232. From Accounting to Burnout Coach: How a Health Crisis Changed Everything w/ Michael Levitt

Michael Levitt shares his journey from accounting to burnout expert after experiencing his own health crisis during the Great Recession. He explains the crucial differences between burnout and depression, offering practical mindset strategies to prevent prolonged stress from consuming your life.

• Burnout is officially recognized by WHO as a "workplace phenomenon" resulting from prolonged, unaddressed stress
• Unlike depression, burnout makes you feel numb rather than preventing function completely 
• Most burnout stems from mindset issues - catastrophizing problems instead of approaching them pragmatically
• Write down everything stressing you out, then circle only what you can actually control
• Establish clear work boundaries, especially with technology that allows 24/7 connectivity
• Identify your personal "sweet spot" hours when you work best and schedule important tasks then
• Physical activity is one of the most effective stress relievers and mindset reset tools
• Focus on systems and processes, not just end goals, to make success repeatable
• Stop procrastinating on difficult tasks - we spend more time worrying than it would take to complete them
• Remember it's about "the journey, not the destination" - pay attention to what you learn along the way

Connect with Michael Levitt at breakfastleadership.com or find his podcast "Breakfast Leadership Show" on all major platforms.

Chapters

• 0:00 Mindset Cafe Introduction
• 1:48 Meet Michael Levitt: Career Journey
• 8:35 Understanding Burnout vs Depression
• 16:20 Mindset and Work Stress
• 21:40 Control What You Can Control
• 28:20 Work-Life Boundaries and Deep Work
• 34:10 Eat the Frog: Overcoming Procrastination
• 40:20 It's About the Journey Not Destination

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yeah, it's Mindset Cafe. We all about that mindset. Gotta stay focused. Now go settle for the last. It's all in your head how you think you manifest. So get ready to rise, cause we about to be the best. Gotta switch it up. Gotta break the old habits. Get your mind right. Turn your dreams into habits. No negative vibes, only positive thoughts.

Speaker 1: 0:21

What is up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Mindset Cafe podcast. It's your boy, devin, and today I'm honored to be guesting an influential person. He has his own podcast and I don't want to give away too much of his stuff because I think some of the topics that we're going to talk about are going to be so awesome. But today we are guested by Michael Levitt. He is the founder and chief burnout officer of the Breakfast Leadership Network.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Right, michael is a seasoned expert with over 25 years experience in leadership, coaching and personal development, and you already know Mindset Cafe is all about personal development. So with that you know he is a certified NLP coach or expert, and he is a CBT therapist, author and the host of the Globally Recognized Breakfast Leadership Show podcast. So without further ado, michael, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come on the Mindset Cafe. Thanks for the invite and good talking with you again, devin. Of course I know it's always good to run it back, especially when you have a great conversation. Once it's like, okay, well, now let's flip the script and let's, you know, dive in more in depth on on the other side. So I mean, let's, let's do that. Let's you know, if you give the audience a little bit of background of what I like to do, is like your journey to this point.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Right From childhood to like almost just a bird's eye view fast forward. You know what was your journey like. I'll summarize as much as I can. So first career was in accounting. I blamed baseball cards for that, because I bought a pack of baseball cards. Uh, in luther, michigan.

Speaker 2: 1:56

My grandmother had a cabin up there and there was a general store that was about a 10 minute walk from there. So walked up there, went up there to buy candy and I saw some baseball cards and it had bubble gum in it. I wanted a piece of gum. So I thought, well, I'll chew the bubble gum, and of course that bubble gum was never any good, uh, but it was. It was one of those things where you start chewing the gum. You look at the cards and I looked, you know, I saw the pictures of the players and whatnot, and I looked at the back and they had, you know, some stats and different things and I'm like that's weird. You know how do they. You know how do they get these numbers. So I started figuring out how to calculate batting average and earn run average. I didn't have a calculator, so I was doing it all by piece of paper and a pencil. And once I was able to figure it out, I thought, well, that's kind of fun, which, you know, just kind of shows how goofy I was as a kid. But I'm not saying people are good with numbers, they're goofy. But I was goofy.

Speaker 2: 2:50

But long story short, you know that ventured into you know, once I went through high school I took accounting classes and realized, okay, this is the career path I want to take, so got my degree in accounting, worked for a CPA firm for almost a decade and then I took some accounting roles as well at other organizations and then, coinciding with that, was the time of basically the birth of the IT era and the dot-com era. So thankfully the organization that I was part of they didn't really have anybody that could handle the technology side of things. I had an interest in it and a little bit of exposure to it, so I said, sure, why not? I wrote that and then ended up leaving accounting and went full into IT work for several years and wrote the dot-com wave, which was absolutely chaos and a blast to work in that, because organizations were just throwing money at IT people left, right and center, which is great, because my career path, from a compensation standpoint, grew quite a bit in a very short period of time. And then reality hit, the dot-com bubble burst and then I thought, well, I think I better go back to counting some beans, because that's a little bit more stable. So I did. I think I better go back to counting some beans, because that's a little bit more stable. So I did.

Speaker 2: 4:05

I found a role that was kind of a hybrid role of doing some accounting, doing some sales, doing some tech work and all of that. And I did that and then ventured into a startup healthcare organization and I had startup experience in my career but never in healthcare, and that's kind of where it led to the work that I'm doing today. And that's kind of where it led to the work that I'm doing today, not by choice, necessarily, but just by circumstance, because in that health care role ironically of course I was working some absolutely insane hours and I wasn't the founder, I was the only employee there and was working some absolutely crazy hours and then ended up burning out and had a pretty significant health scare and some financial challenges and all kinds of different things. That all took place during the Great Recession. So here I am, and this just dawned on me right now after the thousands of times I've talked about this story. So I rode the wave and triumphed in the dot-com area. Then that one blew up, and then I was doing well, and then the great recession hit, and then I had to pick myself up after that.

Speaker 2: 5:15

So, after recovering from what I like to refer to as my year of worst case scenarios, I went back into healthcare and my parents wanted to have me committed. It was funny. They were like why in the world are you going back into healthcare, when it was an industry that nearly killed you? And I thought I'm going to do it differently this time, and I did. I was quite successful at it. But while I was doing all of that, I was looking at a lot of my peers in healthcare, and this was in 2014, 2015. I started realizing that a lot of my peers and a lot of people in healthcare and this was in 2014, 2015. I started realizing that a lot of my peers and a lot of people in healthcare were burning out. This is before the pandemic Talk about burnout.

Speaker 2: 5:52

They've really had it over the last few years, for sure. But I thought, well, you know I had my own burnout journey. You know why don't I start? You know, sharing with you know other healthcare people about this. So I started speaking at some healthcare events you know I was as an employee, so it wasn't getting compensated, but I was going to the conferences and doing sessions on it and whatnot, and you know it dawned on me.

Speaker 2: 6:14

It's like you know what there may be something here. You know I may have an opportunity to maybe, you know, spawn off and do some side work on this. So, you know, launched the business, came up with the name Breakfast Leadership, came to me in the shower, by the way, and launched the business, started writing, started speaking and then, 2017, launched my podcast and I've been having a blast with that and doing keynote talks and content creation, all kinds of fun stuff. And I left healthcare back in 2018. Because, you know, the work that I was doing was such that there was enough demand for me to kind of leave that industry and go, you know, full bore, into the work that I'm doing. So that's kind of a quick around the world journey of how in the world I end up doing what I do today.

Speaker 1: 7:04

No, that's awesome, and I love those kinds of stories because I think a lot of people get stuck in. They've done something, you know, they've grown, let's say, in a profession or in an industry, and they get scared to pivot, right. They get scared to try something new. And to your testament, like your proof that you can change and change, and then maybe change and then come back right, you know, and that's the biggest thing is like what's the worst going to happen? Like it doesn't work out. You can always do again what you're doing right now, and so I love that, and then who knows what spawns from it.

Speaker 1: 7:42

You know you end up finding something that you're super passionate about and that you end up really liking, and you know you let that. You know you pour more water on that flower and let it flourish, right. So I mean, if you could explain to listeners what because I think there's this term in society, especially nowadays, is readily used Right, burnout, right, and that's the big thing is like. I feel like some people obviously experience it and some people are just feeling a little lazy and then they're like oh, I'm burnt out, right. So what is burnout exactly?

Speaker 2: 8:19

I'll use, I'll paraphrase the World Health Organization, who we heard from quite a bit over the last few years. But prior to the pandemic they had actually issued a ICD code, which is Disease Registry Code. Now they did not classify burnout as a disease, which made it kind of interesting that they issued an ICD code for it anyway. They classified it as a workplace phenomenon. They classify it as a workplace phenomenon and their definition again paraphrasing is when you are under extreme and prolonged stress that you have not been able to address. You're physically, mentally drained, overwhelmed by life. You can't keep up with the demands of daily life. You're fatigued, you quit daily life. You're fatigued, you quit living life. You just consider yourself. Okay, I'm kind of numb to all this and a question I get a lot is sounds a lot like depression. Now I have both had burnout diagnosed by a clinician and I have had clinical depression by a clinician and I have had clinical depression treated for it. So I know, I know both sides of that pie, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it. And the biggest difference from my perspective is with depression, especially if it's really, really bad, it is very difficult to get out of bed. You'll just start crying or get emotional at basically nothing and you're just unable to do anything. With burnout, you're kind of numb to everything, you're just going through the motions. Some might just be, you know, I'm tired, I don't feel like doing this and what happens and appropriately named, show mindset, your mindset gets in trouble and I think your mindset and mine too, which led to my burnout and depression, quite frankly, were you know the reasons why I ended up being in the situations that I was in. My mindset was not good. You know what I was thinking about how I was dealing with things, about how I was dealing with things was not beneficial to my well-being and part of it. You know you can point fingers at the amygdala a little bit. I call the amygdala Amy G because I like to tell Amy to shut up. But the amygdala is there for a reason. It's there to protect us, which it does a pretty good job of. But you know, in many cases we're not outrunning dinosaurs, unless we happen to be in a Jurassic Park movie. But it protects us and warns us. Okay, there's imminent danger, although it may not be, but its first reaction is uh-oh. So it's up to us to be able to process. What we're facing? No-transcript.

Speaker 2: 11:31

The work you get to do. That's a big thing and I see it time and time again. And employers, you know, have skin in this game as far as how people get overwhelmed at work and burned out and all of that. But the employees do as well. I don't blame the employers completely on this and I don't blame the employees completely either.

Speaker 2: 11:54

It's both sides of the equation, um, and it boils down to this when you feel overwhelmed at work by your workload, you have to ask yourself okay, why do I feel overwhelmed? In many cases, you're thinking about that concert Saturday night. You know, like, am I going to be able to get this project done, or am I going to have to work extra? Is that going to potentially jeopardize something that I want to do? That's what a lot of people think. Or I can't leave at 445. I have to to go walk my puppy, or I have to go pick up my kids, or you know all these things that are part of day-to-day life. You know. You start thinking about that and then you're focusing on that instead of focusing on your mindset of okay, I have this project. It's due at 4.30 pm today. What time is it now? What do I need to accomplish to get it done in that time? Is it possible?

Speaker 2: 12:47

And it's hard to keep the emotions out of things, but I see it time and time again. People get very emotional because we are emotional creators, but ultimately it boils down to being real. It's like this is the fact. This is a writing instrument. It is a pen. It has black ink in it. That's the reality of it, and I can be upset that it's not blue or red or green or whatever. It's a black pen. That's the reality of it. I don't have any emotion towards it, unless it runs out. Then I have some emotion like, oh, I've got to grab another pen. But people throw in these emotions like I'm never going to get it done.

Speaker 2: 13:25

Well, henry Ford said if you think you're wrong or you think you're right, you're correct. If you think you're not going to get it done, you're telling your brain and your mindset I'm not going to get it done, instead of going okay, what can I do in order to make this a successful completion? Could I ask for help from a colleague? Could I ask for an extension? Could I ask for help from a colleague? Could I ask for an extension? Could I bring it to my boss's attention this is going to be late. Here's the circumstances. That has created the situation where it might be late. You let them know. Then you get others involved to help you complete it. They may say you know what, don't worry about section B and C, we can do that later. We just need Section A done today. All of a sudden, you're thinking okay, two-thirds of that deadline just eased up. Can I get Section A done? Heck, yeah, I can do it.

Speaker 2: 14:15

And you're motivated, you go into it, you're disciplined, you get it done. You get it done early, you turn it in, everything looks good, yep, yep, okay. Then you can go pick up your kid, walk your dog, do whatever, go to the concert, all those things. But we doom ourselves into thinking I'm never going to get it done. And what are we thinking about all that time? I'm never going to get it done. I'm never going to get it done. The more you're thinking about not getting it done, the less time you're spending on actually getting it done.

Speaker 2: 14:42

And that is a cycle that continues in every aspect of people's work lives, which causes prolonged stress. Prolonged stress is what turns into burnout, and that's. I see it time and time again it's like burnout isn't something. You wake up tomorrow morning and go oh, I caught burnout. I wish it was that easy. No, it's prolonged stress that you have not addressed and too often people just stay down that rabbit hole. Many cases they cling on to the victim card. Oh, they're overworking me at work. Okay, are they? You have a colleague that does the same job. Are they overworked? No, is their workload lighter or more? It about the same? Yeah, what's the difference here? A lot of it is mindset.

Speaker 2: 15:28

Now I'm not saying that people aren't overworked, they are. Uh, there's a lot of people that are. But time and time again I see people are claiming to be burned out, like you said, and they're just fatigued and they're just their mindset isn't what it needs to be. But I I don't know that until I talk with them. You know I'm working with an individual. Now that you know we're in the early stages of trying to flush out why they feel they're burned out. Because they say they're burned out, I'm like okay, you know what? What does that look like for you? What is that? You know what's that taste like? What's going on? So I can at least know you. Okay, here's some things that we can do to kind of ease the pressure a little bit, to get you back to a more level state, and then from there we can make the decisions on okay, how do we want to approach this to prevent it from happening again?

Speaker 1: 16:20

No, yeah, I mean it's crazy, because I think that, like you said, burnout is a mindset thing. Right and don't be wrong. I, I agree, you know some employers do overwork their employees or their team, but at the same time, I do feel that a lot of people that have the employee mindset, you know, because, like, even like when you said, when you were talking about when you're an employee, right, you were going above and beyond, right. And so there's two sides of, like, the employee mindset. It's like, okay, I just want to clock in, clock out, do as little as work as possible and collect a paycheck and leave, and then, when all of a sudden they get hit with a little bit extra tasks or a deadline or something they're not used to, all of a sudden it fires all around them. And then there's the employees that are getting fed everything. There should be more employees but their employer isn't hiring anymore. So it's like there's two sides of that. But I feel like, either way, it's one of those things where it comes down to being, you know, to analyzing, like you did, right, reflecting on it. Why is this overwhelming me, right? Why do I feel this way and do that when it happens? Right, like, if you're feeling overwhelmed in the moment, then you have to stop and think about it. Then you can't let it prolong and prolong and prolong. And now you're trying to reflect and you're all of a sudden reflecting on a month, two months, a year of feeling like this. You're not going to be able to pinpoint the little micro instances that could have solved this problem. I think, from, like, the employer standpoint, especially if an entrepreneur standpoint it's like this, as, as harsh as this sounds like this game isn't for everyone, right, right and.

Speaker 1: 18:20

And when you become an entrepreneur, everyone thinks, because of social media, that it is. You know, all of a sudden, you sign up and you become an entrepreneur, you launch a business and then you're on the beach. You know, all of a sudden, you sign up, you become an entrepreneur, you launch a business and then you're on the beach. You know drinking a. You know Modelo with a lime in it. It's like that's not how this rolls. Like you just signed up, you traded in a nine to five for 24, seven, especially in the beginning.

Speaker 1: 18:42

Right, and, if you don't like problems and you don't like stressful, that is pretty much when you start growing. That is the name of the game, like my job now with my gym and my franchise, I'm just pretty much the problem solver, right. So all I get is the stressed questions, right, and it's like once those questions come to me, it's like that's because they're bigger questions or bigger problems than management could have handled, or new questions, so it's like you got to be able to take that. In that same time realize there's a problem to every solution. You just have to be willing to find it or ask someone to help and not let that just sit on your plate. I mean, one of the things I want to get your opinion on it, and this is I don't know where I learned this from, but this is always, even from college and in high school.

Speaker 1: 19:31

You know, kids would. Kids would essentially stress out about a test, right, let's say, and I would, I wouldn't be stressed, right, because I would study for the test just like everyone else would. And then, walking into the test, you see everyone's nervous and ready and it's like I'm just relaxed. And they're like what are you? Are you nervous to the test? No, nothing I could do right now to change what's going to be the outcome, right. And so my whole thing is if I can't do anything about it, right this moment, then I just don't worry about it. If it's out of my control, it's out of my control, right? If I can focus on it and I can do something about it, then I do. Otherwise, there's too many things to focus on and stress about that. I'm not going to stress on the uncontrollables.

Speaker 2: 20:16

Yeah, it's spot on. And before I forget, you mentioned something a moment ago about you only getting the big problems. What that tells me, just from a bird's eye view, is that you have hired and you have a team that can handle the majority of the operational needs of the organization, so you can be the visionary and you can direct. That did not happen by accident. That happened by training and coaching and guiding and bringing on the right people to do the right roles. And yes, when you're in a leader and the only thing you get is like bad problems, it's kind of like being an emergency room doctor. No one's coming in there. It's like, yeah, you know, I was bored, it's Saturday afternoon. I thought I'd come in and say I see how you're doing. No, that's not usually what happens. They get the big problems, they get the emergency issues and in your role you get the big, urgent things and like, well, we've tried this and this and this, nothing works. And ultimately you go, okay, well, this is what we're going to do. And that one gives them the comfort from a manager or an employee to recognize okay, my ownership or my leader is going to take care of this. I'm not going to be leaving here just kind of hanging. They're going to take care of this. So that speaks volumes and more leaders need to do stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 21:34

But to go back to your question, one of the things and I've seen this and you see these on social media all the time and inspiring quotes and videos and all that which are good. But you can consume all those things, but are you taking action on them? And that's the thing. It's like my Instagram. I've got so many things saved and I'm like, okay, they're saved, what am I going to do with them? Well, eventually maybe I will go through them, but we all know that is not going to be the case. So eventually I'll just clear them out or I'll just like, eh, they're just going to be there.

Speaker 2: 22:02

But to your point, when, when we're facing something that's really stressful, you said, okay, what can I control on this? So the exercise that I saw the other day was from former wrestler Diamond Dallas Page. Actually, he's a leadership guy now and doing a lot of great stuff and he posted a video. He said when something's stressing you out or a big issue, or it could be a small issue, whatever it is write all the things down that you feel right now about all the things that are stressing you out. Or you know a big issue, or it could be a small issue, whatever it is. Write all the things down that you feel right now about all the things that are stressing you out, and then circle the ones that you can control. Everything else cross it out. You can't do anything about it. Like you just said, I can't do anything about what the weather is today. I can do what I need to do to prepare for it.

Speaker 2: 22:47

You know, and you, and if you're in Miami, well you know the weather is going to be a little bit different than it's going to be in Minneapolis usually. So you prepare accordingly and you don't worry about it. You don't think, okay, well, it's hot today. Yeah, that's the reality. I have a black pen. That's the reality. Am I going to get upset? No, it's just reality.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Why focus all my attention on getting upset? But what happens? We've conditioned ourselves, much like push button get cheese type of thing. We've conditioned ourselves to be negative. Social media has conditioned us, in my opinion, to be negative. Now the algorithms can be such, if you are intentional, to the point where you're just liking and subscribing and connecting with content that is anti-negative, then you won't see that stuff as much. So we gravitate towards whatever we're interested in and unfortunately, sometimes some of us get into this negative thing which has a ripple effect on how we look at life and work.

Speaker 2: 23:54

You know you have a colleague or a co-worker that complains about work all the time. You okay, that's, yeah, they just they're always complaining. What happens if you've got 10 of them? Now you know, in your gyms, let's say, you get one trainer, that is just. You know eeyore never happy about anything and everybody else is like. You know the bouncing tigger you bounced around kind of like what my puppy is. He's sometimes I think he's part rabbit, quite frankly, the way he bounces, uh. But he, he's so different than our last dog because our last dog was a lot like you are lovable, but he's so different than our last dog because our last dog was a lot like Eeyore Lovable, but just kind of okay, whatever. And so you know, different strokes for different folks. But if that Eeyore is causing everybody else to turn into Eeyore, all of a sudden the temperature of your company changes and all of a sudden productivity starts to slip, quality control starts to slip, customer engagement and service starts to slip People go. You know you used to like that, jim, but all the trainers are kind of jerks now.

Speaker 2: 25:08

So you know what I'm going to negativity to permeate in the rank and file. So, as leaders and owners, you have to be on top of that and I say squash it, which, yeah, you need to. But you have to understand okay, why are they negative? Is there something going on in the company that's causing them to be this way? Maybe it's something, and a lot of times it's just something going on in their personal life and they're just going through a rough bit of time and you just go, okay, well, what can we do to help with that? Because if you can make work and I've seen this, I've seen people going through some real crap, even people that have worked for me before gone through some real crap personally, but I did everything we could you know that we could make work more like a sanctuary for them where they feel themselves thrive and all that. And you know their performance, you know either increased or at least stayed the same and they were going through some pretty difficult personal things, but you wouldn't know it and they just need to be heard and recognize okay, when I'm here, I'm here, and that's hard for people to do.

Speaker 2: 26:18

Because you know life, I tell people don't silo your life, but sometimes you need to keep the work stuff at work and the home stuff at home as best you can and try not to let them bleed over. But we're human beings, they're going to happen anyway. But, um, you know, and you know this, you know one of the best ways to relieve stress is physical activity. Kids, get into the gym, go for a walk. I tell you what man it gets you, gets you out of your mind and in your body, and your body is this amazing resource that'll make you feel better. So if you're down or depressed or stressed out at work, move, get some action and it makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1: 27:02

No, it does, and I mean even for myself. Like I tell people I own a gym, right, and even when I was a personal trainer, it doesn't mean it's easier for me to work out Right. And, honestly, some some days it feels like it's harder to work out because I've been in the gym all day or I've been in the office of the gym. The last thing I want to do is spend another hour here, right, and the hardest part is to get your workout started Right. And so even for me, like whenever I've or you know a problem that I just, you know was just consuming, like my thought process, I would go on a run and I hate running, right so, but I would go on a run because getting outside, you know, and only just kind of letting your mind free and not thinking about anything else, all of a sudden, once you stop thinking about it so much, the answers tend to come Right.

Speaker 1: 27:50

And I think one of the big things you mentioned a second ago was, you know, leaving the work stuff at work and the home stuff at home as best as possible. I mean, that's one of the things in the beginning of entrepreneurship, or even the beginning of starting a career, right that that line blends, but having that boundary does, in my opinion at least for me, help with feeling burnt out. Because if there is no off switch or you know reboot time, then yeah, if it's always on your mind like you're going to get started to get tired of it, but if that when I'm with my family like I'm with my family, but I'm also when I'm at work I'm at work, right, and so doing that allows you to focus on the task at hand a lot more in depth and a lot more intently than if it's just all the time a little bit of work here, a little bit of work there.

Speaker 2: 28:40

Yeah, I agree, I'm a big fan of the book deep work. It's something that I need to read it again. It's been a while since I've read that book, but it's when you're there, be there, work. And you know, one of the things I say all the time is these little devices are awesome because you can work anywhere at any time, but they have a really big negative side effect. You can work anywhere at any time and we do. We get the notifications, we see that little red circle on the Slack message or the text message or the WhatsApp or whatever, and our brains go must address and we conditioned ourselves In many ways.

Speaker 2: 29:18

It's a dopamine hit. It's like oh, I finished something, yay, you know, kind of thing. And to your point, you have to have boundaries around when you work and when you don't. And if you're with an organization, you've been there a while and they've been able to email you and message you all hours of the day. It might be a difficult conversation to kind of wean that in, but go into it with the framework of I want to establish some boundaries when I'm working, when I'm not. So when I'm working, I'm the best version of me for you. If I'm working late hours. Quite frankly, I'm not giving you quality work. Now. If they decide they don't want you to work there anymore, consider that a blessing.

Speaker 2: 30:01

I know that's hard for people to lose their job. I get it. I've been on both sides of that fence. I have lost my jobs before. I have had to let people go before. Not fun, no matter what. However, there's so many opportunities out there and once you find what you want to do, then go do it and do it while you're there. But establish boundaries when you work and when you don't, and a lot of times that takes some effort to figure out.

Speaker 2: 30:32

You know what's the sweet spot when you work and when you don't. If you're an entrepreneur, maybe you're an early riser. Maybe you're up doing something. Case in point this morning I was editing and doing some online coursework and I was finishing up the retuning the course outline. That was at 4.45 this morning. I was up, showered, cleaned. It helps when you have a puppy. They tend to wake up early, but I'm usually up and doing work probably by 5.30 in the morning. Now if you ask me to do something at eight o'clock tonight, good luck. It's not going to look good because I know that my sweet spot of work time tends to be in the morning to early afternoon, then after that is more okay. Relax Doesn't mean I'm not going to do something, but I recognize that. Okay, whatever I'm doing, is the quality going to be there, or is this going to be more kind of pie in the sky, dreaming thinking about different things, coming up with some ideas? Even then, that may not be clear for me, and there are people that are the absolute opposite.

Speaker 2: 31:46

I worked with a doctor once and she worked at our clinic and her shift was basically 1 pm to 9 pm at our clinic, and one time in the years that I was there, one time we had to have her come in at a meeting at 10.30 in the morning. Sweetest soul, one of the sweetest people I've ever met, an amazing doctor. Love her to bits. 10.30 in the morning if you've ever seen the movie Gremlins and they get the water on them. That's what she was. At 1030 in the morning. I'm looking at her going.

Speaker 2: 32:24

My first thought was she's got a twin sister who's a grumpy person. She just said but no, no, no, no, no, no, oh no, oh, no, no. That was that, and so I told the other physicians and everybody involved. I said we will never have another meeting that requires this doctor to be here prior to 1230 PM. Got it Understood, automatically, declining it, not doing it, and I and I told her to. You know, a couple of days later it's like yeah, sorry for having you come in so early, we're not going to do that again to you. And I didn't, you know, I didn't mock, you know, mock her for being rude or anything like that. She said, yeah, I'm not a morning person. I said I get that. So, but again, it's understanding where your energy levels are. You know, especially if you're an entrepreneur, you know. You know figure out what those hours of the day work. It may not be consecutive, maybe two hours here, two hours there, two hours, different blocks, whatever makes sense to you.

Speaker 1: 33:25

Do it, um, what you'll find is you'll get more done in less time because you're not going up against the grain oh, definitely, and I think that's the big thing is like people mistake, you know, working for getting work done, like actually moving the needle, and what I mean by that is like, especially more in the entrepreneurial space, you do a bunch of micro tasks that don't really they're just what you're working in your business and instead of doing the one or two things that actually are working on your business to grow it, to scale it, and that's where, in my opinion, like, the real change started happening when I didn't try to plan that Obviously you have month goals, week goals, year goals, whatever, but I think of them as day goals, right?

Speaker 1: 34:14

So, like today, I have, you know, things to get accomplished, and then I have other things that if I can get them done, awesome, right.

Speaker 1: 34:21

But if I don't, then it is what it is, that's not, that's not super important, right? And so I think you know, in reading the book eat the frog, you know it makes a sense, you know, relating that to people, it's like a lot of people will want to do like an easy task, first to get their engines going, and then all of a sudden they're like, okay, well, this other task doesn't take five minutes, I'm going to do this one real quick and all of a sudden, before you know it, your, your day is over and you're still didn't do that task that needed to be done. Until, all of a sudden, deadlines do Right. So I think that for me it was like focus on the one thing, even two things that need to get done today, or you want to really get done today and then add in the extra couple of things afterwards and if you don't finish it, you're not stressed out, you're not, you know, mad that you didn't get it done.

Speaker 2: 35:10

Agreed. And you know I'm a big fan of Brian Tracy and love his work and his. You know tons of books on there. And yeah, it's what I find too, time after time after time, anything that I procrastinate on, I'm like, okay, I got to get to this, I got to get to this, and then I finally go. You know what I'm going to do it.

Speaker 2: 35:29

And even this morning, you know, doing that course outline, it was revising it because the team that I have helping me build that they needed me to adjust some things, because sometimes when you build courses and I do coursework for other organizations sometimes I grabbed the wrong thing from the wrong folder and put an outline together for a completely different course. It's like this is just to see if you're paying attention, kids. But no, it was like, oh, wow, geez, I completely dropped the ball on that one. So for me it was like I'm going to get to it. Because the email came in yesterday. I'm like, yeah, I'll get to it. And then finally this morning, I'm like, nope, eat the frog, get it done. And it was done in 20 minutes. I was like it was no time at all.

Speaker 2: 36:09

We procrastinate. We spend more time procrastinating and fretting and worrying about or being anxious about it than it takes in many cases to actually do it. So I'm a big fan for that. The only caveat that I would say is, if you're recovering from burnout or depression, sometimes those little five minute quick win things can help you get some momentum going, which is good, but use it sparingly. Or if you're just if it's a day where you're like I just I don't feel like doing that, then okay, get some things done. That'll move the needle, but don't do something that's busy work. It's like you know what. I'm going to reorganize the junk drawer in the kitchen instead of actually writing this proposal for this new partnership for my gym that would expand our business by 30%. You know, I'm going to go see how many of those little weird screws from Ikea I've gotten my junk drawer instead.

Speaker 2: 37:09

No you know and I get it, then that's a lot of that's our brain. Because our brain goes you're going to, you know. It just starts telling us, you know, negative things, it's like you're not going to get it, you won't get the proposal, they won't like it. You know all these self-limiting doubts that pop in your head just from past experiences maybe, or just the brain does that to us. But what happens is I guarantee, if you don't send that proposal and they will not select you, so you know what Do the proposal, worst case scenario, they don't choose you but you have a template that you can use for the next one.

Speaker 2: 37:45

And when I worked in nonprofit grant applications all the time, we didn't get all of them. We'd get a few here and there, but we got so good at filling those things out that we you know we had boilerplate items of things that were constantly dropping in, which then turned, you know, reduced the amount of time it took to fill out all the grant paperwork and we were able to be successful and didn't have to spend as much time on it as many other organizations. Because they go okay, we're starting page one, section A, again and again and again. It's like half that stuff is just utilizing your kindergarten skills copy paste, copy paste, copy paste and just look for and that's kind of a side note to avoid stress figure out the systems that work for you, you know, and shortcuts and techniques, and if you do things several times over and over again, look for ways to automate that or delegate it so you're not doing the same thing again and again.

Speaker 2: 38:42

Keyboard shortcuts, for example, something I live and breathe every day. I mean, I've got a handful of them. I'm on the Apple ecosystem, but you can do this in Google or Windows or anything else as well. You just come up with some keyboard shortcuts for things that you're constantly typing and all of a sudden you type in the characters you have for the shortcut. It types in the sentence or paragraph, whatever you have in there. You just save yourself, I don't know, maybe five seconds, ten seconds. It adds up over time.

Speaker 2: 39:13

But, you know, figure out systems that work for you, and you know to streamline things. You, and if it means moving, if you're left, handed your phone's over on the left side of the desk instead of the right side, if that makes you more efficient, do it. You know, just figure out how to be the best version of you, both from a productivity standpoint, health standpoint, mindset, and what you will find is you will be success. I don't say success is guaranteed, but the ingredients for you being successful in whatever you do are definitely going to be improved because you're doing everything you can to be the best version of you.

Speaker 1: 39:53

I love that. And so one final question I have for you and this is not a. For some reason some people still give it to me. It's not a tombstone right. It's not a obituary, anything like that. This is the legacy wall right and on michael. On michael's legacy wall, what would the message be? That you learned along your life's journey that you would leave for the up-and-coming generations?

Speaker 2: 40:20

it's the journey, not the destination.

Speaker 1: 40:23

Okay, explain a little bit.

Speaker 2: 40:25

Too often we're looking at the end goal Okay, I want to have 15 locations, or I want to have this much money in the bank account, or I want to have this many Lambos, or I want whatever. Those are all you know, destination and outcomes. I'm not saying don't have them, otherwise you're just walking through life aimlessly. But too often we get to that destination we're like, yeah, I've got it, and we don't take time to celebrate what it took from us to get to that point. We just kind of push it off to the side. If we didn't go through all of those steps, we wouldn't have what we have. My business where I live, all the things that I have in life were because of steps and decisions and things that I did along the way. And it's important for you to look for those steps and reflect on them Because, from a system standpoint, you may be able to go. You know what. I was successful in this because I remember the steps. I can do it again. That's why you see entrepreneurs and franchisees do so well, because they figured out okay, I opened up my first location. Okay, I figured out how to franchise it. Okay, is this next one going to be easier? It depends. There's people and locations and all that kind of stuff. But once you get a system in place that you follow, it makes it easier for you to roll those things out. But again, it's understanding that you pay attention while you're going along the journey to your destination, because when you get there, for me it's more fulfilling. You go, I know what it took for me to get to this point or to acquire this thing or to do this thing. I know what it took and I can look back at it and go okay, I've invested in myself, and that's what the journey is all about is. You know twists and turns all along the way. Invest in yourself all along the way. Um, what you'll end up doing is you'll have bigger destinations and bigger goals because you're able to accomplish more and more. So pay attention to what's going on while you're going along the way because it may give you some lessons on how to do it a little bit differently next time. Or and this happens a lot, especially for somebody like me that's pivoted so many careers you get to it and you go. You know what. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to do something else. You get to it and you go. You know what. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to do something else and I know because I paid attention to the journey. What do I need to do in order to segue into something different? Okay, what are the steps? Okay, you just do it.

Speaker 2: 43:10

It's like baking or doing gardening or anything like that. It's all about the ingredients. Follow the recipe, more or less Understand there's going to be. Oh, I'm out of this. What spice can I use instead of this? All right, good, you know, usually that doesn't blow up in your face. Sometimes that's when you're calling doordash and your grub hub and going, all right, yeah, dinner was a disaster, we're ordering out, so we're going out it. But that's what life's all about. You're. It's trial and error in many cases. But you know, you try, you fail, you do it again, you, you pick yourself up. You'll be successful. But yeah, it's all about the journey, not the destination I love that.

Speaker 1: 43:50

Where can people connect with you at?

Speaker 2: 43:52

breakfastleadershipcom. Uh, this is the best place. I'm on most of social media channels. Just look up breakfast leadership or be fast leadership, the letter b, then fast leadership, um, you'll find me. I'm active on linkedin, you know. I'm, you know, pretty active on other channels as well, but linkedin is usually where you see a lot of my stuff and then obviously the content, the breakfast leadership show, all on on the major platforms and the ones that I've never heard of. They have it too, um, because, because I'll see, oh, I heard you on this one. I'm like what is that? I didn't even know that existed. Okay, thanks, you know another platform, but you know, just reach out to me anytime. Happy to help in any way that I can.

Speaker 1: 44:29

Perfect and all that will be in the show notes. Guys, make sure you guys leave a review, send this to to them. But, michael, thank you so much again for taking time out of your day to drop some knowledge, especially in such an interesting topic that I feel so many people feel, or think they feel, which is burnout. So again, thank you again for coming and dropping that knowledge.

Speaker 2: 44:57

My pleasure. Thank you for your time.