How to Get It All Done Without Burning Out
In 2016, after a whirlwind trip to Germany together, my friend Dale coined the term Mach Emmy.
Mach Emmy is faster than the fastest fighter jet. Curious how fast that is? Me too!
The fastest fighter jet is the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 Foxbat, capable of Mach 3.2 or 2,190mph. While not as fast as some retired or experimental aircraft, the MiG-25 is the only aircraft in service capable of speeds over Mach 3.0 making it the fastest fighter jet in service today by quite some margin. - Flyjetify.com
What do I do with that speed? I get things done. And the jet-fuel burning question my closest friends ask is:
How do you get so much done while being happy?
Short answer: I love what I do. I avoid doing it all
The longer answer is … step by step:
Build your foundation
Find leverage everywhere
Create systems that serve you
How to build your foundation of health when you’re super busy
A healthy base is like a foundation of a house. No foundation and your house will collapse.
Do you have ZERO time for healthy habits because you are focused on your career?
What if you’re not healthy enough to enjoy your success when you “arrive”?
The only time we “arrive” is when we die. All the rest is a journey, not a destination.
Just like stocks, you can view your healthy habits on a “moving average”.
Zoom out and look at 3 days or a week and get more sleep some days, eat better some days. Instead of feeling like one day was a failure, view your progress over multiple days.
But if every week, month, year, you don’t move, watch out!
My friend Tim and I worked in the same industry, with the same hours. He visited me, and we went for a walk around my neighborhood. We were both 40 at the time.
Tim couldn’t walk up a small slope without stopping to catch his breath. I was shocked as I strolled effortlessly next to him. I didn’t have time to work out hard, but I worked out consistently.
I’ve been world or nationally ranked in 3 sports while working 80-100 hour weeks:
9th in the 2005 US Dressage World Cup Trials, and 99th in the world rankings
AAU North American Champion Physique (Bodybuilding) for Women Overall (all ages)
Silver Medal in the 100 and 400-meter dash at the US Masters Championship (age 50-55)
… and I did this while managing billions of dollars on Wall Street.
What I learned from years of training with pros is to think of time as a moving average. How much exercise did you get and how did you eat over a 3 day period, not just one day?
Without a foundation of health and fitness, you won’t be able to…(insert your dream here)
I run a bit (3+ miles) 6 days a week. Sometimes more, rarely less. This is my base.
Hate running? Walking builds cardio health while reducing your stress levels...
Take advantage of work’s ebbs and flows. During the holidays or August, I have time to run a bit more (8 miles per day). My mind already knows I can run longer (I have run 15 marathons and 5 ultramarathons), so if I run for a week of 8-mile runs, then rest a bit, I can pick a nice Saturday and head out for a 30-mile run.
The ability to pick up and run 30 miles is the benefit of having a base.
Love yourself every day. Move at least a little. Eat something healthy.
Build your foundation of health. Here are the nuts and bolts:
Nutrition: Drink water, cut out sugar, and eat whole foods.
Sleep: Get the Oura ring and pay attention to its feedback. Iterate.
Exercise: Move daily, do air squats when you wake up, do easy-to-fit-in fun exercise.
You’re building the foundation of the house that is your life. Your healthy foundation (sleep, nutrition, exercise) is like the interconnected rebar in the foundation: it makes the foundation strong, but it’s not enough. You need to pour cement in order for the foundation to be strong.
How to connect (thus cementing your strong foundation)
Human connection is critical for your health. We are dependent on connection and collaboration to survive (when young) and thrive in adulthood. Friendships lower our stress and accelerate our business trajectory.
Feel your heart rate rise?
What if you don’t have the time (or skills) to get to know people?
What if work demands mean you regularly need to ditch your friends/family?
And, in the moment you have to get to know someone, what will you say?
It’s not what you say that builds connection, it’s what you ask and how you listen.
If you’re running a fast-growing startup, building your career, or working 80-100 hour weeks, you still build strong relationships.
Build friendships in minutes, not hours. How? Micro-moments of connection.
Dr. Barbara Fredickson shared her personal journey in her book Love 2.0. She’d get on the phone with her husband and be short, distracted, and busy, but felt that as his wife, she had to have a daily call with him. Her closest relationship had become a duty. She was merely going through the motions. Sound familiar?
Some of my friends avoid relationships so they won’t feel guilty that they don’t have the time.
There’s another way.
Dr Fredrickson applied her research and had shorter calls where she focused intently on her husband. Their relationship flourished. Some people do this instinctively.
In 2006, I had breakfast with John Chambers at a Cisco event. He shared Bill Clinton’s secret to success:
Treat the person in front of you as the only person in the world while you’re together.
Clinton’s instinct was backed up by Dr. Fredrickson’s research: love and connection are not about grand gestures. Build human connections one micro-moment at a time.
Sure, that’s Bill Clinton and a PhD researcher in psychology, but what about the rest of us?
When I was in middle school, I met a great new friend. I wanted to do everything with her. I came on too strong. She backed off… I was heartbroken as I saw so much promise for the friendship. She was spooked because I had hit the fast-forward button.
Has this happened to you? Micro-moments are the answer.
When you meet someone, focus intently and entirely on them - for a limited amount of time. The focus makes them feel seen. The limited amount of time removes the pressure.
This strategy also saves time.
Fast forward 20 years. I was at a gathering and met someone whom I thought could be a new friend. I asked questions, paused, and listened. Then when the conversation was naturally finished, I moved on to chat with a different person at the party. We connected while I didn’t overwhelm my new friend.
Later that evening, she reconnected and we shared our contact info.
How can you do this? Simple (not easy)!
Build connections in micro-moments. Here are the nuts and bolts:
Listen Actively: Get curious and ask follow-up questions.
Pause: WAIT (“Why am I Talking”?) Pause to make space to listen.
Highest Regard: Assume the best. Let the other person rise to meet your expectations.
You have the playbook for a solid foundation of physical health and strong connections, now what?
Find leverage throughout your life
In 1999, I’d meet with companies and their bankers every day.
In each meeting, a junior analyst would accompany these bankers…
She hands out pitch decks which she spent weeks creating. The bankers, CEO, and management meet with me, the investor. The CEO and CFO pitch the stock. Then the junior analyst collects the pitch decks on the way out. This happens 8 times a day for 3 weeks.
This is an IPO roadshow.
Is this junior analyst merely a glorified (overpaid) assistant, creating, handing out, and collecting pitch decks? It depends on her approach.
She (and you) could be supercharging her individual leverage, even in the most mundane moments of life. What if at each meeting she writes down the names of the investors and management teams? Then heads home and connect/follow on LinkedIn and/or Twitter?
All these meetings turn into leverageable moments when she creates a personal CRM (spreadsheet of contacts, with a note on how you met and how often you want to reach out).
Leverage comes in surprising places. Look for it. Not there? How can you create it? Reframe unleveraged moments into leveraged ones.
Obvious leverage comes from one-to-many structures.
Entertainers can sing or act to 100 or 1,000,000 people with the same effort. VCs can manage thousands or billions of dollars. CEOs can lead a million-dollar company or a multi-billion dollar company.
Less obvious leverage is hidden in plain sight.
Create leverage in everyday moments. Just like micro-moments of connection. Imagine two people doing the same thing, but one is creating massive leverage out of the same activity.
Look for leverage in every moment. Here are the nuts and bolts:
Leverage in health: fit in what you need (sleep and movement) and eliminate what you don’t (sugar).
Leverage in relationships: build meaningful, trusting connections through micro-moments and keep them fresh using your personal CRM.
Leverage in business: multiply your time, effort, and network via equity and advice.
Once you have a foundation of health and connections and a habit of creating leverage in your life, your final step is to create systems that support your goals..
Create systems that support your goals
Most “productivity” systems talk about fitting it all in. Doing it all. That’s the title of this article!
Before you act fast and break things… pause.
What do you want to do? I bet it’s a subset of all you could do, should do, and are asked to do! The first thing I ask is how can I remove as much as possible.
I was there, Mach Emmy, trying to do it all.
I married a man who loved “balance” and then he got a taste of Mach Emmy. We went from one interesting activity to the next: training for an Ironman, creating options trading programs, helping local charities, traveling and working remotely, investing in startups, advising small companies. He bragged that we were “doing it all.”
He missed the point. My goal is not to fill my calendar.
The key to doing all you want is saying no to anything that is not obviously a yes.
Saying no gives you space for the great parts of life.
Enemy #1 to this goal? Perfectionism. For the first half of my life, I did 2 things nearly perfectly: horse riding and investing. I ran the #1 fund in the world and I was the #1 amateur at Grand Prix in the US, while working 80-100 hour weeks.
That was thanks to my healthy foundation, connections, and use of personal leverage.
Then something shifted. I started questioning how much time I had left and what I wanted to do with that time. I wanted more time for my friends, for building a startup, for new sports like bodybuilding, track & field, Ironman, and ultrarunning. I wanted to try crazy marathons in South America and hiking around Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps.
There was more to life than running a top fund and competing in Olympic-level dressage. But, the perfectionist model would fail if I added more to my list.
I tried the 80/20 rule…
80% effort… effectively getting a “B” in most things in order to do more things. UTTER FAIL. My personality gets an “A” or a “C” (or F). I’m not someone who does things in moderation. Ask my friend Dale who coined the term Mach Emmy!
Then I found the answer to my perfectionism (at least for now):
Don’t have perfection run your life by doing things till they are perfect.
Don’t abandon your quest to do things well either.
Give your very best to the activity you are doing, in that moment, for the time you do it.
That way, you can do more and do your best.
Make your systems work for you. Cut out what you don’t want to do. Automate what you can. Then fully concentrate on where you enjoy and deliver the most value.
Productivity systems shouldn’t be only about fitting more in.
A. Pause. Look around. Journal.
What are your values?
What are your goals (right now) in life?
What might they morph into?
B. Now, given those values and goals, answer the following:
Are you headed in the right direction (at all)?
Are you on the best path (for you) to move towards what fulfills you?
Are the things you say “yes” to all things you enjoy or things needed to get you where you want to go?
Choose wisely. How?
C. Your 3 Questions:
Is this really necessary? What would eliminate unwanted tasks (the One Thing)?
What are my current habits and systems?
Do they serve me?
Each of us will have different answers. Here are mine:
My One Thing:
Automation, delegation, and elimination gets rid of my unnecessary tasks.
Elimination (just not doing it) is 90% of the battle.
Then I can focus on the one most important thing that will move me forward each day.
My Habits and Systems:
Time Blocking: for the important tasks (there are few), I use time blocking (work in 90-minute sprints several times per day, with 30-minute walks or breaks talking to friends in between)
Connection: I prioritize my friends and find time while on a walk, drive, etc. to catch up.
Exercise: move every day. I walk, run and lift weights. Sometimes short, sometimes longer.
Nutrition: I remind myself this supports my movement and health. Focus on whole foods.
Sleep: I focus on going to bed early enough that I can get 8-9 hours of time in bed for 8.5 hours of sleep. Try it! You won’t believe how happy and productive you become. Mostly this is about eliminating TV and internet browsing at night.
My Values and Purpose:
Values: I value growth, learning, expansion, freedom, love, adventure, integrity and positivity.
Purpose: My purpose is to make the world a better place by adding value each day (through work, friendships and being there for those who need me).
Are they serving me? My One Thing and My Habits and Systems serve me when I act in alignment with my values towards my purpose during the bulk of my day.
How would you answer the above 3 questions? Write down your answers before you move to create your systems.
Create systems that work for you. Here are the nuts and bolts:
List out your values, future vision, and mission (reason for living)
Take an inventory of all you do, and mark what you like and what you don’t
Make a list of adds and subtracts so your daily actions support your dreams
Extra credit if you journal your fears, and keep peeling back to the fear underlying the fear you list, as that will help you reach goals by seeing fears that are blocking some potential paths.
Your systems should support your mission, vision, and values and give you more breathing room.
You don’t have to go full Mach Emmy. Neither do I.