Why Work and Life Don’t Have to Compete
For many professionals, there’s a long-held belief that work and life are opposing forces. You either excel in your career and sacrifice personal fulfillment, or you focus on life outside the office and accept slower career growth. Steve Perkins, founder of Greenhouse Coaching, challenges that notion entirely.
His philosophy? Work should facilitate the life you want—not the other way around. When people are fulfilled, happy, and engaged, they don’t just feel better—they do better work. And organizations thrive as a result.
This isn’t just theory. It’s about redesigning the way we think about time, goals, and leadership so that personal well-being and professional success support each other, instead of fighting for attention.
Moving from Balance to Integration
The term “work-life balance” has been thrown around so much it’s almost lost its meaning. Steve prefers a more practical, grounded approach: integration.
When he worked in a Fortune 100 corporate environment, his days were packed with back-to-back meetings and endless emails. Big goals were expected, yet there was no time to actually work on them. “My whole life,” he recalls, “was built around these one-hour blocks Microsoft told us to fill, with no space left for meaningful work or personal priorities.”
Now, his approach is the opposite: schedule what matters most in both work and life first, then let everything else fit around those priorities. Whether it’s strategic thinking time, family commitments, or creative work, blocking it on the calendar ensures it actually happens.
It’s not about balancing two equal weights. It’s about designing a day, week, and career that supports the life you want to live.
The Power of Intention
A central theme in Steve’s work is the idea of living and leading with intention. “No one taught us how to do these things,” he says. We leave school equipped to solve calculus problems or write essays, but not necessarily to manage our time, lead teams, or nurture healthy relationships.
That gap leaves many leaders burned out and employees disengaged. The solution is to intentionally step back, get clear on what matters, and design systems and habits that support those priorities.
This isn’t about lofty mission statements that get filed away and forgotten. It’s about turning big-picture vision into daily action. As Steve puts it:
“Our default is to be reactive… My mission is to flip that script. What would it look like if we stopped just reacting and started by asking, ‘What matters?’—then built from there?”
The Roots Up Approach
At the heart of Greenhouse Coaching is the Roots Up methodology—a simple but powerful framework for growth. Just like a plant needs strong, unseen roots to thrive above the surface, leaders and teams need foundational habits, rhythms, and skills to achieve meaningful results.
The Three Layers of Roots Up
- Vision – Define the life, team, or organization you want to grow. Get crystal clear on the desired future.
- Intention – Identify the goals, initiatives, and actions that will bring that vision to life.
- Roots – Build the foundational rhythms and skills that make success sustainable in the day-to-day realities of a busy schedule.
Without strong roots, efforts toward growth often fail to last. That’s why so many inspiring speeches or corporate initiatives feel exciting in the moment but fade into old habits by Monday morning.
Steve draws a parallel to his summer job in an industrial greenhouse. The plants already had everything they needed within the seed; the job was to create the right environment—temperature, humidity, light—for them to grow. Leadership works the same way. The goal is to design an environment where people can do their best work.
From Force to Flow
Many leaders respond to pressure by pushing harder—more hours, more effort, more strain. But that rarely works for long. Steve uses fitness as an analogy: if you dread the gym, beat yourself up during workouts, and leave feeling miserable, you won’t stick with it. But find the form of exercise you enjoy, and consistency becomes natural.
The same applies in organizations. When leaders build the right environment and align work with people’s strengths, results follow without constant force. The aim is to create flow, where work feels fulfilling and energizing rather than draining.
Practical Roots Leaders Can Plant
While the philosophy of Roots Up is broad, the application is refreshingly concrete. Steve shares examples of “roots” leaders can implement right away:
- Meeting Modes – Redesign meetings so they are effective, engaging, and purposeful. Instead of defaulting to status updates, choose a mode—decision-making, brainstorming, planning—and stick to it.
- Dynamic Delegation – Rather than simply offloading tasks, delegate the thinking. This empowers team members to problem-solve and grow, rather than just execute.
- One-on-Ones That Matter – Replace transactional check-ins with structured conversations that invest in professional growth, build trust, and address challenges before they escalate.
These aren’t extra to-dos—they’re refinements to what leaders are already doing. The goal is to make everyday actions more effective and aligned with the vision.
Why the Basics Come First
It’s tempting to jump straight to big, visionary leadership concepts from books and TED Talks. But without strong roots, even the best ideas fail in execution. Steve has seen top leadership teams struggle not because they lacked vision, but because they weren’t running effective meetings, delegating well, or holding meaningful one-on-ones.
Just like a tree can’t grow tall without a stable root system, leaders can’t achieve lasting impact without mastering these foundational practices.
The Growth Map: A Starting Point
For leaders ready to apply the Roots Up approach, Greenhouse Coaching offers a “Growth Map” process. It starts by clarifying the vision, then pulling goals directly from that vision, and finally identifying the foundational roots needed to achieve them.
Rather than setting arbitrary goals based on trends or comparisons, this process ensures that every action aligns with the bigger picture. Leaders can take a quick quiz to get an initial version of their Growth Map, then work with the Greenhouse team to customize it for their team or organization.
Building Roots for the Future of Work
We’re living in a new era where employees have more options than ever before. People want work that is both productive and meaningful. They’re no longer willing to settle for jobs that drain them.
For leaders, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. By building strong roots—habits, systems, and environments that foster fulfillment—organizations can attract and retain top talent while achieving exceptional results.
As Steve puts it:
“The best high-performing teams come out of being fulfilled and enjoying the work.”
If leaders can embrace this Roots Up approach, they won’t just grow stronger teams—they’ll grow the life they truly want, inside and outside of work.
Listen to the Episode: Gut + Science 293: The RootsUp Approach to High Performance with Steve Perkins
Key Takeaways:
- Design for Integration – Schedule what matters most—personally and professionally—first, and let other tasks fit around those priorities.
- Lead with Intention – Step back from reactivity. Get clear on what matters, then align daily actions to it.
- Focus on Roots First – Before chasing big ideas, make sure foundational habits like effective meetings, delegation, and one-on-ones are strong.
- Create Flow, Not Force – Build environments where people’s strengths and passions naturally drive results.
- Start with a Growth Map – Define your vision, set aligned goals, and establish the foundational roots that will make success sustainable.
Things to listen for:
[00:01:45] Work should serve the life you want—not compete with it—so fulfillment fuels better performance.
[00:03:55] Redesign your calendar by scheduling what matters most first, then let everything else fit around it.
[00:06:35] Burnout often comes from never learning the foundational skills of life and leadership—intention changes that.
[00:08:50] Many leaders are promoted without learning how to actually lead people; closing this gap is essential.
[00:13:15] Toxic cultures reveal how leadership behaviors ripple into every area of employees’ lives.
[00:15:05] Growth requires strong “roots” beneath the surface—vision, intention, and foundational rhythms.
[00:17:40] Lasting results come from finding a rhythm you enjoy, not forcing results through willpower alone.
[00:18:50] Like plants in a greenhouse, people thrive when leaders create the right environment for growth.
[00:22:45] Simple shifts—like purposeful meetings, dynamic delegation, and meaningful one-on-ones—can transform team performance.
[00:28:20] A clear vision, aligned goals, and the right roots form a Growth Map for sustainable success.