#3: Work Life Blend

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So your business can make bank. Sign up today at EQbank.ca slash business. This is the Rosen Shine podcast featuring the Swedish sisters Josephine Ruse of Victoria Ruse-Sulson. Based in Stockholm and New York, we share experiences from our international lives and careers.

Hi, this is Josephine Ruse, sending from New York and Victoria from Stockholm. What a week this has been. I know. It's been a crazy week.

It's been a crazy week. It's been so fun to finally be sharing what we've been working on all summer. I know, I know, it's been forever and we've had so much fun. And we've sat with web meetings with our dear friend Manish in India.

I hope he's talking. I hope so. I hope so. We've been talking daily.

We've been learning so much. Everything from website making to podcast making. But it's been really, really fun. And we've been getting so much, really nice feedback.

I know, that's really wonderful. So thank you everyone. And thank you for downloading and sharing and everything. We really feel your love and we love it.

But apart from all of this Rosen Shine, we've also done other work, right? Yeah, I mean, of course, this is just our passion project, right? So I've been full time back at my job. And I mean, you have had a really intense and really fun week.

So how fitting that today's episode is about work-life blend? Because I think we've been practicing that really well, actually. There has been a lot of blending of the work and of the life. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So we're going to talk about this concept, which is not work-life balance, right? No, that term is so 2010. We're going to talk about work-life blend.

Okay, so I was trying to explain to Steve, my husband, this morning, like the difference. And I don't know if I really managed. I think I pass the ball over to you. So what is the difference between a work-life blend and a work-life balance?

Well, I would say that work-life balance, that is really when you see work and private, it's two different things. And the idea is to find a good balance between the two so that you don't work too much, but still have great time at work. Okay, so that's the work-life balance, the traditional way. Yeah, okay.

And work-life blend is quite different. Let me just tell you a story that I come to think of when I can explain the idea of work-life blend. It was in the late 90s. I was handing this trend seminar on the future, and this was in Brussels.

There was this super trendy guy. I thought he was quite old, but I guess now it was just because I was really young, so he was probably quite young as well. And he was sharing about the future, how work-life would look like in the future. And he said that in the future, there will be no employees, but rather everyone will be members of an organization.

And I was just like, okay, he's really great and fun, but I don't get it. That's not really going to happen. But honestly, I think that's where we're at right now. I mean, the gig economy, that's just increasing growing.

What is the gig economy? Well, a gig economy that you rather than being a full-time fixed employee forever and ever, you go in and take on temporary positions in an organization, and you do really best. So really, it's formally, I would say, it's like independent workers going into large organizations doing short-term engagements. And this is a trend that statistically is just increasing.

So I've basically been part of the gig economy since I started my career. Oh, yes, you have. I mean, you are like the gig economy person. And let's come back to that in a moment.

But just to go back to the definition, I would say that work-life blend, it's having flexible work hours, it's a more fluid line between what is work and what is not work. And it's really your possibility to blend the two. So I think that episode is all about. Okay, fantastic.

And then we have, of course, prepared our little peppy. So what you can do after the episode or during the episode is to go into our website, versus shine.com and click on the peppy sheets. And that's where we break it down a little bit so that you can personalize this and really have a look at what or how do you get the perfect work-life blend for you, exactly. So we were really looking at, okay, what are the key components to really make work-life blend work for you if you're interested in that?

And we said, this is what works for us, right? Yeah. Kind of seeing the example that works for us and then you have to see whether it fits into your life. Yeah.

So based on our own experience and some research and listening and learning from other people around us, we've come up with four points. The first one being, so find your best flow. And we'll come back to that, of course. And then find your own unique blend, your magic mix.

Then do what you do best and let others do the rest. And I'm so excited to hear you explain this later on. And I love to rhyme there. Yeah, I know.

And let your brain rest, which is number four. So have you done that this week? No, no. So obviously I look at this list now that we've defined some time you go and I'm just laughing and thinking that, no, we didn't really nail it.

We didn't really nail it. No, that's true. We have to go fill in the pep sheets after this. I know, I know.

That's going to be our big assignment. All right. So find your best flow. If we start with that one, you were saying this is how you've always been working.

And yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's why the rest of the family always were so worried about you. Because we really developed that a little bit. Thank you for the listening.

No, but so here you were. You had this most amazing education. You've gone to the best universities. You graduated with the first and we're all very proud of you.

And then we were expecting you to land this big job with a fixed place, you know, and this is your office. And here you were like a typical millennial, actually. Not at all doing that, but going to Sudan, living in different tents and then moving over to Burma. In different times.

Yes, that was the impression. We had, I mean, occasionally I lived in a tent. I didn't move around between tents. Well, I mean, why did you just tell them?

Yeah, I did really have that feeling. And it is kind of funny now given that I do have a proper job now at the UN. And I actually think that that for the last 10 years, I've been telling people that I work at the UN just because he hasn't known really how to describe it. You just didn't want to get into the discussion with people.

Exactly. So now it's really good that I actually do because for years I've had to really explain, yeah, not really working for the UN, you know. For the sake of the credibility of this family, we're very grateful that you're there. But I finally took a job at the UN headquarters.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, after graduating. I mean, I think it's part because think the way that we developed and started to work into more of the gig economy is both out of necessity. It's not so easy to land an amazing job in New York just after you graduate or in any big city for that reason.

And I think the other part was just having a bit of this, a bit of an adventure mindset and a bit of an entrepreneurial mindset. So what I did, yeah, exactly after graduating, we traveled to South Sudan. I've talked a little bit about that in the last episode, career and courage. Then after that, traveling to Myanmar and more, seeking at work, more as a consultant, but also it allowed us to start to shape our career and do really interesting projects that I don't think necessarily, we, I'm talking about we because my husband is in the same field and we did a lot of similar things at that time.

I think it wouldn't really have been possible in your first time job to really get all of these opportunities. So we started to do this in order to gain more experience and it was a fantastic way of getting a lot of field experience. Yeah, and I get this picture in my head from some years ago when we were, I mean, we usually have chat on WhatsApp and it used to be that we had this chat my morning time and your lunch time and now it's the other way around when you're in New York. Yeah.

And we were chatting and you were just, I'm like, so how is it at work today? And you sent me this photo and you were up in the north of Myanmar. Yeah. And this jeep had gone off-road and there you were with like lots of people trying to get it up on this muddy road.

And it was just the contrast to, I was just looking out to my colleagues who were sitting in this office landscape and I, I snapped a photo of us all absorbed into our computers and I'm like, okay, so this is a different kind of work. Yeah, and exactly, there were some of these kinds of surreal moments when we were speaking and you're just in a really strange, random situation. But that's also part of, I think, the thrill of working in the field as we call it. You know, you're not just sitting in front of a computer, you're really out meeting people and crazy things happen and I think that makes it quite addictive to, in this line of work.

Addictive and I would also say, I'm thinking about it because usually if you decide to work for NGOs like that and you usually have a lot of passion for it, that must be difficult to see where does it really work and when you stop work really? Yeah, I think it can be really hard and you really see it with people that work in remote areas working in the field, you're far away from your normal life or normal routines and I really think that the work like blend is really quite challenging to separate between the two. And I saw a friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day and I was laughing at this. I think it really holds true for a lot of people that are really passionate about their job and it's that that's quote, you know, that says, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

Yeah, which is a pretty quote. I love that quote. Yeah, it's fantastic. And then it was, but it was crossed over and it was added.

So it was do what you love and you will work super fucking hard all the time with no separation or any boundaries and also this is the best part and also take everything extremely personally. So yeah, that is but that is truly, you know, feeling passionate about all of these things. So yeah, so that's the passion which is do what you love, you know, stick into so if you are all passionate about this, you still need to find your best flow. I have now the opportunity because I've changed my way of working in the past year.

I've said the big step. You had this complete change in your career from this super stable job and now you are your own boss. I know we've kind of traded places because now you are the one going to the office every day and I am having this completely different work life flow really. I mean, if I look back to a typical week or the week ahead of me, I will be in London for two days.

I'm going to hold a leadership workshop with a client outside of Stockholm for three days and then I'm going to be working a little bit with our brother at the hotel for a couple of hours on Monday and then I'm going to go and meet client. It's all kind of a big blend and also with all the different things that we are doing now with Rose and Shine. So how do you find your flow in all of that? This is a year for me since I've been working this way and I try to really spend some time on seeing that I really do find the flow in the best possible way.

So whenever I do work at home, I really try to think how do I distribute my day in the best possible way? I might start by some reflection sitting in the big chair by the fireplace. Then I will go up in the office and do focus work. If I have Skype meetings, I'd consider the conservatory and where it's lots of light.

I try to use the afternoons when I know my daughters are coming back home from school to go and sit and work in the kitchen and be there and I know that around that time in the afternoon I'll have a break and a nice cup of coffee with them and a good chat and then that means maybe that I'll have a shorter lunch because I know that's how I'm going to work. So I kind of distribute my day. Yeah, so rather than randomly moving around in the house, you actually almost have a little bit of a schedule so to say. Yeah, and what I've also noticed now that I've worked differently is that that's given some new insights and inspiration to my mindset and also kind of brought back creativity because I was so focused on my specific task and duties in my previous role that I did not open up for other things.

So I guess in a sentence we can thank Rose and Shine to come about because we had time to really discuss and think about these different things because usually I would not really be able to be present and focus on those different things. So I think it's good for the energy to really do things a little bit different once in a while. Yeah, no, and that makes me also think about, we've been reading a little bit about, I think it's super interesting, female entrepreneurs that are starting to plan their work in accordance to their menstrual cycle. That sounds like new and crazy but it makes a lot of sense once you start to look a little bit into it.

And you found this really interesting article that we were discussing that in the past we've always been looking at kind of the negative imbalances of the period and kind of trying to counterbalance that but now there's more and more research finally, I mean it's quite crazy, right? But finally there's more and more research in regards to how you can as a female use your menstrual cycle and plan according to actually maximize benefits and actually use it in the best way to be most productive. And I've been quite inspiring hearing a couple of entrepreneurs that of course they have control over their own work schedule, it's not so easy if you're in a so-called normal job but they actually plan their weeks according to their cycle and therefore will do maybe more extroverted, maybe more kind of delivery type tasks at certain times and having maybe a more introverted, more working from home and more preparatory work during other parts. I think that's fascinating.

I think that's so good and I think really if we just could have that approach to more things in our life, use the boost of all those hormones rather than thinking that it's something of a disadvantage. I think we should do that, we should do a mini study on you. You have that, given that you have this new life now and then we can then we can report it back and we can see if you can actually plan it accordingly. Oh okay, yeah, let's see.

Let's see, I just volunteered you here. Oh thank you, thank you. And I think definitely it would be really interesting to learn more about this so maybe it's a future separate episode on its own I would say. Yeah.

Hey it's Danielle and Callie Host of your favorite entertainment news podcast in three. We combine juicy behind the scenes stories with spicy Hollywood hot takes. After hours we're combining our favorite flavors with the Ninja Slushy Twist Machine. It's two machines in one make two frozen drinks at once or twist both flavors together.

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What about like a full-time employee? Yeah, how do we do it? How do we do it? How do we do it?

How do we do it? How do we do it? How do we do it? How do we do it?

I think it's also about really challenging the system a little bit. I remember I was managing a large department and I had this super talented new graduate joining my team on our introduction meeting. She was saying, well, I'm not really a morning person. So I'm suggesting that it's better if I come in after 10 in the mornings.

And I was going like, no. For me that was like, because I'm such an early bird, I'm in the office at seven. And I'm like, OK, so the slackers can come in at nine, right? Yeah.

And I was like, completely unflexible, really. And now I'm asking myself, why was that? Because obviously she didn't want to work less. And she was probably brilliant in the evening.

And for sure, there would be days where it was required that she'd be there at nine. But other days, why not? Why was I so hard on that? And I think with a new generation coming out, with the millennials and established organizations and companies, they would be challenged to take into consideration the flow, best energies of their employees and probably to everyone's advantage.

So I would say, as an full-time employee, perhaps challenge it a little bit and consider how you can plan your day accordingly with when you do meetings, when you do introverted work. I guess what we want to say is really for you to think about when is your best flow? How do you work best? And really proactively try to put that into your way of working because that will give you a much better and interesting working life.

And then we said the next point that really will make a difference is to do what you do best and let others do the rest. And just think, you have lots of experience in this. What would you say really works for you? What does this all mean, actually?

A couple of years ago, you brought this book with this very ambitious title, The Four-Hour Workweek. You introduced it into our life, the Tim Ferriss book. And it really gave me, and my husband, actually, he's been incorporating this the most, really gave quite a lot of ideas on how you can focus on what you want to do and let other people do the rest. I won't really go in and talk about this book.

You had to check it out yourself. It's a great book. It's a great inspiration, very ambitious, Four-Hour Workweek. But really, it's an idea about how you can live a really full life, but not actually working so much.

And one of the techniques or ways of doing that that he suggests is to outsource more of your work. So really find the things that you don't really like to do, either automate them and or outsource them. So one of the examples that he has in the book, which we have incorporated, is to have a virtual assistant. So for example, there are several different services.

You can use something called Upwork, which is a website, and you can go there, and you can find people across the world that can work as a assistant for you. So we have Alex that you now also met, and she's helping us with part of this. And she's in Columbia, and she can help us with a bunch of things that we don't necessarily have the time, or maybe want to prioritize doing. Like, I hate booking flights.

So it's really, and some people, of course, in the book, takes it a lot further, right? So even starting to outsource part of your work, for example, which is really interesting, but obviously like a big kind of gray area, like how much can you outsource your work? And legally, I'm sure there's a lot of potential problems. But it's a really cool idea.

Like certainly you could outsource if you're not so good at really making beautiful, creative work documents or whatever. I mean, why not outsource that? And you can focus your time on other things that you're better at. So just look at us who have worked now quite hard to get the Rosen Shine community up.

So we've had help from Alex in Columbia. We've had this lovely girl in Sri Lanka helping us create the logo. And we have a nation India who's helping us to set up the webpage and everything. So really, we've outsourced some of the tasks and we've really got great help.

And it's been truly global. Yeah. But really, the point is do what you do best and really challenge yourself. Do I need to do all these things?

Or is it someone that will do it better, quicker, smarter than I would do, where I'm spending time? So that will help you give you more time to do things that you really feel passionate about. And that leads us into our Nick point. Find your unique blend.

Yes. That's interesting. What is that? How to do it?

What is your unique blend? If you were to see your life as a soup, I'm not saying that because that sounds awful. But if you were to say like, okay, I'm making this recipe for a great life. What are the key ingredients?

So me, for example, I'm looking now at more like the world parts of life. So what am I focusing on right now? A key ingredient is working with Franklin Covey with all my clients there and as a leadership consultant. Another key ingredient is being an author together with two of my American colleagues and we're writing this book.

Actually, not just the three of us. We're like a huge project team and it's super exciting. Then a third perspective that's kind of added on to my work life blend is the Rosenshine Project. That's been so exciting this past couple of months.

All of those are things that goes into my unique work life blend, I'd say. Yeah. And I feel like you've always been quite good. And I tried to do something similar, but you really evaluate what your different roles are each year and also try to see how do you, what is the focus within each role and how do you combine your different roles, right?

Yeah, definitely. It's a key learning from the Franklin Covey materials with the seven habits and everything. But I always love that. And I've always spent time doing that to really see what it is that makes a difference.

And I think it's really important that you challenge yourself and see, am I putting my time into the things that I really do love? And we talked about what can be the consequences of feeling extremely passionate about something. But I think it is good that you feel passionate about what you do. And think about the projects that you do that are maybe borderline work and free time.

Like, for example, becoming a yoga teacher for us. Could that also add to our work life, really? Was you and me who were talking about this book that just came out, Pick Three, which is about reflecting on your priorities, but then each week kind of picking three, not trying to do everything, but picking three priorities for each week. I think that's a really interesting way as well, trying to avoid the soup.

Because sometimes, because actually you're defining quite a few different roles that you have. And if you're going to excel in all of them every week, that sounds intense. Yeah, exactly. And that's Cheryl Sandberg's book.

And it's really good. Yeah, I was starting to Google it and I was coming to the New York Lottery, Pick Three. All right, no, but definitely. And that's what we do every Sunday looking into.

So what are my key big priorities for this coming week, etc. So that's definitely it. Find your unique blend. Because sometimes if you look at what you actually do, maybe you spend a lot of time on things that you don't really think should be key ingredient to your life.

And then maybe you need to remove that. All right, so don't let it be a coincidence what ends up in your recipe. But spirit that, I would say. Yeah.

Okay, so now we reached our fourth point. The one that absolutely completely, I have not done this week. Let the brain. What do you mean?

Let your brain rest? Take breaks. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So this sounds like the least ambitious and it is the most ambitious. That's a very good point. Yeah, it's the most important.

Okay, so what is this? I mean, I think everyone who listens to this knows really what it means. Yet we don't really do it. But the key is that we need to stop once in a while to really make sure that we don't constantly think about those things.

We need to take breaks, mental breaks from everything that we're absorbed in, in order to really actually excel in them. Yeah. So a mental break. What's your mental break?

Well, the mental break, for me, it's probably about exercise. But that is not always, you know, you can't start exercising in the middle of your work day necessarily, or you know, so it can be kind of hard. I think that the big risk right that we're all struggling with is make sure that the break is not looking on your phone, that the break is not like checking Instagram or Facebook. That's the opposite, right?

I think that's a great point. Yeah. So what I try to do at work is I'm trying to be social. I think that's a really good kind of, you know, you have you stand up from your seat, you speak to a colleague for three minutes, you make it short, your breaks should be short, they should be social, and they should be something else.

And then you kind of go back and then you can continue to work. But that is also the criticism when you Google work like blend. The criticism of it is that people do find it hard to not to switch off. And you need to be able to do that in order to not burn out.

Yeah, I agree. So therefore, I think to be really proactive and plan for those days. So I plan once in a while, ego days. That's nice.

Yeah. And that means that I go to a completely different setting once I went to our parents department when they were not there and I and eat all of their food. Yes. And jumped in their couches.

No, no, but really you're sitting like really taking some time off, taking looking, reflecting, how am I doing? How am I in track with the goals and targets that I've set for myself used to time for a reflection? So I would recommend everyone to take an ego day once in a while, have it like a check in with yourself properly. And then I and I plan those when I know, like now I know it's an extremely hectic period for the next three weeks.

So I planned a Monday where I'm not going to be very social. I'm going to be very introverted and I'm just going to have the day for myself. That's great. Yeah.

Yeah. I failed with that today. I actually had the idea because it's finally raining and being really ought to me in there. I'm saying finally because it's been so hot and sunny in New York.

So I had planned to go to a spa today. But of course, I didn't know that's the thing. I didn't plan it. So I had this idea of the special spot I want to go to and just before I'm meeting this morning, I was trying to click and of course it's already fully fully booked.

I'll plan it for next week. Yeah. I think that's that's a key point. If you don't plan those things, they will not happen.

So I think that's really important. And I also think it's good to make sure maybe you do little mini breaks and do different things that will reunite you that will give you new energy. And when you speak about the mini breaks, I mean, that really reminds me again, going back to Tim Ferriss and the four hour work week, he introduced a concept in our life that we haven't really what we started to, you know, try to implement them. But that's around mini retirements.

So the idea is rather than, you know, working until you're 65, be retired, that you start to introduce throughout your life thinking that you probably will or will want to work beyond 65. But you start to introduce these, it could be a couple of weeks, but you know, ideally, I think in his world, it's like two to three months, but you take off maybe on a yearly basis and you do self work or self reflection or you learn something new or go somewhere else. And his recommendations is always, you know, you go somewhere where it's cheap to live. So you can basically, you know, rent out your own apartment or get the income from there.

And then you can go and live somewhere where the cost of living is much better. And yeah, focus on yourself. So we've been doing a good thing. Yeah, exactly.

And we've been doing that a little bit. It was easier when we live the nation. And of course, we didn't, we were part of the gig economy. So we had more fluid lives.

And you know, we would go to India and we would do serif and yoga and BID is really to take this time to do self affection. And I think that's a great thing to do. So quite opposite from just, it's not just a holiday. It's really, if a holiday is just about doing nothing, this is more about taking active steps in maybe redirecting your life or learning something new or developing yourself really.

Yeah, a little bit like what we're going to do in November going for our yoga teacher retreat. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So I think we should start to sum up now, we've said that work life blend, you know, it's the new reality for many.

And it's a great thing. If you find the perfect mix, I would say, we said there were four key components to make that happen for you. Yes. So the first was finding your best flow, your rhythm, the time of the day that you do different things, the amount of hours per day, really trying to maximize your productivity, time of the year, master of cycle, where you work and so on.

And then the next thing, so what is my unique blend really? What are the ingredients and to consider what are the key things where I should spend my time and energy on then 30 don't waste your time on tasks. Those other could do better and really try to be a little bit innovative and outsourced or team up with others. But I think traditionally we were quite scared of outsourcing work and it's not scary having tried it out the last couple of years.

It's not as scary as you might think. And if you find someone really good, it's a big help. Yeah. And finally, remember to take breaks.

Remember to take complete breaks, time off, no electronics, meditate, let your mind rest because you will be paid back in lots of new thoughts and energy and focus when you do that. So download our work life blend reflection with Pepsheet and you will find it on rosinchine.com. And while you're there sign up for joining us. So you get all of our news and latest and we'll be super happy to communicate with you.

Yeah, we're so excited about creating this new global community. Also Addison, Instagram, rosinchine. Yeah. So wishing you all a very lovely fun work life blend week.

Bye. Bye. Bye. So even I could do it.

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