Life Is a Mashup: Stop looking for work-life balance and get a life instead!

Life Is a Mashup
Stop looking for work/life balance
and get a life instead

An e-booklet by Eryc Eyl, ©2013 Eryc Eyl, all rights reserved, except where otherwise noted

image by dmarklaing, used under Creative Commons license

Disclaimer
The information contained in this guide is for informational purposes only.
I am not a lawyer or an accountant or a licensed therapist or a professional video game player or a competitive
eater. Any advice I give is my opinion, based on my own experience. You should always seek the advice of a
professional and do some serious soul searching before acting on something I publish or recommend.
The material in this guide may include information, products or services by third parties. These contain
products and opinions expressed by their owners. As such, I do not assume responsibility or liability for any
third-party material or opinions. Publication of such third-party material is simply a recommendation and an
expression of my own opinion of that material.
No part of this publication shall be reproduced, transmitted, or sold in whole or in part in any form, without the
prior written consent of the author. All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing in this guide are the
property of their respective owners.
Users of this guide are advised to do their own due diligence when it comes to making business and career
decisions and all information, products, services that have been provided should be independently verified by
your own qualified professionals. By reading this guide, you agree that neither I nor my company is responsible
for your success or failure relating to any information presented in this guide. You’re the boss of you.

©2013 Eryc Eyl, all rights reserved, except where otherwise noted

Table of Contents
•

Chapter 1: What the Freelance Hellraiser can teach us about work/life balance

•

Chapter 2: Craft a vision for your life mashup with Danger Mouse

•

Chapter 3: Make your life a mashup with Girl Talk

•

Chapter 4: Fine-tune your life mashup with Wax Audio

•

Chapter 5: Put an end to work/life balance

•

Incomplete acknowledgements

•

Author’s biography


photo by Renee Comet, in the public domain

Chapter 1: What the Freelance Hellraiser
can teach us about work/life balance

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 15
years or so – and it's totally cool if you have – you've
probably encountered the term "mashup" in some
context. Whether you're talking about music, video,
literature, software or a scene from Glee, you know
that a mashup results from combining material from
two or more sources to create something that is
simultaneously 100% derivative and 100% original.

image by Hannes Kinnunen, used under Creative Commons license

Keep your head and your heart while keeping your job.

4

When you think about it, it's a lot like life – or how life could be. When we stop talking
about work-life balance and flexible work arrangements and all those attempts to
reconcile apparently competing forces, we might realize that the competition is artificial.
Instead of pitting the domains of our lives against one another, we can create something
new – 100% derivative and 100% original — and life can be a mashup.
_______________________________________________________________________________
While mashups have a history that reaches far back into the 20th century, the
contemporary form we've gotten used to probably got its popular boost in 2001, when a
British producer named Roy Kerr released "A Stroke of Genie-us" under his nom-demash, Freelance Hellraiser.


Life Is A Mashup

5

Kerr slapped the bubblegum pop vocal from Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" over
the instrumental tracks from the Strokes' neo-garage single "Hard to Explain." The two
very different tunes worked surprisingly well together, and the result was unexpectedly
awesome. Somehow, this strange combination brought out the best in both of the
sources (to be totally honest, I hated the Xtina original), while also creating a brand new
song that, on its own merit, was called "the song that defines the decade" by the

If you’re not familiar with “A Stroke of
Genie-us,” do yourself a favor – give it a
listen by clicking the image to the right
(internet access required) before you read
on.
You’ll be glad you did.



Guardian UK's Dorian Lynskey.

6

"OK," you say, "That was fun, but what the heck does this have to do with my job?"
I'm glad you asked. As it turns out, it has a LOT to do with it. Given the increasing busyness of our lives, the technologically aided dissolution of barriers between personal time
and professional time, and the stressful fragments of our selves that never seem to get
together, recognizing that life is a mashup just might be critical to your survival.
When your life is a mashup, things can get really fun. When you start thinking about how
your Texas Hold 'Em habit can help you in your job as a product manager, or how your
experience in corporate finance can help you get that recycling program off the ground in
your community, you also stop thinking about work-life balance.
You stop thinking about tradeoffs — sacrificing in one domain to benefit the other — and
start thinking about how you can make gains in two or more domains at the same time.
You feel less stressed, happier and healthier. You bring your whole self to work, to church,
to your daughter’s soccer game, to the neighborhood meeting and to your relationships.


Life Is A Mashup

7

Creating a mashup — whether your medium is music, video, software or your life —
involves three key phases:
1.

Vision — You begin by seeing that seemingly

unrelated sources just might fit together
productively.
ge b

y Tk

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, us

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2.
nde
r

Cre
ativ

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Execution — You courageously take steps to

omm

bring those sources closer together.
ons
l

icen

se

3.

Fine-tuning — You make adjustments to your

sources until they create a harmonious new whole.
In this booklet, we'll take an in-depth look at vision, execution and fine-tuning to learn
how you can bring together the domains of your life — family, hobbies, work, spirituality,
community, friendship, romance, volunteerism — in a way that benefits ALL of them and
turns your life into a mashup.



ima

8

Chapter 2: Craft a vision for your
life mashup with Danger Mouse
image by musicisentropy, used under Creative Commons license

In music, a mashup transforms two or more existing audio sources into a totally
original creation. Sometimes, the creation doesn't quite work. Sometimes, it works
and makes you think about the sources in new and different ways. And sometimes,
it's even better than the originals and becomes your favorite song.
In life, a mashup transforms two or more parts of your life — work, family, community,
spirituality, hobbies, interests — into a totally original and unified creation that is more
than the sum of its parts and, at its best, also makes each of the parts better.
But creating a life mashup isn't easy. In this chapter, we'll dig into the first step –
envisioning the mashup.


Life Is A Mashup

9

While the Freelance Hellraiser really got the ball of 21st-century mashups rolling with "A
Stroke of Genie-us" in 2001, the artist who brought the art form into the mainstream was
Danger Mouse, a.k.a. Brian Burton and The Grey Album.

without any musical accompaniment) from his seminal Black Album, encouraging
producers and remixers to play around with them, and Danger Mouse took him up on it.
Rather than simply dropping Jay-Z's vocals on top of existing beats (as some very
talented folks did with projects like Jay-Zeezer [Jay-Z vs. Weezer] and Jaydiohead [Jay-Z
vs. Radiohead]), Danger Mouse chopped and spliced various samples from the Beatles'
White Album to create new-but-familiar musical homes for Hova's lyrics to nestle into.



In a visionary business move, rapper Jay-Z released all the a capella tracks (i.e., the vocals

10

The stunning results and runaway
popularity of The Grey Album led Burton
to producing an album for the Gorillaz, to
creating the enormously popular group
Gnarls Barkley with Cee-Lo Green, and to
collaborating with Shins frontman, James
Mercer, in Broken Bells. Check out a track
from The Grey Album for yourself by
clicking the image to the right (internet
access required) before you read the rest
of this chapter.
Now, I don't know what Brian Burton's thought process was, but I know this — before
he ever got started on this project, he had to have a vision. He had to have been a
lover of the Beatles — or, at least, he had to have known the White Album pretty
darned well — and he had to have thought, when he heard Jay-Z's album, "Hey, you
know what would be great?"


Life Is A Mashup

11

Maybe it was simply something he thought was funny (e.g., black + white = grey) or
maybe it was something deeper (Jay-Z's take on the black experience in 21st-century
America is all-the-more poignant set against one of the most important British rock-n-roll
records).
The specifics of Danger Mouse's vision almost don't matter, at least for our purposes.
What matters is that he had a vision. He had the inspiration to try uniting one of the titans
derivative and 100 % original.
So what's your vision? Do you want to figure out how to use your corporate procurement
experience to make your kid's 4H club more successful? Do you want to mash up your
passion for judo with your new role as a supervisor? Again, the specifics almost don't
matter. What matters is that you have a vision.


image by DaveOnFlickr, used under Creative Commons license

of the British invasion with one of the titans of hip-hop to create something 100 %

12

As you start crafting that vision for your life mashup, use these questions to guide you:

•

Which domains of your life are you keeping separate?
•

What parts of your home self are you hiding at work?
•

What parts of your work self are you missing at home?
•

Are their domains of your life in which you’re giving more than you’re getting?
o or domains where you’re getting more than you’re giving?

•

Are there areas in which you simply want to give — or get — more?
•How can you find win-win-win-win-win opportunities to improve multiple areas of your
image by Guillaume Paumier, CC-BY., used under Creative Commons license

life instead of trading dissatisfaction in one domain for satisfaction in another?

Start formulating that vision of how
your life can be a mashup. In the
next chapter, we'll take on the next
critical step — execution.


Life Is A Mashup 13

Chapter 3: Make your life a mashup with GirlT
alk
All right. We've talked a little about WHY you might want to make your life a mashup
— because you want a blend, not balance — and we've talked about creating a VISION
for that mashup (e.g., figuring out how your strengths as a lawn bowler can be brought
to the board room).

Now, we have to take a leap, mashing up the domains of
our lives that we've previously kept separate into a wholly
derivative, wholly original, wholly holy whole. It's time to
quit the jibber-jabber and get to work, my friends! And I
can't think of anyone better qualified to help us with that
than Girl Talk.

Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, photo by drivenbyboredom, used under Creative
Commons license

Keep your head and your heart while keeping your job. 14

Like most people, I first encountered the work of Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, with the
Night Ripper album in 2006. The remarkable thing about Girl Talk is his ability to create
complex mashups from multiple sources, leaving some sources more or less intact, while
chopping others up until they're nearly unrecognizable. Check out this clip — taken from
the documentary RiP: A Remix Manifesto — for a taste of his skill within the mashup art
form and his willingness to experiment with a mashup until it sounds right (you’ll have be
connected to the internet for this to work).


Life Is A Mashup 15

As you can see – you did watch the clip, right? – Gillis's
approach to mashups is visionary, precise and biased
toward action. First, he has to have a vision, which might
image by Jeffrey B, used under Creative Commons license

come in the form of a question: Will Elvis Costello's
"Radio" make an interesting percussive element when
combined with CeCe Peniston’s “Finally” and a few other
audio odds and ends? It’s a unique and bizarre vision that
perhaps only he could have crafted.
Then, with surgical precision ("...I put .25 seconds of it there
and then .125 seconds there...") and an experimental, let'ssee-what-happens mindset, Gillis leaps into action, editing
audio in one software program, pasting it into another and
then layering other elements on top of it. Right before our
eyes, in a 3-minute video clip, Gillis deftly creates a wholly
derivative and wholly original composition — all while his
female companion tries to sleep. Poor girl.


16

There's one other interesting biographical
fact about Girl Talk that's worth noting for
beyond your reach, who think that you can't
possible draw anything from your personal
life into your professional life or vice versa.
Ready? Here it is.
Gregg Gillis produced Night Ripper while
also working a demanding professional job

image courtesy of Wikipedia, in the public domain

those of you who feel like a life mashup is

by day as a biomedical engineer. Food for
life-mashing thought.


Life Is A Mashup 17

Moving from the Freelance Hellraiser to Danger Mouse to Girl Talk is a bit like moving
from motor scooter to land speeder to jet pack: they all provide uniquely cool
experiences, and none is better than the others, but the leap from one to the next
requires paradigmatic shifts in thinking.
Only you can decide whether your life mashup is more like a motor scooter (which, itself is
pack (rocket vs. fashionable vest) — and those are far from the only options. What matters
is that — like Girl Talk — you embrace your bizarre vision and leap into action.
Is the mashup we see Gregg Gillis create live perfect? No. Far from it. But he fearlessly
made the leap -- while still in bed! – into creation, and now he can proceed to step 3: fine
tuning. Before you can fine tune, you have to do something different.
What about you? Are you ready for the next step?


a mashup of motorcycle and scooter) or a land speeder (motorcycle vs. hovercraft) or a jet


Chapter 4: Fine-tune your
life mashup with Wax Audio

Have you ever been asked by a boss or manager or coworker to
leave your personal life/family issues/marital problems at home? If
you're like most workers, the answer is yes.
On the other hand, have you ever been asked by a boss or a manager
or coworker to leave your professional life/work issues/project
problems at work? If you're like most workers, the answer is no.


Life Is A Mashup 19

When we don't make the personal professional
opportunity to reduce stress, feel whole and do
greater good in the world. Instead of figuring out
how to draw boundaries or create that ever-elusive

image via ToolBoxTalks

and the professional personal, we miss an

balance, we can make life mashups and achieve
more in more parts of our lives.

strengths and skills from family, community, work and other domains of your life. You've
then put together a life mashup that brings these things together. Now it's time to get it
right.
Some DJs and music lovers hate mashups, and with good reason. After they were
popularized by folks like Freelance Hellraiser, every DJ with two turntables or a laptop
was slapping a Britney Spears vocal over a Wu-Tang beat, or vice versa. Suddenly,
mashups were everywhere — and most of them sucked.


And that’s why you're here! You've envisioned ways to mash up experiences, expertise,


Wait a minute! Britney vs. Wu-Tang sucked? How can that be? That sounds amazing! Well,
the trouble was that many of these would-be mashup artists weren't fine-tuning their
mixes. They didn't bother to make sure the rhythms matched, that the tempos were
compatible, or even that the songs were in the same key. A good mashup should bring
two or more sources together in a fresh, surprising and harmonious whole, but many of
these quickie creations were utterly cacophonous.
One mashup producer who really understands finetuning is Wax Audio, a.k.a. Tom Compagnoni. This
artist deftly and gracefully brings together a
number of surprising elements, and then carefully
tweaks, turns, twists and tunes them until they form
a cohesive whole. Best of all, his mashups are so
finely tuned that the final product stands on its own
merits, never drawing undue attention to the hours
of work and attention it must take to create them.
For example, click on the one to the left.


Life Is A Mashup 21

Yep. You've just been Waxed! Can you see
and hear how Compagnoni cut, caressed,
cuddled, coaxed and cajoled all those
elements together? Can you see and hear
how the result is wholly derivative, wholly
original and almost unholy in its
awesomeness?

As an aside, it's probably worth mentioning that Compagnoni also manages the video
department for the Australian Associated Press. Do you think his life is a mashup? You
better believe it!
So what can we learn from Wax Audio that will help us with our own life mashups?


image by Lucky Louie, used under Creative Commons license


The most significant thing we can learn
from Wax Audio is that — contrary to
what Tom Petty might've taught us —
the fine-tuning is the hardest part.
Was it difficult for Wax Audio to envision
a mashup that included Van Halen, New
Order, Duran Duran, Tears For Fears and
Madonna? Sure.
But not nearly as difficult as it was to
actually put all those sources together.
In turn, putting it together was probably
oodles easier than making sure the

image by liza31337, used under Creative Commons license

pieces actually fit together in rhythm,
tempo, key and color.


Life Is A Mashup 23

Letterpress posters by artist Anthony Burrill. All copyrights retained by the artist.

When you put together your own life mashup — for example, bringing what you've learned
in your years as a triathlete to your job as an IT project manager — the fine-tuning will be
the hardest part. Not everything from last week's triathlon is relevant to that ERP
implementation you're working on. Some of the things that are relevant — let's say, for
example, how to pace yourself so that you reach the finish line — will need to be tuned,
tweaked and twisted so that you and your coworkers can apply them to the project plan.


Chapter 5: Put an end to work/life balance
It’s time to stop looking for work/life balance.
It’s time to stop talking about opting out, leaning in and doubling down.

In reality, we all know that work is an integral, important and imposing
aspect of our dynamic, multidimensional and difficult lives.
And balance is the wrong metaphor. It suggests a zero-sum game of
trade-offs and compromises. If we want more out of life, the metaphor
seems to imply, we need to do less work, or vice versa. And we know
this just isn’t true.
We need to stop looking for work/life balance — and get a life instead.

image by winnifredxoxo, used under Creative Commons license


Work/life is a false dichotomy that implies some separation of the two.

Life Is A Mashup 25

At no other time in history have we had so many simultaneous demands on our time,
energy and attention. Our caveman brains fly into a tizzy when our smartphones buzz. We
can’t possibly keep track separately of all the things we care about — friends, family,
coworkers, boss, donuts — and still give them the attention they deserve and get what
we need from them.
So we have to make life a mashup. We have to find ways to smoosh all those things
together in ways that are mutually beneficial. And we can do it in three steps:
1.

Vision — We see that seemingly unrelated life domains just might be made

overlap, nest or fit together productively.
2.

Execution — We courageously take steps to alter our lives so that we can bring

those domains closer together.
3.

Fine-tuning — We make careful adjustments to those domains of our lives and the

ways in which they are mashed up until they create an awesome mashup that isn’t in
balance, but is in harmony.


We all have the responsibility to maximize the contributions we make to the world. We
must bring our whole selves — all the spiritual, professional, family-oriented, communityserving, passionate and weird things that make us who uniquely who we are — to every
important task. This is true whether we’re at work or at play, in the board room or in the
bedroom.
Instead of attempting to draw thicker lines between the various domains of our lives, we
need to start thinking of those domains as overlapping, interacting, nested and
interdependent. The membranes between those domains are increasingly permeable.
And if we can envision, create and fine-tune mashups of those domains, the result will be

And to that same end, we all have the right to lead
integrated, fulfilling and fun lives in which we feel
authentic and whole. We have the right to make life
a mashup.


image by , used under Creative Commons license

greater satisfaction, greater contributions — and some beautiful music.

Life Is A Mashup 27

Incomplete acknowledgements
There are no new ideas, only new combinations of ideas. The ideas expressed in this e-booklet are nothing
more than a mashup of borrowed thoughts and inspirations from brilliant thinkers and inspiring individuals who
have inﬂuenced and supported me over the years. Their ideas and love have gone so far inside my brain and
heart that I can hardly tell where they end and I begin. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t make some attempt to
give credit and thanks to the ones I remember:

•Mare Trevathan, my amazingly supportive and loving wife who inspires me to do more and be more
•Lorraine and Bill Eyl, my relentlessly supportive parents who hardly ever seem embarrassed by me
•My Littlest Homey, who is one of the primary reasons I do pretty much everything
•Stew Friedman, whose book Total Leadership and practice in work/life integration really helped

me

solidify the ideas in Life Is A Mashup

•...a bunch of other brilliant people: Daniel Pink, Dan Ariely, Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Jim Collins, Jon
Acuff, Seth Godin, Paul Tough, Stephen Covey, Tony Schwartz, Ted Coiné, Martin Seligman, Mihály
Csíkszentmihályi and many others

•...a bunch of folks who’ve helped me develop, test and expose these ideas: John Wilker, Terry Cabeen,
Pesha Rudnick, John Shippey, Leah Charney and others I’m forgetting

•...a bunch of mashup producers: The Freelance Hellraiser, Girl Talk, Wax Audio, KapSlap, DJ Schmolli,
lobsterdust, MashMike, A+D, ToToM, dj BC, DJ Magnet, Fissunix, osymyso, Loo & Placido, Marc
Johnce, Wick-It the Instigator, White Panda, Young Punx, Electrosound, Karen Skouteris, Go Home
Productions, DJ Zebra, DJ Y Alias JY, DJ Prince, DJs From Mars...

•...and a bunch of other supportive friends and family: Jennifer Eyl, Maggie Martin, Joseph Logan, John

Common, Brett Nickerson, Michael Arrington, Summer Howard, Jessica DeNicola, Lucia De Giovanni,
Brian Boucher, Sharon Glassman, Josh Johnson and so many other people I’m incredibly lucky to call
friends

Meet Eryc Eyl
I was fired from my first job.
Since then, two decades of success and happiness in the corporate world have
taught me a lot. As part of my corporate survival strategy, I have invented most
of the 15 jobs I have held in corporations.
I’ve managed training and development for a division of General Electric
(where I became a certified Six Sigma Black Belt), led change management
(including acquisition integration) for Level 3, a large telecommunications
company, and planted the seeds of a structured change management practice
at OtterBox, a rapidly growing consumer goods company – always with
unflinching focus on the human aspects of career and business success.
And now, I write, speak, coach and consult to help individuals and organizations
develop strategies for navigating the seas of change successfully and happily.
Just like you, however, I'm more than just one thing. I'm also a journalist, DJ,
husband, father, son, brother and friend from the glorious state of Colorado.
While most corporate survival advice focuses on how to climb the ladder or how
to jump off it, my mission is to inspire and instruct folks to integrate work with a
rich, fulfilling and fun life, and to help organizations develop and support
employees who are dynamic, productive and whole.
I hope you’ve found this e-booklet valuable. I’d love to learn more about you.
Introduce yourself by leaving a comment on my blog (and subscribe, if you
haven’t already). Shoot me an email. Follow me on Twitter. Whatever you're into.
I'd be delighted to hear from you.
Until then, keep your head and your heart while keeping your job, and remember
— life is a mashup.
Read more and get tons of free information at www.ErycEyl.com.


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