Hilton | LCSW & Therapist

My work-life balance, even as a mental health professional, hasn’t always felt balanced at all. I graduated from undergrad at 20 and grad school by 23- all while working full time in an attempt to keep myself out of student loan debt. I immediately started pursuing my clinical license, additional certifications, working multiple jobs, etc. Somewhere along the way, I had fully bought into the crazy rat race of life and the idea that “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” and “the grind never stops.” I was totally burned out and didn’t even know it. Then I suddenly moved out of state and, for the first time since I was 16, I couldn’t find a job. I was unemployed for about 7 months and I hit a rock bottom with my mental health that I had never known before. Read more>>