Thanks for the response, Louie. I never thought of putting it like that (of course, I was never an athlete!), but I WAS a musician, and I would spend countless hours working on writing songs and playing and singing. I don't know if it would be easier on me if any of my family members had such a passion as you and I do for business and technology. But then again, I always hung around people who had similar passions, or were at least passionate about SOMETHING. But learning to balance with family has been the hardest thing.

Thanks for sharing - and thanks for the encouragement as well!

I just finished listening to the latest Brain Storm and I can definitely
empathise with your experiences in balancing work, business, and family
life.
The best analogy that I used to explain my passionate obsession with
learning about business and technology was that of the champion
sportsperson. In my younger years I was a champion athelete and I got there
by training 3-4 hours nearly everyday for many years. I choose to achieve
excellence in my sport and to be the best I could be in my sport. It
allowed me to build my self confidence and commitment to achieve by
continually testing, learning, and improving my abilities until I was
satisfied with my level of success.
The lessons I leanered from my pursuit of excellence in sport became part of
my "make-up". Those youthful years were extremely positive character
building years for me. I established solid foundations of confidence that
allowed me to succeed in my professional career later on. So when my family say to me "are you on that computer again" or "are you reading more books again" I simply say "champions become champions because they train long and
hard and I am in training to be a champion". While my wife understands and
accepts this, my young children are not mature enough to understand this
yet, so I make sure that we have time together to play and do things
regularly. My wife and I also plan monthly trips away for just the two of
us so that we can build on our relationship. All this requires planning,
timing, flexibility, and the ability to say "no" to a lot of other "nice to
do" things. It's not always a smooth ride, but we have managed to balance
things on the whole. It isn't easy but we all enjoy the success that comes
from the commitment and effort we put in.

Look forward to sharing some more experiences.

Love your Brain Storm podcast!