Work-Life Balance vs. Work-Life Harmony: D2C Marketers Get Real

Evan Lee: I'm so excited to do this. We are live across all of our socials as well. Uh, everybody, this is, this is Thumbstop Live. Essentially, uh, when I first started this, didn't necessarily know where it was going, because we wanted to stream every Monday to Friday from 11:00 a.m. Eastern to 1:00 p.m. Eastern. And we've brought so many different guests in our community up onto the stage or the virtual stage to have such great conversations.

Evan Lee: I think one of the really interesting things that's happened through this process is like, I've started penning this as a love letter to D to C in this community, which I think is so in line with what Andrew has going on in this community that's built here. So, one of the biggest things about Thumbstop Live is it's not necessarily nested in the tactics of like, how do you run an ad account? How do you create the best next creative? We do some of that, but honestly, the main point of this is to start to humanize the people that are involved in this process. So I've had these three on Thumbstop Live before, so they've experienced what this is like. But what we start to do is, is we get a peek behind the curtain to understand how they think, the way that they think, and why they do what they do.

Evan Lee: So, what I am hoping for here is a combination. So these three are up here to kick us off so you all can see the vibes of what this goes like, right? But for the most part, what we also want to do is like open it up and involve the conversation and have everybody be a part of this. Okay? So I know that's a bit vague, which is why I wanted to kick off with these three who are vets in this space and with Thumbstop Live.

Evan Lee: Um, so without further ado, let's do this thing. Shout out to our socials. Everyone's tapping in right now. Know what it is.

Evan Lee: Um, everybody, when I'm talking about taking a peek behind the curtain, like what this often means to me is like, why are we all here? Why do we do what we do at the end of the day? And sometimes it's so hard to describe those feelings. It's just like we ended up here, like by chance in a lot of cases. But one of the things that I've started diving into with people is like I personally enter a new season of life is this idea of passion and purpose.

Evan Lee: Why do we do what we do? And how come we tick the way that we tick? So one of the first things that I wanted to dive into with these three, and I want everyone also thinking about these topics, right? Because we'll open up the mic and try that thing out. See how it goes. But the first question that I, I wanted to ask these three is just around passion. So the idea of passion is interesting. Like I think common advice that everybody gets is this idea of follow your passion, work in your passion, find your passion. There's a lot of pressure that comes with that. So the first thing I'm curious about is like this idea of passion for you three. Um, do you agree with the typical advice that's out there? And do you have any other opinions to share about passion? I see a face that Matt is making right there. So it seems like he is the perfect person to kick us off.

Matt: Oh shoot. Pressure's on. Um, I think that the funny thing is I'm laughing because I I've heard the opposite. I feel like I I tend to hear don't chase your passion. Um, because whatever, it's like not good for business. Um, I'm a lifelong artist. I was a ballet dancer and now I make ads. Uh, so I'm I'm definitely, I've definitely gone the route of just chasing passion. Uh, so for me, I think it's about, it's an energy thing. I think it takes time to like have passion for something or like a deep love for something. That takes many, many years. So I think to build passion, it's about sensing your energy. Like, do you, like, are you gravitating towards this thing? Like for dancing, it's not like I saw a show when I was eight and was like, I want to be a professional ballet dancer. It was, I got an opportunity. I didn't hate it. And I just kind of kept doing it. And over a long period of time, I fell in love with it to then take risks on that. It's not like, oh, I woke up one day and I was like, I love ads. I love ads now. I have a passion for that now. But it's not like, you know, you just like wake up and you're like, this is the thing I want to do, but it's over time of like chasing those curiosities and being like, oh, this is interesting. I want to keep going. And then over time that compounds to what I think is passion. I think, uh, we talked about this a little bit earlier, which is like, any work is hard. So you should probably pick the things that you like, like the problems you like to solve. And I think that's like a cool thing. So I think you should chase your passions because it would suck to like do something that you're not passionate about and then it gets hard because you want to quit.

Dara: I think like to your point, like passion is a bit of a privilege, right? I was someone like when I was like early in my career, I was a generalist. Like I got my start, um, working in NGOs as a humanitarian. So like complete opposite of advertising. And, um, even when I was considering starting my YouTube channel, um, I just knew I wanted to make content. And at the time I happened to be a media buyer. And now my name and image is like synonymous with like this passion in media buying and advertising. And I'm like, man, like it just, it for me it didn't start that way. Like passion, this passion for this industry was something that I had to earn by putting a lot of reps into it and by experiencing it a lot. Um, I'm really grateful for it. But and I the community is like bar none the best. Like I love getting to hang out with you guys all the time. But, um, the advice of following your passion, I'd say more like follow your interest, follow like what pulls you more than just your passion. Um, so, but yeah, it's something I'm still practicing, I think.

Matt: Um, I think the the best thing would be just to ask questions. I think the way I look at it is like, let's say, uh, there's like a a kind of like a whatever story where there's a teacher, a professor with like 50 students and they're all photography students and he goes, all right, I want you guys to take a picture of a leaf. And they start walking out of the classroom. He's like, where are you guys going? And they're like, well, we're going to go take pictures of a leaf. And he says, well, what if I wanted a maple leaf? What if I wanted a red leaf, a green leaf? They didn't ask the questions. And so they would have gotten a photo, but they would have gotten maybe the wrong photo. They didn't ask the right questions. So I always try to think about if we have not delivered, what questions did I miss? And how can I ask better questions? I I don't love blaming a client because I think that ultimately it is my job to ask the right questions. So I think that's how you have to get clarity and to figure that out.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually, I agree. Uh, I do teach at a college and so one of the biggest things that I've actually learned is clarity because they will ask a million questions. And so it's how do I explain everything so clearly that they don't have to come and ask me questions, which has actually helped in my business because then like you said, it just all those questions that you have to try to think of in order to get that clarity and transparency, I think is very, very important. So I I I like that analogy because I actually use it.

Dara: I think something that I do too with my clients recently that's really helpful is every time before we start working with someone, we give them a diagnosis and so that I can like, you know, try to deliver that quality, but so that we can have a conversation about what they're expecting and like just have it be a lot more transparent. Um, I always like to tell my clients too, like, listen, you're not working with me for the best practices. You're not working with me because I'm going to do things, um, the quote unquote right way. You are working with me because you are going to get my perspective and my POV and my team's POV. And I try to take out their, um, their want to do things the quote unquote right way and just, you know, we're going to do things the the point guard media way, which is my small team that I work with right now. Um, sometimes the Dara way, sometimes my team has different opinions than me. That's great. That's fine. But we can have just like really more productive conversations about that.

Evan Lee: Huge. Now, everybody think about if there's anything in your lives of like when you're working with your clients, if there's anything in there for clarity's sake. The one piece I want to tack on here for everybody to answer is does this change with your internal team communication? Why I ask that is like with internal teams, there's a lot more flexibility to try and find the right answer together. I think there's a level of buttoned up you need to be with your clients, which is rightfully so, right? But your internal team, you're solving new problems every day. Like one of the things that we were talking about was like, how do we train the team? Right? And it's like there's there's kind of conflict that can arise if you don't have clarity to be able to teach at that point. So I'm wondering if we add the lens of instead of client, we say internal team or peers, is there an adjustment to your answer in this case?

Evan Lee: I can kick off while everybody's thinking. Anybody who has a conversation with me, you'll hear me reference the mind maze at some point. I think everybody who sat at the table with me so far has heard me say that, you know? So it's like I kind of let it be known immediately, I'm searching for the answer. I don't know it, but I'm going to end up in dead ends. We're going to come back to try and find it. But it's like, just know that what I'm saying is going to be and it's going to create a rocky boat. I know that. Please stay on this rocky boat with me as we do this together, as we find through the mind maze. And I find that that alignment removes the expectation similarly of like, you got to get it right the first time. You got to be buttoned up. It's like, no, we're on the same team. Let's make this thing happen. So that's the experience that I can share, but I'm wondering if anyone else has anything here.

Matt: I think I I mean I can go. I think, uh, it shouldn't be different. I think where you're sitting across the table and talking at each other, you want to be sitting next to each other and looking out and being like, what is the problem and how are we going to solve this together? Because then that creates a really good dynamic. I think it comes down to like how are you composing a meeting? You need to actually have flexibility. You need to create that because creativity is not like this very logical done in 30 minutes. You need to be able to expand and and have these moments because it's in those small moments where you can find like the delta to whatever solve that problem. The same is true when you are guiding a team because there's times where you don't want your employee to try to like be proving themselves, right? Like when they are in an environment of fear, they can't execute at their highest level. So one of the biggest things and I I felt that as a creative in in ballet, there was it was such a top down dynamic that was so intense. And there are some in some ways that can really push you to be great. But I think that there is a a way in which you can do it differently.

Dara: and I didn't have the like trajectory that I was going for. And like that's something that I'm I'm trying to be more clear about that than trying to figure out how to make it all work because making it all work is not going to happen. So if I can get a lot clearer about the trajectory, then I like everything else will fall into place.

Matt: I like that. I love yeah, I mean it goes back to the like you would need to have extract what does the client want. You kind of need to sometimes take time to extract what you want too, right? Um, I I don't like this idea of work life balance because the idea of balance is about a a state of equilibrium. So everything is even. So like even amounts of work and then it's like stops and then it's an even amount of family time, even amount of friend. Like that's just not realistic. I love the word harmony because you can still do all these things, but it's you only have an X amount of time in your week and energy, right? And so like some weeks there's going to be more energy towards one thing versus the other. You have to communicate across those different parts of your life, uh, to say, hey, I'm going to I need more time here because of X, Y and Z and making sure that it can you can have that harmony. But I think if you, I think most people burn out trying to get this balance because there's like, I've got to like it's like they've got to like make it equal and it's like that's almost impossible. And so I like the idea like we should, you know, take care of ourselves, of course. But I think if you see it, uh, from harmony, it can really allow you to, going back to the very beginning, passion. I can have passion in my work, but also take care of myself too. And I can have passion with like my family and also like, you know, take care of myself in those moments. And so I try to figure out what are those, uh, seasons of life. Sometimes it can be from a day-to-day perspective, sometimes it can be from a a monthly perspective. It could also be from a year. Like we I'm in a certain situation, my wife's back in school. So it's like that's a season. That's a season for the next, you know, rest of the, you know, next year as well. It's like that's going to be a different thing that I have to figure out. But once that's done, I now have to rethink what is the, you know, what's life after that, right? And

Evan Lee: I love it. Everybody, this is an example of like what Thumbstop Live is. It's just like conversation to kind of get a peek of how people think because it's like we're human at the end of the day. So that's the part that I know I can talk about an unlimited amount of time. And I'm happy you all, uh, put up with us to be able to share a little bit about ourselves. Uh, first things first, I want to say thank you to these three for being vulnerable. Never easy. So a round of applause, please.

Evan Lee: Second thing, shout out to Mr. Andrew Foxwell for having us. Uh, if you all didn't not, if you all didn't know, we got to put pressure on him today. College times, he went by Mr. Lolo, freestyle rapper extraordinaire. Learned that on stream. So that was one of those fun things that came up. So we got to put some pressure on him tonight to make that come to life.

Evan Lee: And then third and final thing, like appreciate you all. Like eyes and ears are always deeply and sincerely appreciated. So this has been, this has been a blast. I think we've had some tech issues, so if you haven't been able to tap in with us, it's all good. We're live, well, I'm live Monday to Friday, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Got to get that in. Um, and then I'd be ashamed to say if you, if you haven't heard of Motion before, come talk to me. We got some cool stuff going on. We've had some good conversations so far with some people. So if you want to learn some more, come talk to me. But, uh, stream, peace out. You've been the best. Everyone else, thanks for the time.