How do you manage the work/life balance? | Big Think

How do you manage the work/life balance?

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“I just don’t,” Schwab Pomerantz says.

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Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz:

As chief strategist/consumer education for Charles Schwab & Co. Inc., Schwab-Pomerantz is a leading advocate for individual investors. She speaks and writes extensively about personal finance issues and is a driving force in the movement to improve financial literacy in America. As president of the Charles Schwab Foundation, she also oversees the company's philanthropic strategy and resources.

With her father, company founder, chairman and CEO Charles R. Schwab, Schwab-Pomerantz co-authored "It Pays to Talk: How to Have the Essential Conversations With Your Family About Money and Investing," which Publishers Weekly called "a well-rounded primer that provides one-stop shopping for the many phases of financial understanding and planning."

Schwab-Pomerantz is a sought-after speaker whose public appearances have included appearances on "The Today Show," CNBC and NPR. In 2001, Working Woman magazine recognized her as one of four “Market Movers” in America who are “rewriting the rules of finance,” and she was also recognized as one of the “25 power Elite” in the financial services industry by Investment News. For four consecutive years, The San Francisco Business Times has named her one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s 100 Most Influential Women in Business.

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Schwab-Pomerantz later earned a master’s degree in business administration from George Washington University. She holds NASD Series 7, 63 and 8 registrations.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: How do you manage the work/life balance?

Carrie Schwab: I always tell people, when they ask me how do I manage work or life balance, I just don’t. It is really difficult. And it ebbs and flows. And sometimes my husband has to remind me of when I am doing a little bit too much. I could feel it internally when I am doing too much.

I guess I consider myself a little ADD [attention deficit disorder]. I love new things, trying on new challenges.

I actually work four days a week. But I really mentally work seven days a week. Again, I have got my BlackBerry, my laptop, my cell phone.

Having girl friends are really important to me; I hike almost every Friday with them. So, I get my exercise and my social time.

I am at every game with all of my kid’s softball games and basketball games; I make that key priority.

And of course my husband and I walk every Saturday and Sunday in Mount Tamalpais; that it is our time to reconnect.

I am also on multiple boards. I am trying to pair back right now.

I’m thinking my kids are growing up so fast and everyone at least tells you that and you think “yeah, yeah, yeah,” but now that my oldest is a freshmen in college, I really got it.

There is plenty of time to do great things. So, it is a process. I take on too much and then I say “Oh! My god what I get myself into, pare back. So it ebbs and flows.