In the ECE Coffee Talk series, one of our agents or artists shares a more personal post full of musings and/or insight – basically, talking and rehashing life as if you were sitting across from each other sipping coffee. Today ECE Atlanta Managing Partner, Matthew Thomas, is sharing his thoughts on the ever-elusive goal of finding a balance between work, family and self. Grab your mug and pull up a chair.
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Spring is wrapping up and summer is almost here! This is my favorite time of year, aside from maybe Christmas. The sun is shinning, people are out and about on the town enjoying the weather and events are in full swing, which means, especially in this industry, it’s non-stop day in and day out! The hours, days and weeks fly by during this time of year and one of the hardest things to do is to find balance and keep your sanity.

It’s exciting and exhausting all at the same time… and I love it. I think I thrive most when my plate is full, but this year, it’s a bit overflowing. The insanity has been compounded this year. On the personal front, my wife and I welcomed our first child – an amazing baby boy named Brady. Professionally speaking, I made partner here at ECE. This comes with a lot of additional responsibility and workload, not to mention the challenge of getting up to speed with the many things involved with helping run a company.

Here at ECE, we’re in the midst of a huge CRM project that is going to help take us to the next level and allow us to be more effective as a company. However, the work that has to be done to get it developed and in a place that does all of the things we need this system to do with the many facets of our business is a monumental task. Coming in a bit late in the process requires me to work double-time to get up to speed on everything and help the progress.

There are not enough hours in the day to do it all sometimes, and finding balance is a tremendous challenge.

Obviously, being a new father, I want to spend as much time with my son as I can, especially during these early stages of his life. Not to mention that he is just so stinkin’ adorable. He has recently discovered his hands and trying to grab things, and has started smiling and has the occasional short little giggles that just melt my heart! It’s so hard to pull myself away from him every morning. I count the minutes until I get to see him when I get home. Thank the technology developers who designed FaceTime! While I can’t be there in person, I can still take a break and see his face a couple of times a day and it gives me that much needed boost!

That’s the challenge every day – finding that balance between career, family and some personal downtime to recharge. With everything that’s needed to get the job done at the office, it’s hard to get home in time to spend at least a few minutes before Brady goes down for the night. It’s my goal to be there to help with bath time, give him his last bottle of the day and put him down for the night. I don’t always succeed, but I try every day.

The upside to all of this is that business is going well and it’s a great time to be at ECE. We’re growing, our roster of talent is amazing, and we have the opportunity to work with so many great clients and to help make so many people happy at such a wide variety of events. It’s an exciting time and I hope to be able to continue to find balance. I don’t always find it, but I keep trying. That’s all any of us can really do at the end of the day.