Why Work-Life Balance is Killing Your Family Legacy | EP 031

In this episode of The Phil Bohol Show, Phil breaks down the myth of work-life balance and reveals how chasing this elusive "balance" could be destroying your family's future. Using his own journey of building multiple seven-figure businesses while becoming a father during a global shutdown, Phil uncovers the mental shifts and actionable strategies that allowed him to create generational wealth, strengthen his family bonds, and live with purpose.

Welcome to The Phil Bohol Show, hosted by USMC veteran, mindset coach, sales expert, self-made entrepreneur, husband, and father, Phil Bohol. On this podcast, we don't just offer strategies — we offer a war cry, a call to arms, a challenge to rise, to break free from the shackles of mediocrity. You’ll learn the raw truth on how to break your limitations, scale your business to 7-figures, and level up every area of your life. Together, we won't just face challenges. We will crush them. Relentlessly.

(00:00) Introduction

(00:34) The Myth of Work-Life Balance

(01:33) Personal Journey and Choices

(02:22) The Struggle with Balance

(05:00) Realizations and Shifts

(07:57) Integrating Family and Work

(10:34) Teaching Through Example

(13:48) Application and Morning Rituals

(16:42) Final Thoughts and Call to Action

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[00:00:00]

What's going on you guys, it's Phil Bohol and welcome to the Phil Bohol Show, where we have real talk about family, fitness, finance, and everything that would hold you back from leveling up in every area of your life.

And more importantly, how I personally got through them.

Everybody else in this world wants to bullshit you.

I'm here to give you the truth.

[00:00:30]

Work life balance is a lie that's destroying your family's future. Since the global shutdown a couple of years ago, I've built multiple seven figure businesses while becoming a father twice over. And today I'm going to show you why balance itself is the wrong goal and what to do and what to focus on instead.

So in this video, you're going to learn

[00:01:00]

a couple of things.

First thing is why work life balance is actually hurting your family.

Then I'm going to talk to you about some of the shifts; three shifts I had to make to strengthen the bond and the relationship with my daughters.

How you can continue to build generational wealth, especially if you come from a third world country like me, while being more present and the exact framework I use making

[00:01:30]

multimillion dollar decisions without sacrificing family time.

I just got done playing in the snow with the girls.

When my first daughter Ariella was born, it was the start of the global shutdown and I had a choice to make.

Am I going to live a life of mediocrity and give that to them?

Or am I going to find a way to live a life that most people can only dream of, of excellence,

[00:02:00]

something to be proud of.

This is what I've built.

Coming from a third world country, coming from poverty, I was able to build something like this.

Most people told me that being a new dad is going to be very stressful and you got to take the safe route.

I chose not to take the safe route and we're all better off for it.

But you have to understand that when I tried to go against what was calling to me, that's

[00:02:30]

where I really started to lose myself.

I was so focused on, well, how do I be present with my wife?

She's got the baby in the tummy, baby's on the way.

How do I balance that with work?

And what happened was because I kept listening to the noise of the world, I kept listening to people that were unsuccessful.

In, in, in terms of how I viewed them, I was listening to them and they were pulling me to this, this mediocre state

[00:03:00]

that I needed this balance.

And every time I tried to seek balance, it felt like I went off balance because as business pulled me one direction, I kept going against that, trying to achieve balance.

And because of that, then I would give to my family, but then I'd be so distracted because I wanted a balance.

Thanks.

Working, hustling, building the thing that was going to secure safety and security, especially in a world of chaos, literally world of chaos.

[00:03:30]

And that's the guilt that we can feel as fathers, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, that we're trying our best for our family, but we also have to be present for the family because it kind of doesn't make any sense to say that we're doing all of these things, we're building business, we're making money, we're making changes.

For the family it doesn't really make sense to say that and then on the other side of it not see them to neglect them.

And so you got to understand that you're killing yourself trying to

[00:04:00]

balance this thing when it's not balance that you need.

It's not balance that's gonna get you to break through.

It's not balance that's gonna give you the ability to grow business.

While being present, the more you battle this, the more it's going to hurt.

And the more you do this, the more you're going to be distracted.

You're going to be a state of limbo.

And eventually as your kids grow older,

[00:04:30]

they're still going to feel like they didn't get enough of you.

They didn't get the best of you because while you were in.

When you felt so guilty because you weren't with family that you didn't do the work, you didn't push yourself to achieve greatness.

And when you're with your family, because you weren't pushing yourself to achieve greatness in your business,

You're always distracted with them, and that's not a way to live.

And that's what happens when people try to balance things, work life balance.

[00:05:00]

And the more that I did that, what happened was, I kept having this emotional turmoil, as we led closer and closer to my daughter being born.

And when she was born, man, like…

It felt like I was so behind on building a safety net, a security that the first year I wasn't as present as I am today.

Because now we have another daughter, Alessia, and she just turned one.

And this time around it's very different because of the lessons that I've learned.

So I really want you to pay attention

[00:05:30]

because we never get that time back.

And you gotta start asking yourself, don't you get tired of the guilt trip your wife doesn't give you?

Your kids don't give it to you, but you give you.

You got to shift the mentality because that first year of birth for my first born, and there's a lot of times that I missed because I was so caught up in emotional distress.

I was so caught up in my head that

[00:06:00]

as much as I thought I was present, I wasn't.

And that's why I want you to understand that as you kind of move forward away from the world of work life balance, the more that you kind of think about, well, if I'm going to give time to my family, if I'm gonna give time to my kids, quality.

Which one do I have to choose?

[00:06:30]

Which one do I have to give?

Do I give them quality time, less time, but it's quality time?

Or do I give them quantity time, but less quality because I'm distracted?

See, this is the thing that people think they have to choose from.

Just like work life balance.

Do I have to choose work?

Do I have to choose life?

Do I choose quality?

Do I choose quantity?

It doesn't have to be that way.

There's no choice that has to be made in those spaces, but you have to allow yourself to think differently.

And this is when I started to realize that

[00:07:00]

I was actually holding myself back because I was building

my first business and it required me to be on camera, it required me to be on zoom calls.

They required me to be on phone calls, and I used to feel like I was doing something wrong or I was being unprofessional.

If I had my, my daughter with me or if I had my wife in the background or family was happening behind the scenes.

Then one day I realized why, why am I so worried and concerned about how this looks?

[00:07:30]

My family needs me right now, and if they're walking around behind me, what's so unprofessional about that?

We're in the middle of a global shutdown.

Everybody's remote.

This doesn't make any sense.

Why am I doing this to myself?

Then I started to realize that I was overcomplicating the whole thing.

I was trying to make a choice when no choice had to be made, and that's when I started changing everything.

I started to actually involve

[00:08:00]

my family in during my times of work, but I had to look at things different.

I obviously had to still perform.

I had to put food on the table.

Absolutely.

But what I did was when I made that realization, I stopped trying to balance work and life.

And instead, I started to integrate my family into my purpose.

The thing that, that was calling to me.

I wanted to build a better life for them.

So I involved them more.

I wanted to show them what's

[00:08:30]

possible.

What, what their dad, what their husband was willing to do for them.

So I involved them more.

Everything that I did had to do with my family.

Now I started to understand how to be a family man.

And mind you, I didn't really have that great of an example of what it means for a father to involve his kids like that.

Story for another time, but that's when everything changed.

When you keep choosing and you keep trying to choose.

You're gonna let somebody down.

Think about like this

[00:09:00]

last time you had an email, a slack message, a text message from work and your kids wanted to play.

Were you checking your phone?

Were you thinking about checking your phone?

Were you thinking about work that was potentially gonna hit your phone?

So you had to have it around, you have to just slide it into your pocket while you played and while you were present.

You

[00:09:30]

have to learn a different way.

You gotta learn how to compartmentalize everything.

Because if you learn to compartmentalize, then you can have it all.

Because you're willing to be it all, but you have to stretch yourself more.

Right?

You have to stretch yourself that, if it's not balance that I have to seek, but integration, well, what happens when I start merging work and life?

What does that look like?

Well, now I'm going to have two things emotionally calling to me, one pulling me one direction, one pulling me the other.

How do I not get frustrated at one or the other?

And

[00:10:00]

that's what it means to be a present father.

That's what it means to be a strong man.

It's learning how to operate with those different variables and understanding that at the end of the day, even if that business of yours goes away, your kids, your wife, they will be there.

So show them, if you're working really hard or you're doing a deal or you're growing the business, why not have your son, your daughter there to see you in action?

Because you probably look like a

[00:10:30]

superhero to them if you allow it to be that way.

And the cool part about this is, as Ariella, my four-year-old now, she started getting older.

She has this, um, this little baby phone, this little pink little thing that has a little strap so it doesn't fall off her hand.

And she used to start holding it up to her ear.

And then we realized what she was doing, she was modeling me.

She was closing deals on her phone because I'm a closer.

[00:11:00]

And we didn't know what was happening, she just, she just kept doing this with her phone and she started to emulate what I was doing.

And that's when I realized I was teaching her skill sets without even realizing it.

So every time I was on the phone, every time I was talking with clients, every time I was helping somebody, she would see that as dad helping somebody.

She would see that as dad closing a deal.

She would start to model all of these good things and all these attributes.

I didn't even realize

[00:11:30]

that she, that she was even paying attention to because normally when she's in the office, she's just playing.

But sometimes, just like Todd in the Marine Corps, if you do the right thing even when nobody's watching, you have to understand somebody's always watching at the end of the day.

She's walking in right now.

So, you gotta ask yourself, and you see her running, what if your business can actually make you a better

[00:12:00] father?

What if you could do things like this, and you can have your daughter run into the room, and she just lays there, watching you, seeing what you're doing, what you're creating.

And now she has somebody to model.

She can see your work ethic.

She can hear your message.

She can hear your impact.

[00:12:30]

If only I knew that cause Ariella is the one that ran in here and I didn't really start to understand these lessons until about one to two years of birth.

So I really started to understand that time was moving quick.

I want you to imagine when you integrate work, life, family, and business in the right ways, and you control the chaos, you lead by example.

I want you to imagine your kids seeing the work that

[00:13:00]

you do, the purpose that you're driven by, as part of their legacy.

And not just a distraction.

Do you want to say hi baby?

No.

Too shy?

And if you can understand that, these are things that they're going to take with them.

These are going to be skill sets that she's going to take with her.

She's going to understand

[00:13:30]

how to communicate.

She's going to understand how to carry herself.

She already is comfortable at a desk.

She's already comfortable on camera.

Imagine if as she grows, as your children grow, they have that in their mind as who they remember their father to be.

So let's talk about application.

Let's talk about how you can apply this into your life.

Okay.

The first thing that you have to understand is you have to have a morning ritual.

You have to have the ability to

[00:14:00]

create time and space for yourself.

This is where you can journal.

This is where you can meditate.

This is where you can pray.

This is where you can really spend time with yourself.

So that way you create time to think, to create, to battle plan.

And just like this.

Integrating business moments, whether you're on a sales call, a meeting, the more you incorporate your children, notice she's not crying.

She's not bothering me.

She's here.

She understands what dad's doing.

[00:14:30]

Do you know what dad's doing, baby?

Integration.

I challenge you to be aware that maybe the first time around, second time around, third time around, it's not going to be as easy.

Maybe they're not used to the new environment, but as time progresses, just like all things, they will learn, they will understand, they will understand how to carry themselves in these situations.

Just like right now, you see my daughter, she knows how to play next to

[00:15:00]

me.

She knows how to be present without interruption because over time she's learned how to integrate into what I do on a daily basis.

And if you can take all of these things as learning lessons and teach, that's the most important thing.

Because you teach them how to carry themselves.

You teach them how to think about scenarios and situations.

You teach them the proper etiquette and how to carry themselves.

Now all of these things start

[00:15:30]

becoming the legacy.

This is what you pass on to generations.

Now, at four years old, she's been on more closing calls.

She's been on more meetings.

She's worked with more clients.

She's done more podcasts.

She's done more videos.

She's done so much more at four years old than I did for almost three decades of my life, and it's a beautiful thing.

But at the same time, just like right after this, we have to have boundaries.

We have to

[00:16:00]

create digital boundaries where dad's not always on the computer.

Dad's not always on his phone.

You gotta be able to create space that you're not on social media.

You're not working.

You're not checking slack.

You're not doing the next text message, email, deal proposal, whatever the case might be.

Just like I said right before this, we just finished playing in the snow.

It's her first time seeing the snow.

You have to know when to cut work off.

You gotta know when to cut social

[00:16:30]

media off.

You gotta know, as long as you have a plan that you follow on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, you can have it all.

You just gotta be willing to stretch yourself.

So if you're ready to stop killing yourself, trying to balance these things, if you're ready to stop killing your legacy with trying to do what mediocre people do, which is this lie of work-life balance.

Here's what I want you to do right now.

Number one,

[00:17:00]

if this has opened your eyes in any shape, way, or form, like and subscribe to this channel.

But number two, I want you to end this and go hang out with your kids, go hang out with your wife, go play in the snow, go, go, go to the beach, whatever season it is for you, for where you're at, unplug, spend time with your kids, spend time with your family, spend time with the people that matter the most.

And just see how much more energized you feel.

[00:17:30]

And just imagine a year from now, when they're a little bit older.

Imagine how much closer you're gonna be with them.

You ready to play in the snow again?

And imagine just having the life that you've always dreamed of, because you earned it.

You put in the work, and you led from the front.

As I said, if this has opened

[00:18:00]

your eyes, like this video, share this video with another brother that needs to hear this message.

Subscribe to the channel so that we can keep hearing more messages like this.

And again, as soon as this ends, put the phone down, put the laptop down, put the computer down.