I grew up poor, raised by a single mother who was mentally ill and on welfare... I'm living proof that anyone can have anything they want IF they commit and take consistent action to make it real in their life. This series is a way to give back, and share a wealth of useful knowledge about living a full, happy and productive life with no regrets at the end. [Series is free and has no sales pitch.]

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A Balanced Life: How to Easily Harmonize Everything in Your Life for More Joy and Energy at Work and Home

My guest today is Nicole B. Mason, author, trainer, certified business coach and founder of Omnivantage Business Professionals, a corporate-team performance consulting firm that also provides leadership coaching and trainings. Welcome to OpEdNews, Nicole. I understand that you've put a podcast interview series together. Tell us a bit about it, please.

NM: Yes, it's called The Balanced Life Series: How to Easily Harmonize Everything in Your Life For More Joy and Energy at Work and Home. The interviews tackle how people can successfully juggle competing demands on their time in ways that work for them, individually, so they can live happy, fulfilled lives AND be more productive and effective at work. Today's corporate and business culture in the US, and many other countries, causes burnout, anxiety and a multitude of debilitating or life threatening physical illnesses. What also gets overlooked is the fact that if someone's personal life is a mess, due to neglect of health or relationships, their performance at work will suffer in some way. And continuously working 60+ hours/week does not allow sufficient time for people to maintain their well-being, so breakdowns happen. It's a vicious circle.

The productivity drain that cycle causes has reached epidemic levels in the US. Research by Gallup, the US Labor Board, Blessing White and others show that companies lose millions of dollars each year due to medical leaves for stress related and other major illnesses, failure to meet corporate performance goals, as well as costs associated with employee conflicts. People who are on the verge of burnout, or dealing with chronic pain or personal relationship problems not only work less hours, or get less done while working many hours, they are shorter tempered and more likely to (inadvertently) cause conflicts in the office. People who feel personally dissatisfied or unfulfilled are less motivated and less efficient, which contributes to missed deadlines, errors and other root causes behind organizations' struggles to achieve company goals and milestones. I put together this series to help solve these problems, and help people live better by living a life that really makes them happy.

JB: How have you dealt with this work-life balance in your own life?

NM: As an attorney who was in-house at corporations in Silicon Valley for over 15 years, I personally witnessed all of the casualties (to individuals and corporate team performance) of the round-the clock, always on-call business culture. People were foregoing vacations, or working through their vacations, and neglecting to take care of themselves in order to earn the booby badges of honor for not sleeping, living at the office or unnecessarily commuting 2-4 hours each day. This was not making anyone happy- this was making my colleagues stressed, bitter or addicted. People were afraid to take real vacations and create healthy boundaries to take care of themselves. They didn't know how (or that they had the option) to set expectations to manage their performance, in order to produce the best results for their employer and themselves. Work-life balance was on almost everybody's minds and talked about constantly, due to caregiving responsibilities or a desire to have a life outside work.

Always passionate about both my career and living life to the fullest, I took real vacations every year, developed hobbies and incorporated my scuba, climbing and other outdoor adventures into my travels. Most of my weekends were dedicated for friends and fun. When I returned to work on Mondays, I was energized and focused and known for my productivity everywhere I worked. My professional trajectory was a steady upward slope and I rounded out my law career as the General Counsel of a multinational company. Then after thinking about starting my own business "someday," I finally did it after my son was born. I was able to negotiate and design a good life balance for myself while advancing my career. I also helped some friends do the same, and then I realized I was onto something. People have more choices than they think- these interviews open people's eyes to what is possible and how to make it real in their own lives.

JB: How do you accomplish that through this series?

NM: Each audio interview is 30-45 minutes. People can listen while eating or doing mindless chores, or while getting dressed in the morning to kick off their day, or to help them wind down at night before going to sleep. These interviews are designed for busy professionals with competing demands on their time, who want to be healthy and spend time with the people they love, doing things that matter most to them, beyond work.

Each interview provides practical tips and tools from renowned authors, doctors, and speakers from a variety of different professional disciplines. These conversational interviews include inspiring, relatable personal stories and some experiential mindfulness and healing exercises, to give people immediate results as well as tactics and strategies they can easily use in their lives. The series covers a wide range of topics including: stress and anxiety reduction, dealing with loss, money mindset, changing habits, nutrition, exercise and general health and wellness and more. What's great about this series is that it acknowledges different things work for different people, and there is something helpful for everyone in these content-rich conversations.

JB: It sounds wonderful, Nicole. Who couldn't benefit from the collective wisdom on this wide variety of topics? Tell us more, please. How can our readers take advantage of what you've put together?

NM: This series is a game changer for anyone with a high stress job, including corporate professionals, executives, and business owners, as well as people who want to make changes in their personal life or career. Most people think about things longer than what is needed to make a good decision or take a step forward. Perfectionism, waiting for the "right" time, analysis paralysis, and fear are all time and productivity killers. This series helps people get past all of that, and provides useable tools and tips for people to easily take action on things they've been wanting to do but haven't done yet. To listen to the interviews, click here , fill in your name and email so links to each interview will be delivered to your inbox.

The interviews come at no charge and have no sales pitches.

JB: Lovely.

NM: The series is structured to support people in getting in the habit of taking immediate action- a small, no-risk action of consistently listening to a couple of engaging, helpful conversations each day will change your life. Why? How? Because it trains your mind to act quickly on things that can easily be done to support your desires and goals. And boom, a new good habit is born. The interviews are released on a daily cadence for two weeks, and people who register during the first two weeks of November are guaranteed to receive the complete interview series, and will have the month of November to listen to the 27 interviews in this series. Very doable, and challenges people to commit to a simple action to do something good for themselves.

Ever wonder why some people have it all: successful career/business, fun life, quality time with family AND look and feel great? The answer is NOT luck - all of that is possible for anyone and everyone. The "secrets" are shared throughout these interviews. You'll hear some real life stories from real people who have it all (everything that really matters to them - everything they want), and they were not born into it. And these people share strategies and tactics anyone can use to have the same. My life and accomplishments, statistically speaking, beat the odds. I grew up poor, raised by a single mother who was mentally ill and on welfare. When I announced at the age of 14 that I wanted to be a lawyer, I was told that was impossible. Neither of my parents, and none of my grandparents, had even gone to college, and there was no money to pay for law school (or college for that matter). I worked hard, got partial scholarships and took student loans, and developed a well-rounded application by participating in lots of extra-curricular activities in both high school (to get into a good college) and in college (to get into a highly rated law school). Work-life balance started in high school where I had to balance academic work, to achieve high grades, with other interests and a social life, in order to succeed and stay healthy. I repeated that in college and it led to successfully going to law school.

JB: What a story, Nicole! Thanks for sharing it. Your circumstances could so easily have led you the other way - to endless hours and workaholic tendencies. And yet, even at an early age, you had a sense of balance.

NM: Yes. Balance looked different in law school but the concept was the same, and I've applied that concept in every stage of my life in order to check off bucket list items, advance my career and have a happy family life of my own.

I'm living proof that anyone can do and have anything they want IF they commit, and take consistent action to make it real in their life. I'm passionate about this. This series is a way to give back, and share a wealth of useful knowledge about living a full, happy and productive life with no regrets at the end.

So often we get stuck in habits and routines that may have worked well in the past but no longer help move us in a direction we want to go. Or we live with habits that self-sabotage and undermine our success in some area. DIY (do-it-yourself) syndrome is an example- if your way has not gotten you the results you want in some area of your life, accept help or seek out and try another way. The information shared in this series helps people thoughtfully choose and develop new habits in order to maintain their health, manage stress and anxiety, get rid of chronic pain and insomnia, improve relationships at work and home, reclaim wasted time and better manage emotions, money and people to boost energy, performance, productivity and happiness.

JB: I love that you stress that the right tools differ for each person and that we should choose what we find effective to create our own personal mix. There's no One Size Fits All and that's actually very reassuring and empowering. Of the interviews I've listened to so far, I was particularly taken with Carl Honore, who talks about the Slow Revolution. For the last 150 years, speed has increased our efficiency but now that emphasis is beginning to backfire. Carl points out that even the Economisthas a study to back that up. Can you talk about Slow, please?

NM: Exactly. There are a lot of purported "solutions" out there that are not "it" for everybody. I think it is important for people to trust themselves and know they are not a failure or a freak if the latest, popular life hack does not work for them. And it's important to try new things because that is the only way to get new results in life. A great mind said [paraphrased]: "if you want something you never had, you have to do something you've never done." I think that may have been T. Harv Eker. And Marshall Goldsmith, a mentor of mine, wrote the book What Got You Here Won't Get You There, about the value and benefits of trying new things. This podcast series exposes people to a wide variety of proven ways to improve their health, mindset, time management and more, to help them create their own path to the life of their dreams.

Carl Honore was such a natural fit for this series, because Slow is really about thinking before doing. The Slow Revolution basically challenges today's faster, harder, round-the-clock pace by inviting people to step back and ask: "does this make sense given what I want to accomplish?" In this way, Slow is the new Fast. In my mind, it's a check and balance to the intention of technology advances which were designed to make our lives easier. The way we use technology today, however, often becomes a source of stress and distraction. One of the reasons the interview with Carl was so fun for me was learning that Carl is known for his fast nature (despite leading the Slow revolution). That resonated because people who know me remark on my high energy...one friend nicknamed me the "Fast Lady" because I'm zippy, do a lot of things and get a lot done. What most people don't see is when I slow down, and that I constantly modulate between fast and slow. There is a time and place to be fast, and other things are best done slowly, thoughtfully, in order to savor life, rest, or make the best decision. That should not be an excuse to procrastinate or fall back to perfectionism-there is a balance to strike and the point is to keep moving towards one's desired outcomes.

I also loved that Carl talked about multi-tasking. He admitted that there are contexts in which multi-tasking makes sense, and yet many times when we think it makes us more efficient it actually makes us less productive. The human brain does not multi-process; multi-tasking forces the brain to toggle back and forth between mental "files" and different parts of our brain. This results in tasks taking more time than they would if we focused on doing one thing at a time. These tidbits are only the tip of the iceberg-I don't want to spoil the whole interview...it is a fun, robust and fascinating listen.

This podcast series is a game changer for listeners- even if they take one nugget of information-just one tip or tool- and run with it to incorporate that into their lives, their life will get better. Each interview shares unique tools, tips and information and some even walk people through mindfulness and other exercises to provide an experience. Collectively, this series touches on every area of life that affects productivity and happiness.

JB: I can truly say that I'm enjoying myself immensely so far and looking forward to the rest of my homework. And I especially love that the various presenters share their own stories of growth in the process, as you did. What haven't we talked about yet that you'd like to add before we wrap this up?

NM: I'm so glad to hear that! This series is meant to be enjoyable and enriching- a healthy form of distraction from our crazy election in the U.S., and a reminder that life goes on. We need to take care of ourselves no matter what is happening in our lives. Podcasts are a relaxing, easy way to get great information, even on the go. For most people, I suspect there will be at least one interview in the series that introduces something completely new. I ask that people listen to these interviews with an open, curious mind. I feel like for a few of the interviews I should give a "woo-woo" alert. That said, I have personally tried some version of every technique discussed in this series. I know everything shared in the series actually works because it either worked for me or for people I know personally. I also learned and experienced new things during these discussions. I practice what I preach. I took on some new micro-habits after doing these interviews...for one, I bought a rebounder and have been using and loving it.

This series brings together people who are all participating in a very important conversation - one that needs to be brought into today's corporate and business culture. The do more, faster, better with less self-care and less connection philosophy is flawed, and it is not sustainable. It does not produce the best results. Innovation does not happen by grinding and rushing. Creativity and vision comes from within, and cannot be accessed without space to connect, reflect and process. Engagement happens only through such connection. My book, ENHANCE Employee Engagement: Future Proof Company Strategies, lays out a framework and specific strategies employees at all levels of organizations can use to facilitate the connection and drive that leads to better performance at the individual and corporate levels. You can get that on Amazon here.

Humans are not robots and that's a good thing. In the immortal words of a prolific, successful, creative, Dr. Seuss, "remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act."

JB: Indeed! Thanks so much for talking with me, Nicole. I'm so glad that you've put together The Balanced Life podcast series. All that collective wisdom wrapped up neatly in manageable portions and available, free, in one place. That we might actually be able to gracefully juggle the various demands made upon us at work and at home is a radical and exhilarating concept. Readers: hustle and sign up now! This is such a gift, with no strings attached, and an opportunity not to be missed.

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Thank you, Brigid Schulte, for the intro to Nicole, making this interview possible.

Link to Nicole Mason's The Balanced Life Series: How to Easily Harmonize Everything in Your Life For More Joy and Energy at Work and Home

Sponsored by Nicole Mason's company, Omnivantage Business Professionals, Inc.

Nicole's website

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.