March 31, 2025

Unlocking Your Productivity: The Universal Prime Time Approach to Work-Life Balance as a Coach

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Achieving true work-life balance isn't about perfect time management—it's about strategic energy allocation. We dive deep into three powerful pillars that transform how coaches approach their professional and personal lives: mindset, tactics, and accountability.

The foundation begins with a critical mindset shift: accepting that you simply cannot do everything to the perfection level you desire. This reality check frees you to ask better questions: What tasks truly leverage your unique strengths? Which activities genuinely bring you joy? What actions meaningfully connect you with loved ones? By intentionally focusing on these high-value areas, you create space for excellence where it matters most rather than mediocrity across the board.

Tactically, we explore the game-changing concept of "Universal Prime Time"—that golden window during your day when mental, physical, and emotional energy peaks. Whether you're a morning person or night owl, identifying and fiercely protecting this productivity sweet spot allows you to accomplish in 1-2 focused hours what most people struggle to complete in an entire workday. This isn't about working more—it's about working smarter and aligning your most demanding tasks with your natural energy rhythms.

Quality consistently trumps quantity, especially in relationships. We share a powerful example comparing 30 minutes of fully engaged play with children versus two hours of passive television watching—revealing how brief, intentional connection creates far more meaningful impact than extended but disengaged time together. This principle extends beyond family to client relationships, team leadership, and personal development.

Your environment either supports or sabotages your balance goals. We naturally adopt the behaviors, values, and priorities of those we surround ourselves with, making it essential to curate your professional community intentionally. By connecting with others who share your commitment to sustainable success, you create powerful accountability systems that make maintaining boundaries infinitely easier.

Ready to transform how you approach work-life balance? Book a free coaching call through the link below and discover how to increase your impact while protecting what matters most to you.

Want a personalized strategy session for free? Book a free call with Marc or Teresa: https://www.modernleadership.us/apply

Whether you're going through a challenge, or working on a powerful goal, join Marc or Teresa for a 20-minute strategy session and leave the call with a plan to make it happen!


Chapters

00:00 - Mindset for Work-Life Balance

01:10 - Tactics and Prioritizing What Matters

02:15 - Quality vs Quantity in Family Time

04:00 - Universal Prime Time Explained

05:48 - Accountability and Environment

07:11 - Key Takeaways and Action Steps

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.440 --> 00:00:03.581
So what are the best practices for maintaining work-life balance as a coach?

00:00:04.001 --> 00:00:11.227
I'm surprised you're asking me because you're the one who masters this, so let's hit it from the idea of the mindset, the tactics and the accountability once again, right?

00:00:11.227 --> 00:00:16.809
So when it comes to the mindset, it is you can't do everything that you want to the level that you want to do it, right.

00:00:16.809 --> 00:00:27.477
This has a lot to do with, also, people in businesses, right, where they think that they have to take care of everything because nothing's going to be able to get done to their satisfaction if they don't do it all.

00:00:27.477 --> 00:00:27.757
Right.

00:00:27.757 --> 00:00:30.097
And this is the same thing with our personal life, right.

00:00:30.097 --> 00:00:35.591
We try to take on so much that we actually overflow everything and then we're really good at nothing.

00:00:35.591 --> 00:00:36.073
Right?

00:00:36.460 --> 00:00:49.308
As opposed to leaning in and asking ourselves, like how can we do the things that not only bring us to life, that we really love, that are like in our strength zones, and find other ways to delegate, outsource, chat, gpt, the rest of the stuff, right?

00:00:49.308 --> 00:01:06.147
And so when you think about that whole idea of some things matter more than others, you have to ask yourself, like what are the things that I love, that I enjoy, what are the things that bring me closer to my family, right, and how can I find a way to stay within that zone, because then I can do those things exceptionally well.

00:01:06.147 --> 00:01:07.929
So that's what I would say would be the mindset.

00:01:07.929 --> 00:01:08.909
How about for tactics?

00:01:08.909 --> 00:01:09.531
What would you say?

00:01:10.051 --> 00:01:21.819
Yeah, I think it goes along with the mindset piece right Is really prioritizing what you need to do, and I think that the trap we fall into is thinking that everything is urgent and important and it's not so.

00:01:21.859 --> 00:01:27.323
We have to really look at what it is that we're doing and identify the things that matter the most.

00:01:27.323 --> 00:01:33.707
Also, if you're working on your business, you have to understand that there are some things that you do best.

00:01:33.707 --> 00:01:53.355
That is your zone of genius, that is your expertise that you need to dive into and really spend the most of the time and energy in those things and then really let go of the rest or delegate it, because that is how we fall into this sense of overwhelm.

00:01:53.355 --> 00:02:18.905
So it's really identifying the key things that you need to do and that you're the one that needs to do them, and then the rest just needs to be let go and you really start to feel like that empowerment and really it's really about leadership, because you are taking on the things that really matter the most and giving other people the chance to be able to work on their zone of genius.

00:02:19.574 --> 00:02:21.360
Yeah, two things come up as you were saying that.

00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:31.897
Number one is is I want you to talk about universal primetime, because when, when people think about like getting more stuff done in less time, that's something that we help teach our clients is is how to figure out their universal primetime.

00:02:31.897 --> 00:02:39.723
But before we get into that, I also want to share, like, based off what you were saying, right, there is like some things matter more than others, and then looking at what are those things and how can I do more of those things?

00:02:39.723 --> 00:02:50.461
Right, when it comes to, like, let's say, family time, right, we, especially here on this channel, like family is a really big deal to us, right, we won't put that on the back burner to succeed in business and we'll never ask our clients to do that either.

00:02:50.461 --> 00:03:08.390
Right, but when you lean into family, sometimes people think that family is just about spending an absorbent amount of time with your family, right, and what I found is that, because of a lot of high performers, people who want to excel in multiple areas, that you have to really get laser focused on the things, like you said, that move the needle forward the most.

00:03:08.431 --> 00:03:10.176
And sometimes it's not a quality, a quantity game.

00:03:10.176 --> 00:03:12.200
Sometimes it's a quantity game.

00:03:12.200 --> 00:03:15.395
Yes, that's what I meant, exactly what you just said.

00:03:15.395 --> 00:03:16.780
Like, let me give you an example.

00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:23.314
So you can spend two hours watching a TV show, right?

00:03:23.314 --> 00:03:25.723
Not talking, not communicating, just watching the TV show, and you're in the room with your kids for two hours.

00:03:25.742 --> 00:03:35.259
Or you can spend 30 minutes doing what one of our clients was doing on our call, which is like playing Barbies, right, and the level of connection that you have when you're having those conversations, you're getting to like play with them on their level.

00:03:35.259 --> 00:03:40.325
30 minutes of playing with them will make a bigger impact than two hours of sitting down and watching TV with them.

00:03:40.325 --> 00:03:45.078
And so it's really just thinking about what moves the needle the most and how can I do that more often.

00:03:45.078 --> 00:03:49.807
It's not just purely a quantity game, it's a quality game, like you said.

00:03:49.807 --> 00:03:55.677
Right, I wanted to bring that up but also want you to share, like the universal prime time, because I see so many of our clients when they lean into this.

00:03:55.677 --> 00:03:58.941
It is a total game changer for them, but they have to find their way of doing it.

00:03:58.941 --> 00:04:00.141
So can you explain that real quick?

00:04:00.342 --> 00:04:16.141
Yes, the universal prime time is basically a time frame in the day where you have the most mental, physical and sometimes even emotional energy, and these are the times where you feel like during the day you're like, oh man, I'm, I'm good to go, like I can be so productive.

00:04:16.555 --> 00:04:20.466
Sometimes it's about really analyzing when that is for you, because it's different for everybody.

00:04:20.466 --> 00:04:27.721
Some people are morning people and other people are not, and they might be night owls, so that could be their universal prime time.

00:04:27.721 --> 00:04:46.250
So it's just about finding that timeframe for you, and it could be an hour, it could be two hours, and it's just about identifying that for yourself, because even with that short period of time you can get more of the most important things done than if you would have, you know, set on your schedule for five hours to do some work.

00:04:46.250 --> 00:04:53.108
You get laser focused because your mind is, you know, primed and you have the most physical energy as well.

00:04:53.108 --> 00:04:58.185
So we try to work that in with our clients and just kind of identifying that time period for them and just kind of identifying that time period for them.

00:04:58.446 --> 00:04:59.226
Yeah, yeah.

00:04:59.226 --> 00:05:15.100
And when you think about those times, you want to make sure that you remove the things like doing laundry, cleaning up around the house, doing things that like actually don't take a lot of brain power, because you're kind of giving those things your extra energy and brain power and your physical and mental and emotional energy away to something else.

00:05:15.100 --> 00:05:28.536
Right, you're a coach with a big heart and a powerful desire to make a real difference in the world, but what if you could increase your impact, increase your confidence and grow a business with ease?

00:05:28.536 --> 00:05:35.000
I want to help by offering you a free coaching call so we can discover exactly how to help you feel aligned and equipped to guide your clients to even more incredible results.

00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.396
We'll also create a plan to scale your business while maintaining your work-life balance.

00:05:39.396 --> 00:05:45.576
If you're ready to turn your passion of helping other people into sustainable growth, click the link below and book your free call.

00:05:45.576 --> 00:05:48.605
Thank you for being willing to lean in, and let's get right back into the show.

00:05:48.915 --> 00:05:50.800
The last piece I want to talk about is accountability.

00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:56.065
Right, it's making sure that you're surrounding yourself with other people who value work-life balance as much as you do.

00:05:56.065 --> 00:06:15.139
No-transcript the team that I'm a part of, because you will naturally take on the behaviors, the actions, the thoughts and the beliefs of the people in that environment, right?

00:06:15.139 --> 00:06:32.302
And so, for example, like when I was working full time at LAPD and trying to become a coach and elevate what we're doing here at home, right, I realized that when I was spending more time with people at LAPD, I wasn't in the right environment to really be able to find answers, not only answers in terms of entrepreneurship answers, but answers around how to connect better with family.

00:06:32.302 --> 00:06:40.168
Because it was all about, like, the rat race of working, helping people, doing this thing rinse and repeat, you know, days off, getting changed, all that kind of stuff.

00:06:40.168 --> 00:06:44.322
And it was all for, like how can we do this for the citizens?

00:06:44.322 --> 00:06:44.605
Kind of thing.

00:06:44.625 --> 00:06:46.821
Right, which is a great place to be, you know, because you're there to make an impact.

00:06:46.880 --> 00:06:54.836
Right, but you have to be very conscious of am I hanging out with the people who share the values that I want to lean into?

00:06:54.836 --> 00:06:58.339
Right, and when you do that, it will get you to show up on a different level.

00:06:58.339 --> 00:07:01.802
It'll get you to start feeling like it's contagious with everybody else.

00:07:01.802 --> 00:07:11.209
So, highly encourage that everybody does a real quick assessment, right, I think about like am I making everything matter, or can I focus on the things that move the needle the most?

00:07:11.209 --> 00:07:15.052
Follow that up with what is my universal prime time so I can get more done in less time.

00:07:15.052 --> 00:07:20.420
You will get more done an hour or an hour and a half of your universal primetime than most people get done in eight hours of a workday.

00:07:20.420 --> 00:07:31.365
All right, and number three is making sure that I'm in the right environment, because if I'm in the right environment, I'm going to set myself up for success and those actions and activities are going to be so much easier than if I were to do them on my own.