Stop making work-life balance your holy grail. It's an antiquated concept lacking in modern-day practicality. It assumes we can spend half our time working
I choose to "live" 100% of the time and that's why I integrate my life into my work. Work-life integration, when imposed deliberately, functions both as an individual concept and model for building a
Wildly
Today's top performers have the luxury to live in a reality where we never fully unplug from our work, and we also should never abandon the people and hobbies we love while we work. The best clients, colleagues and collaborators aren't living in (and struggling to balance) two separate worlds and neither must we. Instead, we can thrive by integrating our work and life into one cohesive experience where outcomes rule the day, and we sprinkle our affinities into much of what we do.
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This shift changes everything — from when we work to how we travel, entertain and network. In the past, business development was a predictable cycle of boring lunches. These were fine traditions and if they're working for you, then keep it up. But in a world where everyone's calendar is overloaded and attention spans are shrinking, nobody I want to connect with has time for a 90-minute steak lunch on a Wednesday.
Instead of lunching once a quarter, I'm collaborating daily with my clients on Instagram reels and then traveling with them for a VIP experience at Fanatics Fest. We are building personal and professional brands and making core memories together. The clients we really want, the ones with vision, ambition and long-term potential, aren't swayed by what's easy to arrange. Their calendars are busy and their time is premium.
Those of us in the professional-services space value time as our only commodity, so if we are giving it away, it needs to be worth it. And we should assume that's also the case for our clients. They show up for things worth showing up for. That's why the most effective client development today happens through shared brand promotions (personal and professional) and immersive experiences: social media collaboration, joint pod-case appearances, cheering at the Kentucky Derby, and/or enjoying a VIP experience at a festival or convention.
This year I have live-streamed with clients, collaborated on reels, traveled with them to Fanatics Fest and jointly attended the HumanX AI Conference, National Sports Collectors Convention, Kentucky Derby and Wrigleyville grand opening of Card Vault by Tom Brady just to name a few. These moments aren't just entertainment; they're relationship super-chargers, creating bonds and memories that outlast any business lunch.
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True loyalty is built through a combination of results and shared positive memories. Your client will never forget, for example, the night you met Tom Brady together. Indeed, our best clients know what went into creating and sharing a core memory together. They also realize that the person whose thoughtfulness and hard work built that experience will put that same level of care, hustle and skill into negotiating their next funding round, or their bet-the-company litigation.
Similar principles apply when it comes to how we treat our teams to build internal corporate cultures. Thriving for work-life balance, which necessarily requires compartmentalizing, carries with it the unavoidable consequence of code-switching and sends our teams the message that they aren't welcome to bring their full selves to work.
Let's reverse that. Integrating work and life and letting your team members know they not only have permission, but are expected to bring their full selves to work, delivers powerful change to your business culture. Blending people's affinities into a culture of passion and performance builds the strongest workplaces. We all want to feel supported and cared for. Creating a workplace where every person understands both their expectations and their freedoms results in outsized outcomes for your business.
Think of a firm as having three pillars: revenue, satisfied clients and engaged workers. Nearly all businesses prioritize the pillars in that order. But we reverse it with our philosophy of work-life integration: engaged workforce, satisfied clients and revenue. I don't know any business that ever got "rich" when its mission was simply to get rich.
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Instead, we integrate work and life, invite our teams to bring their whole selves to work and encourage them to integrate their affinities into their professional life. That leads to inherent satisfaction, which drives our fulfilled humans to produce consistently better outcomes. And from those great outcomes, we see satisfied clients. The revenue piece becomes the natural consequence of those satisfied clients repeating their business and referring their friends. But it all starts with building a culture that makes our people feel supported and cared for in an environment that welcomes the presence of their full selves and rejects compartmentalization.
When work-life integration becomes deliberate and intentional, we design our lives so that our passions fuel our high stakes professional goals. The sooner we can integrate — and therefore stop viewing various aspects of our lives as competing forces — the sooner we can find greater success across the board.
For employee benefit brokers and consultants, this evolution away from "balance" toward deliberate "integration" results in a massive competitive advantage. It sparks more strategic conversations with executives and HR leaders about how to attract and retain high-performing talent in an era where experiences and flexibility matter as much as compensation. And it can inspire smart people to rethink their culture, replacing tired business traditions with moments that actually resonate.
Imagine building a team where everyone feels valued and, in turn, wants to deliver outsized outcomes on the regular. That's what we're doing every day to resounding success.
