August 6, 2025 • 45 mins
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.
Thanks for listening & being part of the Mindset Cafe Community.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 youthink you manifest.
So get ready to rise, cause weabout 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, onlypositive thoughts.
(00:21):
What is up, guys?
Welcome to another episode ofthe Mindset Cafe podcast.
It's your boy, devin, and todayI'm honored to be guesting an
influential person.
He has his own podcast and Idon't want to give away too much
of his stuff because I thinksome of the topics that we're
going to talk about are going tobe so awesome.
But today we are guested byMichael Levitt.
(00:42):
He is the founder and chiefburnout officer of the Breakfast
Leadership Network.
Right, michael is a seasonedexpert with over 25 years
experience in leadership,coaching and personal
development, and you alreadyknow Mindset Cafe is all about
personal development.
So with that you know he is acertified NLP coach or expert,
(01:03):
and he is a CBT therapist,author and the host of the
Globally Recognized BreakfastLeadership Show podcast.
So without further ado, michael, thank you so much for taking
the time out of your day to comeon the Mindset Cafe.
Thanks for the invite and goodtalking with you again, devin.
Of course I know it's alwaysgood to run it back, especially
when you have a greatconversation.
(01:24):
Once it's like, okay, well, nowlet's flip the script and let's
, you know, dive in more indepth on on the other side.
So I mean, let's, let's do that.
Let's you know, if you give theaudience a little bit of
background of what I like to do,is like your journey to this
point.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Right From childhood to like almost just a bird's eye
view fast forward.
You know what was your journeylike.
I'll summarize as much as I can.
So first career was inaccounting.
I blamed baseball cards forthat, because I bought a pack of
baseball cards.
Uh, in luther, michigan.
My grandmother had a cabin upthere and there was a general
store that was about a 10 minutewalk from there.
So walked up there, went upthere to buy candy and I saw
some baseball cards and it hadbubble gum in it.
(02:07):
I wanted a piece of gum.
So I thought, well, I'll chewthe bubble gum, and of course
that bubble gum was never anygood, uh, but it was.
It was one of those thingswhere you start chewing the gum.
You look at the cards and Ilooked, you know, I saw the
pictures of the players andwhatnot, and I looked at the
back and they had, you know,some stats and different things
and I'm like that's weird.
(02:27):
You know how do they.
You know how do they get thesenumbers.
So I started figuring out howto calculate batting average and
earn run average.
I didn't have a calculator, soI was doing it all by piece of
paper and a pencil.
And once I was able to figureit 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 aregood with numbers, they're goofy
(02:49):
.
But I was goofy.
But long story short, you knowthat ventured into you know,
once I went through high schoolI took accounting classes and
realized, okay, this is thecareer path I want to take, so
got my degree in accounting,worked for a CPA firm for almost
a decade and then I took someaccounting roles as well at
(03:10):
other organizations and then,coinciding with that, was the
time of basically the birth ofthe IT era and the dot-com era.
So thankfully the organizationthat I was part of they didn't
really have anybody that couldhandle the technology side of
things.
I had an interest in it and alittle bit of exposure to it, so
I said, sure, why not?
(03:30):
I wrote that and then ended upleaving accounting and went full
into IT work for several yearsand wrote the dot-com wave,
which was absolutely chaos and ablast to work in that, because
organizations were just throwingmoney at IT people left, right
and center, which is great,because my career path, from a
(03:51):
compensation standpoint, grewquite a bit in a very short
period of time.
And then reality hit, thedot-com bubble burst and then I
thought, well, I think I bettergo back to counting some beans,
because that's a little bit morestable.
So I did.
I think I better go back tocounting some beans, because
that's a little bit more stable.
So I did.
I found a role that was kind ofa hybrid role of doing some
accounting, doing some sales,doing some tech work and all of
that.
And I did that and thenventured into a startup
(04:14):
healthcare organization and Ihad 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 ledto the work that I'm doing
today, not by choice,necessarily, but just by
circumstance, because in thathealth care role ironically of
course I was working someabsolutely insane hours and I
(04:39):
wasn't the founder, I was theonly employee there and was
working some absolutely crazyhours and then ended up burning
out and had a pretty significanthealth scare and some financial
challenges and all kinds ofdifferent things.
That all took place during theGreat Recession.
So here I am, and this justdawned on me right now after the
(05:00):
thousands of times I've talkedabout this story.
So I rode the wave andtriumphed in the dot-com area.
Then that one blew up, and thenI was doing well, and then the
great recession hit, and then Ihad to pick myself up after that
.
So, after recovering from what Ilike to refer to as my year of
worst case scenarios, I wentback into healthcare and my
(05:24):
parents wanted to have mecommitted.
It was funny.
They were like why in the worldare you going back into
healthcare, when it was anindustry that nearly killed you?
And I thought I'm going to doit differently this time, and I
did.
I was quite successful at it.
But while I was doing all ofthat, I was looking at a lot of
my peers in healthcare, and thiswas in 2014, 2015.
I started realizing that a lotof my peers and a lot of people
(05:45):
in healthcare and this was in2014, 2015.
I started realizing that a lotof my peers and a lot of people
in healthcare were burning out.
This is before the pandemicTalk about burnout.
They've really had it over thelast few years, for sure.
But I thought, well, you know Ihad my own burnout journey.
You know why don't I start?
You know, sharing with you knowother healthcare people about
this.
So I started speaking at somehealthcare events you know I was
(06:05):
as an employee, so it wasn'tgetting compensated, but I was
going to the conferences anddoing sessions on it and whatnot
, and you know it dawned on me.
It's like you know what theremay be something here.
You know I may have anopportunity to maybe, you know,
spawn off and do some side workon this.
So, you know, launched thebusiness, came up with the name
Breakfast Leadership, came to mein the shower, by the way, and
(06:29):
launched the business, startedwriting, started speaking and
then, 2017, launched my podcastand I've been having a blast
with that and doing keynotetalks and content creation, all
kinds of fun stuff.
And I left healthcare back in2018.
Because, you know, the workthat I was doing was such that
(06:51):
there was enough demand for meto kind of leave that industry
and go, you know, full bore,into the work that I'm doing.
So that's kind of a quickaround the world journey of how
in the world I end up doing whatI do today.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
No, that's awesome, and I love those kinds of
stories because I think a lot ofpeople get stuck in.
They've done something, youknow, they've grown, let's say,
in a profession or in anindustry, and they get scared to
pivot, right.
They get scared to trysomething new.
And to your testament, likeyour proof that you can change
(07:28):
and change, and then maybechange and then come back right,
you know, and that's thebiggest thing is like what's the
worst going to happen?
Like it doesn't work out.
You can always do again whatyou're doing right now, and so I
love that, and then who knowswhat spawns from it.
You know you end up findingsomething that you're super
passionate about and that youend up really liking, and you
know you let that.
(07:48):
You know you pour more water onthat flower and let it flourish
, right.
So I mean, if you could explainto listeners what because I
think there's this term insociety, especially nowadays, is
readily used Right, burnout,right, and that's the big thing
is like.
I feel like some peopleobviously experience it and some
(08:11):
people are just feeling alittle lazy and then they're
like oh, I'm burnt out, right.
So what is burnout exactly?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'll use, I'll paraphrase the World Health
Organization, who we heard fromquite a bit over the last few
years.
But prior to the pandemic theyhad actually issued a ICD code,
which is Disease Registry Code.
Now they did not classifyburnout as a disease, which made
it kind of interesting thatthey issued an ICD code for it
anyway.
(08:39):
They classified it as aworkplace phenomenon.
They classify it as a workplacephenomenon and their definition
again paraphrasing is when youare under extreme and prolonged
stress that you have not beenable to address.
You're physically, mentallydrained, overwhelmed by life.
(08:59):
You can't keep up with thedemands of daily life.
You're fatigued, you quit dailylife.
You're fatigued, you quitliving life.
You just consider yourself.
Okay, I'm kind of numb to allthis and a question I get a lot
is sounds a lot like depression.
Now I have both had burnoutdiagnosed by a clinician and I
(09:22):
have had clinical depression bya clinician and I have had
clinical depression treated forit.
So I know, I know both sides ofthat pie, unfortunately, or
fortunately, depending on howyou look at it.
And the biggest difference frommy perspective is with
depression, especially if it'sreally, really bad, it is very
difficult to get out of bed.
You'll just start crying or getemotional at basically nothing
(09:47):
and you're just unable to doanything.
With burnout, you're kind ofnumb 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 andappropriately named, show
mindset, your mindset gets introuble and I think your mindset
and mine too, which led to myburnout and depression, quite
(10:10):
frankly, were you know thereasons why I ended up being in
the situations that I was in.
My mindset was not good.
You know what I was thinkingabout how I was dealing with
things, about how I was dealingwith things was not beneficial
to my well-being and part of it.
You know you can point fingersat the amygdala a little bit.
I call the amygdala Amy Gbecause I like to tell Amy to
(10:35):
shut up.
But the amygdala is there for areason.
It's there to protect us, whichit does a pretty good job of.
But you know, in many caseswe're not outrunning dinosaurs,
unless we happen to be in aJurassic Park movie.
But it protects us and warns us.
Okay, there's imminent danger,although it may not be, but its
(10:58):
first reaction is uh-oh.
So it's up to us to be able toprocess.
What we're facing?
No-transcript.
(11:31):
The work you get to do.
That's a big thing and I see ittime and time again.
And employers, you know, haveskin in this game as far as how
people get overwhelmed at workand burned out and all of that.
But the employees do as well.
I don't blame the employerscompletely on this and I don't
(11:52):
blame the employees completelyeither.
It's both sides of the equation,um, and it boils down to this
when you feel overwhelmed atwork by your workload, you have
to ask yourself okay, why do Ifeel overwhelmed?
In many cases, you're thinkingabout that concert Saturday
night.
You know, like, am I going tobe able to get this project done
(12:13):
, or am I going to have to workextra?
Is that going to potentiallyjeopardize something that I want
to do?
That's what a lot of peoplethink.
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 thingsthat are part of day-to-day life
.
You know.
You start thinking about thatand then you're focusing on that
instead of focusing on yourmindset of okay, I have this
(12:37):
project.
It's due at 4.30 pm today.
What time is it now?
What do I need to accomplish toget it done in that time?
Is it possible?
And it's hard to keep theemotions out of things, but I
see it time and time again.
People get very emotionalbecause we are emotional
creators, but ultimately itboils down to being real.
(12:59):
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 Ican 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 emotiontowards it, unless it runs out.
Then I have some emotion like,oh, I've got to grab another pen
(13:20):
.
But people throw in theseemotions like I'm never going to
get it done.
Well, henry Ford said if youthink you're wrong or you think
you're right, you're correct.
If you think you're not goingto get it done, you're telling
your brain and your mindset I'mnot going to get it done,
instead of going okay, what canI do in order to make this a
(13:41):
successful completion?
Could I ask for help from acolleague?
Could I ask for an extension?
Could I ask for help from acolleague?
Could I ask for an extension?
Could I bring it to my boss'sattention this is going to be
late.
Here's the circumstances.
That has created the situationwhere it might be late.
You let them know.
Then you get others involved tohelp you complete it.
They may say you know what,don't worry about section B and
(14:03):
C, we can do that later.
We just need Section A donetoday.
All of a sudden, you'rethinking okay, two-thirds of
that deadline just eased up.
Can I get Section A done?
Heck, yeah, I can do it.
And you're motivated, you gointo it, you're disciplined, you
get it done.
You get it done early, you turnit in, everything looks good,
yep, yep, okay.
Then you can go pick up yourkid, walk your dog, do whatever,
(14:25):
go to the concert, all thosethings.
But we doom ourselves intothinking I'm never going to get
it done.
And what are we thinking aboutall that time?
I'm never going to get it done.
I'm never going to get it done.
The more you're thinking aboutnot getting it done, the less
time you're spending on actuallygetting it done.
And that is a cycle thatcontinues in every aspect of
(14:46):
people's work lives, whichcauses prolonged stress.
Prolonged stress is what turnsinto burnout, and that's.
I see it time and time againit's like burnout isn't
something.
You wake up tomorrow morningand go oh, I caught burnout.
I wish it was that easy.
No, it's prolonged stress thatyou have not addressed and too
(15:06):
often people just stay down thatrabbit hole.
Many cases they cling on to thevictim card.
Oh, they're overworking me atwork.
Okay, are they?
You have a colleague that doesthe same job.
Are they overworked?
No, is their workload lighteror more?
It about the same?
Yeah, what's the differencehere?
(15:26):
A lot of it is mindset.
Now I'm not saying that peoplearen't overworked, they are.
Uh, there's a lot of peoplethat are.
But time and time again I seepeople are claiming to be burned
out, like you said, and they'rejust fatigued and they're just
their mindset isn't what itneeds to be.
But I I don't know that until Italk with them.
You know I'm working with anindividual.
(15:47):
Now that you know we're in theearly stages of trying to flush
out why they feel they're burnedout.
Because they say they're burnedout, I'm like okay, you know
what?
What does that look like foryou?
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 thatwe can do to kind of ease the
(16:08):
pressure a little bit, to getyou back to a more level state,
and then from there we can makethe decisions on okay, how do we
want to approach this toprevent it from happening again?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
No, yeah, I mean it's crazy, because I think that,
like you said, burnout is amindset thing.
Right and don't be wrong.
I, I agree, you know someemployers do overwork their
employees or their team, but atthe same time, I do feel that a
(16:43):
lot of people that have theemployee mindset, you know,
because, like, even like whenyou 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 toclock in, clock out, do as
little as work as possible andcollect a paycheck and leave,
(17:06):
and then, when all of a suddenthey get hit with a little bit
extra tasks or a deadline orsomething they're not used to,
all of a sudden it fires allaround them.
And then there's the employeesthat are getting fed everything.
There should be more employeesbut their employer isn't hiring
(17:26):
anymore.
So it's like there's two sidesof 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 dothat when it happens?
Right, like, if you're feelingoverwhelmed in the moment, then
(17:50):
you have to stop and think aboutit.
Then you can't let it prolongand prolong and prolong.
And now you're trying toreflect 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 topinpoint the little micro
instances that could have solvedthis problem.
I think, from, like, theemployer standpoint, especially
(18:11):
if an entrepreneur standpointit's like this, as, as harsh as
this sounds like this game isn'tfor everyone, right, right and.
And when you become anentrepreneur, everyone thinks,
because of social media, that itis.
You know, all of a sudden, yousign up and you become an
entrepreneur, you launch abusiness and then you're on the
beach.
You know, all of a sudden, yousign up, you become an
entrepreneur, you launch abusiness and then you're on the
beach.
You know drinking a.
(18:32):
You know Modelo with a lime init.
It's like that's not how thisrolls.
Like you just signed up, youtraded in a nine to five for 24,
seven, especially in thebeginning.
Right, and, if you don't likeproblems and you don't like
stressful, that is pretty muchwhen you start growing.
That is the name of the game,like my job now with my gym and
my franchise, I'm just prettymuch the problem solver, right.
(18:55):
So all I get is the stressedquestions, right, and it's like
once those questions come to me,it's like that's because
they're bigger questions orbigger problems than management
could have handled, or newquestions, so it's like you got
to be able to take that.
In that same time realizethere's a problem to every
solution.
You just have to be willing tofind it or ask someone to help
(19:17):
and not let that just sit onyour plate.
I mean, one of the things Iwant to get your opinion on it,
and this is I don't know where Ilearned this from, but this is
always, even from college and inhigh school.
You know, kids would.
Kids would essentially stressout about a test, right, let's
say, and I would, I wouldn't bestressed, right, because I would
(19:40):
study for the test just likeeveryone else would.
And then, walking into the test, you see everyone's nervous and
ready and it's like I'm justrelaxed.
And they're like what are you?
Are you nervous to the test?
No, nothing I could do rightnow to change what's going to be
the outcome, right.
And so my whole thing is if Ican't do anything about it,
right this moment, then I justdon't worry about it.
If it's out of my control, it'sout of my control, right?
(20:03):
If I can focus on it and I cando something about it, then I do
.
Otherwise, there's too manythings to focus on and stress
about that.
I'm not going to stress on theuncontrollables.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, it's spot on.
And before I forget, youmentioned something a moment ago
about you only getting the bigproblems.
What that tells me, just from abird's eye view, is that you
have hired and you have a teamthat can handle the majority of
the operational needs of theorganization, so you can be the
visionary and you can direct.
(20:39):
That did not happen by accident.
That happened by training andcoaching and guiding and
bringing on the right people todo the right roles.
And yes, when you're in aleader and the only thing you
get is like bad problems, it'skind of like being an emergency
room doctor.
No one's coming in there.
It's like, yeah, you know, Iwas bored, it's Saturday
afternoon.
I thought I'd come in and say Isee how you're doing.
(21:00):
No, that's not usually whathappens.
They get the big problems, theyget the emergency issues and in
your role you get the big,urgent things and like, well,
we've tried this and this andthis, nothing works.
And ultimately you go, okay,well, this is what we're going
to do.
And that one gives them thecomfort from a manager or an
employee to recognize okay, myownership or my leader is going
(21:24):
to take care of this.
I'm not going to be leavinghere just kind of hanging.
They're going to take care ofthis.
So that speaks volumes and moreleaders need to do stuff like
that.
But to go back to your question,one of the things and I've seen
this and you see these onsocial media all the time and
inspiring quotes and videos andall that which are good.
But you can consume all thosethings, but are you taking
(21:47):
action on them?
And that's the thing.
It's like my Instagram.
I've got so many things savedand I'm like, okay, they're
saved, what am I going to dowith them?
Well, eventually maybe I willgo through them, but we all know
that is not going to be thecase.
So eventually I'll just clearthem out or I'll just like, eh,
they're just going to be there.
But to your point, when, whenwe're facing something that's
really stressful, you said, okay, what can I control on this?
(22:12):
So the exercise that I saw theother day was from former
wrestler Diamond Dallas Page.
Actually, he's a leadership guynow and doing a lot of great
stuff and he posted a video.
He said when something'sstressing you out or a big issue
, or it could be a small issue,whatever it is write all the
things down that you feel rightnow about all the things that
are stressing you out.
Or you know a big issue, or itcould be a small issue, whatever
it is.
Write all the things down thatyou feel right now about all the
(22:33):
things that are stressing youout, 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 doanything about what the weather
is today.
I can do what I need to do toprepare for it.
You know, and you, and if you'rein Miami, well you know the
weather is going to be a littlebit different than it's going to
be in Minneapolis usually.
(22:54):
So you prepare accordingly andyou 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.
Why focus all my attention ongetting upset?
But what happens?
We've conditioned ourselves,much like push button get cheese
(23:16):
type of thing.
We've conditioned ourselves tobe 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 likingand subscribing and connecting
with content that isanti-negative, then you won't
(23:39):
see that stuff as much.
So we gravitate towardswhatever we're interested in and
unfortunately, sometimes someof us get into this negative
thing which has a ripple effecton how we look at life and work.
You know you have a colleague ora co-worker that complains
about work all the time.
You okay, that's, yeah, theyjust they're always complaining.
(24:01):
What happens if you've got 10of them?
Now you know, in your gyms,let's say, you get one trainer,
that is just.
You know eeyore never happyabout anything and everybody
else is like.
You know the bouncing tiggeryou bounced around kind of like
what my puppy is.
He's sometimes I think he'spart rabbit, quite frankly, the
(24:21):
way he bounces, uh.
But he, he's so different thanour last dog because our last
dog was a lot like you arelovable, but he's so different
than our last dog because ourlast dog was a lot like Eeyore
Lovable, but just kind of okay,whatever.
And so you know, differentstrokes for different folks.
But if that Eeyore is causingeverybody else to turn into
Eeyore, all of a sudden thetemperature of your company
(24:45):
changes and all of a suddenproductivity 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.
(25:08):
So you know what I'm going tonegativity to permeate in the
rank and file.
So, as leaders and owners, youhave to be on top of that and I
say squash it, which, yeah, youneed to.
But you have to understand okay, why are they negative?
Is there something going on inthe company that's causing them
(25:29):
to be this way?
Maybe it's something, and a lotof times it's just something
going on in their personal lifeand they're just going through a
rough bit of time and you justgo, okay, well, what can we do
to help with that?
Because if you can make workand I've seen this, I've seen
people going through some realcrap, even people that have
(25:55):
worked for me before gonethrough some real crap
personally, but I did everythingwe could you know that we could
make work more like a sanctuaryfor 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 theywere going through some pretty
difficult personal things, butyou wouldn't know it and they
just need to be heard andrecognize okay, when I'm here,
I'm here, and that's hard forpeople to do.
(26:18):
Because you know life, I tellpeople don't silo your life, but
sometimes you need to keep thework stuff at work and the home
stuff at home as best you canand try not to let them bleed
over.
But we're human beings, they'regoing to happen anyway.
But, um, you know, and you knowthis, you know one of the best
ways to relieve stress isphysical activity.
(26:40):
Kids, get into the gym, go fora walk.
I tell you what man it gets you, gets you out of your mind and
in your body, and your body isthis amazing resource that'll
make you feel better.
So if you're down or depressedor stressed out at work, move,
get some action and it makes ahuge 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'tmean it's easier for me to work
out Right.
And, honestly, some some daysit feels like it's harder to
work out because I've been inthe gym all day or I've been in
the office of the gym.
The last thing I want to do isspend another hour here, right,
and the hardest part is to getyour workout started Right.
(27:30):
And so even for me, likewhenever I've or you know a
problem that I just, you knowwas just consuming, like my
thought process, I would go on arun and I hate running, right
so, but I would go on a runbecause getting outside, you
know, and only just kind ofletting your mind free and not
thinking about anything else,all of a sudden, once you stop
thinking about it so much, theanswers tend to come Right.
And I think one of the bigthings you mentioned a second
(27:52):
ago was, you know, leaving thework stuff at work and the home
stuff at home as best aspossible.
I mean, that's one of thethings in the beginning of
entrepreneurship, or even thebeginning of starting a career,
right that that line blends, buthaving that boundary does, in
my opinion at least for me, helpwith feeling burnt out.
Because if there is no offswitch or you know reboot time,
(28:18):
then yeah, if it's always onyour 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 doingthat allows you to focus on the
task at hand a lot more indepth and a lot more intently
than if it's just all the time alittle 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 toread it again.
It's been a while since I'veread that book, but it's when
you're there, be there, work.
And you know, one of the thingsI say all the time is these
little devices are awesomebecause you can work anywhere at
any time, but they have areally big negative side effect.
(29:00):
You can work anywhere at anytime and we do.
We get the notifications, wesee that little red circle on
the Slack message or the textmessage or the WhatsApp or
whatever, and our brains go mustaddress and we conditioned
ourselves In many ways.
It's a dopamine hit.
It's like oh, I finishedsomething, yay, you know, kind
(29:22):
of thing.
And to your point, you have tohave boundaries around when you
work and when you don't.
And if you're with anorganization, you've been there
a while and they've been able toemail you and message you all
hours of the day.
It might be a difficultconversation to kind of wean
that in, but go into it with theframework of I want to
(29:44):
establish some boundaries whenI'm working, when I'm not.
So when I'm working, I'm thebest version of me for you.
If I'm working late hours.
Quite frankly, I'm not givingyou quality work.
Now.
If they decide they don't wantyou to work there anymore,
consider that a blessing.
I know that's hard for people tolose their job.
I get it.
I've been on both sides of thatfence.
(30:06):
I have lost my jobs before.
I have had to let people gobefore.
Not fun, no matter what.
However, there's so manyopportunities 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 whenyou work and when you don't, and
(30:28):
a lot of times that takes someeffort to figure out.
You know what's the sweet spotwhen 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 Iwas editing and doing some
online coursework and I wasfinishing up the retuning the
(30:51):
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, butI'm usually up and doing work
probably by 5.30 in the morning.
Now if you ask me to dosomething at eight o'clock
tonight, good luck.
(31:11):
It's not going to look goodbecause I know that my sweet
spot of work time tends to be inthe morning to early afternoon,
then after that is more okay.
Relax Doesn't mean I'm notgoing to do something, but I
recognize that.
Okay, whatever I'm doing, isthe quality going to be there,
(31:32):
or is this going to be more kindof pie in the sky, dreaming
thinking about different things,coming up with some ideas?
Even then, that may not beclear for me, and there are
people that are the absoluteopposite.
I worked with a doctor once andshe worked at our clinic and her
shift was basically 1 pm to 9pm at our clinic, and one time
(31:56):
in the years that I was there,one time we had to have her come
in at a meeting at 10.30 in themorning.
Sweetest soul, one of thesweetest people I've ever met,
an amazing doctor.
Love her to bits.
10.30 in the morning if you'veever seen the movie Gremlins and
(32:16):
they get the water on them.
That's what she was.
At 1030 in the morning.
I'm looking at her going.
My first thought was she's got atwin 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 toldthe other physicians and
everybody involved.
(32:37):
I said we will never haveanother meeting that requires
this doctor to be here prior to1230 PM.
Got it Understood,automatically, declining it, not
doing it, and I and I told herto.
You know, a couple of dayslater it's like yeah, sorry for
having you come in so early,we're not going to do that again
(32:59):
to you.
And I didn't, you know, Ididn't mock, you know, mock her
for being rude or anything likethat.
She said, yeah, I'm not amorning person.
I said I get that.
So, but again, it'sunderstanding where your energy
levels are.
You know, especially if you'rean entrepreneur, you know.
You know figure out what thosehours of the day work.
It may not be consecutive,maybe two hours here, two hours
(33:21):
there, two hours, differentblocks, 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'renot going up against the grain
oh, definitely, and I thinkthat'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 theentrepreneurial space, you do a
(33:49):
bunch of micro tasks that don'treally they're just what you're
working in your business andinstead of doing the one or two
things that actually are workingon your business to grow it, to
scale it, and that's where, inmy opinion, like, the real
change started happening when Ididn't try to plan that
Obviously you have month goals,week goals, year goals, whatever
(34:10):
, but I think of them as daygoals, right?
So, like today, I have, you know, things to get accomplished,
and then I have other thingsthat if I can get them done,
awesome, right.
But if I don't, then it is whatit is, that's not, that's not
super important, right?
And so I think you know, inreading the book eat the frog,
(34:32):
you know it makes a sense, youknow, relating that to people,
it's like a lot of people willwant to do like an easy task,
first to get their engines going, and then all of a sudden
they're like, okay, well, thisother task doesn't take five
minutes, I'm going to do thisone 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 thatneeded to be done.
Until, all of a sudden,deadlines do Right.
(34:54):
So I think that for me it waslike focus on the one thing,
even two things that need to getdone today, or you want to
really get done today and thenadd in the extra couple of
things afterwards and if youdon't finish it, you're not
stressed out, you're not, youknow, mad that you didn't get it
done.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Agreed.
And you know I'm a big fan ofBrian 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 doit.
And even this morning, you know,doing that course outline, it
(35:30):
was revising it because the teamthat I have helping me build
that they needed me to adjustsome things, because sometimes
when you build courses and I docoursework for other
organizations sometimes Igrabbed the wrong thing from the
wrong folder and put an outlinetogether for a completely
different course.
It's like this is just to seeif you're paying attention, kids
(35:52):
.
But no, it was like, oh, wow,geez, I completely dropped the
ball on that one.
So for me it was like I'm goingto get to it.
Because the email came inyesterday.
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 atall.
We procrastinate.
We spend more timeprocrastinating and fretting and
(36:13):
worrying about or being anxiousabout it than it takes in many
cases to actually do it.
So I'm a big fan for that.
The only caveat that I wouldsay is, if you're recovering
from burnout or depression,sometimes those little five
minute quick win things can helpyou get some momentum going,
(36:33):
which is good, but use itsparingly.
Or if you're just if it's a daywhere you're like I just I
don't feel like doing that, thenokay, get some things done.
That'll move the needle, butdon't do something that's busy
work.
It's like you know what.
I'm going to reorganize thejunk drawer in the kitchen
(36:54):
instead of actually writing thisproposal for this new
partnership for my gym thatwould expand our business by 30%
.
You know, I'm going to go seehow many of those little weird
screws from Ikea I've gotten myjunk drawer instead.
No you know and I get it, thenthat's a lot of that's our brain
.
Because our brain goes you'regoing to, you know.
(37:15):
It just starts telling us, youknow, negative things, it's like
you're not going to get it, youwon't get the proposal, they
won't like it.
You know all theseself-limiting doubts that pop in
your head just from pastexperiences 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 notselect you, so you know what Do
(37:37):
the proposal, worst casescenario, they don't choose you
but you have a template that youcan use for the next one.
And when I worked in nonprofitgrant 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 youknow we had boilerplate items of
things that were constantlydropping in, which then turned,
(38:00):
you know, reduced the amount oftime it took to fill out all the
grant paperwork and we wereable to be successful and didn't
have to spend as much time onit as many other organizations.
Because they go okay, we'restarting page one, section A,
again and again and again.
It's like half that stuff isjust utilizing your kindergarten
skills copy paste, copy paste,copy paste and just look for and
(38:25):
that's kind of a side note toavoid stress figure out the
systems that work for you, youknow, and shortcuts and
techniques, and if you do thingsseveral times over and over
again, look for ways to automatethat or delegate it so you're
not doing the same thing againand again.
Keyboard shortcuts, for example,something I live and breathe
(38:47):
every day.
I mean, I've got a handful ofthem.
I'm on the Apple ecosystem, butyou can do this in Google or
Windows or anything else as well.
You just come up with somekeyboard shortcuts for things
that you're constantly typingand all of a sudden you type in
the characters you have for theshortcut.
It types in the sentence orparagraph, whatever you have in
there.
You just save yourself, I don'tknow, maybe five seconds, ten
(39:10):
seconds.
It adds up over time.
But, you know, figure outsystems that work for you, and
you know to streamline things.
You, and if it means moving, ifyou're left, handed your
phone's over on the left side ofthe desk instead of the right
side, if that makes you moreefficient, do it.
You know, just figure out howto be the best version of you,
(39:31):
both from a productivitystandpoint, health standpoint,
mindset, and what you will findis you will be success.
I don't say success isguaranteed, but the ingredients
for you being successful inwhatever you do are definitely
going to be improved becauseyou're doing everything you can
to be the best version of you.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
I love that.
And so one final question Ihave for you and this is not a.
For some reason some peoplestill give it to me.
It's not a tombstone right.
It's not a obituary, anythinglike that.
This is the legacy wall rightand on michael.
On michael's legacy wall, whatwould the message be?
That you learned along yourlife's journey that you would
(40:16):
leave for the up-and-cominggenerations?
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 Iwant to have this much money in
the bank account, or I want tohave 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 thatdestination we're like, yeah,
(40:50):
I've got it, and we don't taketime to celebrate what it took
from us to get to that point.
We just kind of push it off tothe side.
If we didn't go through all ofthose steps, we wouldn't have
what we have.
My business where I live, allthe things that I have in life
(41:11):
were because of steps anddecisions and things that I did
along the way.
And it's important for you tolook for those steps and reflect
on them Because, from a systemstandpoint, you may be able to
go.
You know what.
I was successful in thisbecause I remember the steps.
I can do it again.
That's why you seeentrepreneurs and franchisees do
(41:34):
so well, because they figuredout okay, I opened up my first
location.
Okay, I figured out how tofranchise it.
Okay, is this next one going tobe easier?
It depends.
There's people and locationsand all that kind of stuff.
But once you get a system inplace that you follow, it makes
(41:54):
it easier for you to roll thosethings out.
But again, it's understandingthat you pay attention while
you're going along the journeyto your destination, because
when you get there, for me it'smore fulfilling.
You go, I know what it took forme to get to this point or to
(42:14):
acquire this thing or to do thisthing.
I know what it took and I canlook back at it and go okay,
I've invested in myself, andthat's what the journey is all
about is.
You know twists and turns allalong the way.
Invest in yourself all alongthe way.
Um, what you'll end up doing isyou'll have bigger destinations
(42:37):
and bigger goals because you'reable to accomplish more and
more.
So pay attention to what'sgoing on while you're going
along the way because it maygive you some lessons on how to
do it a little bit differentlynext time.
Or and this happens a lot,especially for somebody like me
that's pivoted so many careersyou get to it and you go.
You know what.
(42:57):
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 elseand I know because I paid
attention to the journey.
What do I need to do in orderto segue into something
different?
Okay, what are the steps?
Okay, you just do it.
It's like baking or doinggardening or anything like that.
It's all about the ingredients.
Follow the recipe, more or lessUnderstand there's going to be.
(43:22):
Oh, I'm out of this.
What spice can I use instead ofthis?
All right, good, you know,usually that doesn't blow up in
your face.
Sometimes that's when you'recalling doordash and your grub
hub and going, all right, yeah,dinner was a disaster, we're
ordering out, so we're going outit.
But that's what life's allabout.
You're.
It's trial and error in manycases.
But you know, you try, you fail, you do it again, you, you pick
(43:44):
yourself up.
You'll be successful.
But yeah, it's all about thejourney, not the destination I
love that.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Where can people connect with you at?
Speaker (43:52):
breakfastleadershipcom .
Uh, this is the best place.
I'm on most of social mediachannels.
Just look up breakfastleadership or be fast leadership
, the letter b, then fastleadership, um, you'll find me.
I'm active on linkedin, youknow.
I'm, you know, pretty active onother channels as well, but
linkedin is usually where yousee a lot of my stuff and then
obviously the content, thebreakfast leadership show, all
(44:13):
on on the major platforms andthe 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 anotherplatform, but you know, just
reach out to me anytime.
Happy to help in any way that Ican.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Perfect and all that will be in the show notes.
Guys, make sure you guys leavea review, send this to to them.
But, michael, thank you so muchagain for taking time out of
your day to drop some knowledge,especially in such an
interesting topic that I feel somany people feel, or think they
(44:52):
feel, which is burnout.
So again, thank you again forcoming and dropping that
knowledge.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
My pleasure.
Thank you for your time.
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 youthink you manifest.
So get ready to rise, cause weabout 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, onlypositive thoughts.
(00:21):
What is up, guys?
Welcome to another episode ofthe Mindset Cafe podcast.
It's your boy, devin, and todayI'm honored to be guesting an
influential person.
He has his own podcast and Idon't want to give away too much
of his stuff because I thinksome of the topics that we're
going to talk about are going tobe so awesome.
But today we are guested byMichael Levitt.
(00:42):
He is the founder and chiefburnout officer of the Breakfast
Leadership Network.
Right, michael is a seasonedexpert with over 25 years
experience in leadership,coaching and personal
development, and you alreadyknow Mindset Cafe is all about
personal development.
So with that you know he is acertified NLP coach or expert,
(01:03):
and he is a CBT therapist,author and the host of the
Globally Recognized BreakfastLeadership Show podcast.
So without further ado, michael, thank you so much for taking
the time out of your day to comeon the Mindset Cafe.
Thanks for the invite and goodtalking with you again, devin.
Of course I know it's alwaysgood to run it back, especially
when you have a greatconversation.
(01:24):
Once it's like, okay, well, nowlet's flip the script and let's
, you know, dive in more indepth on on the other side.
So I mean, let's, let's do that.
Let's you know, if you give theaudience a little bit of
background of what I like to do,is like your journey to this
point.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Right From childhood to like almost just a bird's eye
view fast forward.
You know what was your journeylike.
I'll summarize as much as I can.
So first career was inaccounting.
I blamed baseball cards forthat, because I bought a pack of
baseball cards.
Uh, in luther, michigan.
My grandmother had a cabin upthere and there was a general
store that was about a 10 minutewalk from there.
So walked up there, went upthere to buy candy and I saw
some baseball cards and it hadbubble gum in it.
(02:07):
I wanted a piece of gum.
So I thought, well, I'll chewthe bubble gum, and of course
that bubble gum was never anygood, uh, but it was.
It was one of those thingswhere you start chewing the gum.
You look at the cards and Ilooked, you know, I saw the
pictures of the players andwhatnot, and I looked at the
back and they had, you know,some stats and different things
and I'm like that's weird.
(02:27):
You know how do they.
You know how do they get thesenumbers.
So I started figuring out howto calculate batting average and
earn run average.
I didn't have a calculator, soI was doing it all by piece of
paper and a pencil.
And once I was able to figureit 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 aregood with numbers, they're goofy
(02:49):
.
But I was goofy.
But long story short, you knowthat ventured into you know,
once I went through high schoolI took accounting classes and
realized, okay, this is thecareer path I want to take, so
got my degree in accounting,worked for a CPA firm for almost
a decade and then I took someaccounting roles as well at
(03:10):
other organizations and then,coinciding with that, was the
time of basically the birth ofthe IT era and the dot-com era.
So thankfully the organizationthat I was part of they didn't
really have anybody that couldhandle the technology side of
things.
I had an interest in it and alittle bit of exposure to it, so
I said, sure, why not?
(03:30):
I wrote that and then ended upleaving accounting and went full
into IT work for several yearsand wrote the dot-com wave,
which was absolutely chaos and ablast to work in that, because
organizations were just throwingmoney at IT people left, right
and center, which is great,because my career path, from a
(03:51):
compensation standpoint, grewquite a bit in a very short
period of time.
And then reality hit, thedot-com bubble burst and then I
thought, well, I think I bettergo back to counting some beans,
because that's a little bit morestable.
So I did.
I think I better go back tocounting some beans, because
that's a little bit more stable.
So I did.
I found a role that was kind ofa hybrid role of doing some
accounting, doing some sales,doing some tech work and all of
that.
And I did that and thenventured into a startup
(04:14):
healthcare organization and Ihad 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 ledto the work that I'm doing
today, not by choice,necessarily, but just by
circumstance, because in thathealth care role ironically of
course I was working someabsolutely insane hours and I
(04:39):
wasn't the founder, I was theonly employee there and was
working some absolutely crazyhours and then ended up burning
out and had a pretty significanthealth scare and some financial
challenges and all kinds ofdifferent things.
That all took place during theGreat Recession.
So here I am, and this justdawned on me right now after the
(05:00):
thousands of times I've talkedabout this story.
So I rode the wave andtriumphed in the dot-com area.
Then that one blew up, and thenI was doing well, and then the
great recession hit, and then Ihad to pick myself up after that
.
So, after recovering from what Ilike to refer to as my year of
worst case scenarios, I wentback into healthcare and my
(05:24):
parents wanted to have mecommitted.
It was funny.
They were like why in the worldare you going back into
healthcare, when it was anindustry that nearly killed you?
And I thought I'm going to doit differently this time, and I
did.
I was quite successful at it.
But while I was doing all ofthat, I was looking at a lot of
my peers in healthcare, and thiswas in 2014, 2015.
I started realizing that a lotof my peers and a lot of people
(05:45):
in healthcare and this was in2014, 2015.
I started realizing that a lotof my peers and a lot of people
in healthcare were burning out.
This is before the pandemicTalk about burnout.
They've really had it over thelast few years, for sure.
But I thought, well, you know Ihad my own burnout journey.
You know why don't I start?
You know, sharing with you knowother healthcare people about
this.
So I started speaking at somehealthcare events you know I was
(06:05):
as an employee, so it wasn'tgetting compensated, but I was
going to the conferences anddoing sessions on it and whatnot
, and you know it dawned on me.
It's like you know what theremay be something here.
You know I may have anopportunity to maybe, you know,
spawn off and do some side workon this.
So, you know, launched thebusiness, came up with the name
Breakfast Leadership, came to mein the shower, by the way, and
(06:29):
launched the business, startedwriting, started speaking and
then, 2017, launched my podcastand I've been having a blast
with that and doing keynotetalks and content creation, all
kinds of fun stuff.
And I left healthcare back in2018.
Because, you know, the workthat I was doing was such that
(06:51):
there was enough demand for meto kind of leave that industry
and go, you know, full bore,into the work that I'm doing.
So that's kind of a quickaround the world journey of how
in the world I end up doing whatI do today.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
No, that's awesome, and I love those kinds of
stories because I think a lot ofpeople get stuck in.
They've done something, youknow, they've grown, let's say,
in a profession or in anindustry, and they get scared to
pivot, right.
They get scared to trysomething new.
And to your testament, likeyour proof that you can change
(07:28):
and change, and then maybechange and then come back right,
you know, and that's thebiggest thing is like what's the
worst going to happen?
Like it doesn't work out.
You can always do again whatyou're doing right now, and so I
love that, and then who knowswhat spawns from it.
You know you end up findingsomething that you're super
passionate about and that youend up really liking, and you
know you let that.
(07:48):
You know you pour more water onthat flower and let it flourish
, right.
So I mean, if you could explainto listeners what because I
think there's this term insociety, especially nowadays, is
readily used Right, burnout,right, and that's the big thing
is like.
I feel like some peopleobviously experience it and some
(08:11):
people are just feeling alittle lazy and then they're
like oh, I'm burnt out, right.
So what is burnout exactly?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'll use, I'll paraphrase the World Health
Organization, who we heard fromquite a bit over the last few
years.
But prior to the pandemic theyhad actually issued a ICD code,
which is Disease Registry Code.
Now they did not classifyburnout as a disease, which made
it kind of interesting thatthey issued an ICD code for it
anyway.
(08:39):
They classified it as aworkplace phenomenon.
They classify it as a workplacephenomenon and their definition
again paraphrasing is when youare under extreme and prolonged
stress that you have not beenable to address.
You're physically, mentallydrained, overwhelmed by life.
(08:59):
You can't keep up with thedemands of daily life.
You're fatigued, you quit dailylife.
You're fatigued, you quitliving life.
You just consider yourself.
Okay, I'm kind of numb to allthis and a question I get a lot
is sounds a lot like depression.
Now I have both had burnoutdiagnosed by a clinician and I
(09:22):
have had clinical depression bya clinician and I have had
clinical depression treated forit.
So I know, I know both sides ofthat pie, unfortunately, or
fortunately, depending on howyou look at it.
And the biggest difference frommy perspective is with
depression, especially if it'sreally, really bad, it is very
difficult to get out of bed.
You'll just start crying or getemotional at basically nothing
(09:47):
and you're just unable to doanything.
With burnout, you're kind ofnumb 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 andappropriately named, show
mindset, your mindset gets introuble and I think your mindset
and mine too, which led to myburnout and depression, quite
(10:10):
frankly, were you know thereasons why I ended up being in
the situations that I was in.
My mindset was not good.
You know what I was thinkingabout how I was dealing with
things, about how I was dealingwith things was not beneficial
to my well-being and part of it.
You know you can point fingersat the amygdala a little bit.
I call the amygdala Amy Gbecause I like to tell Amy to
(10:35):
shut up.
But the amygdala is there for areason.
It's there to protect us, whichit does a pretty good job of.
But you know, in many caseswe're not outrunning dinosaurs,
unless we happen to be in aJurassic Park movie.
But it protects us and warns us.
Okay, there's imminent danger,although it may not be, but its
(10:58):
first reaction is uh-oh.
So it's up to us to be able toprocess.
What we're facing?
No-transcript.
(11:31):
The work you get to do.
That's a big thing and I see ittime and time again.
And employers, you know, haveskin in this game as far as how
people get overwhelmed at workand burned out and all of that.
But the employees do as well.
I don't blame the employerscompletely on this and I don't
(11:52):
blame the employees completelyeither.
It's both sides of the equation,um, and it boils down to this
when you feel overwhelmed atwork by your workload, you have
to ask yourself okay, why do Ifeel overwhelmed?
In many cases, you're thinkingabout that concert Saturday
night.
You know, like, am I going tobe able to get this project done
(12:13):
, or am I going to have to workextra?
Is that going to potentiallyjeopardize something that I want
to do?
That's what a lot of peoplethink.
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 thingsthat are part of day-to-day life
.
You know.
You start thinking about thatand then you're focusing on that
instead of focusing on yourmindset of okay, I have this
(12:37):
project.
It's due at 4.30 pm today.
What time is it now?
What do I need to accomplish toget it done in that time?
Is it possible?
And it's hard to keep theemotions out of things, but I
see it time and time again.
People get very emotionalbecause we are emotional
creators, but ultimately itboils down to being real.
(12:59):
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 Ican 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 emotiontowards it, unless it runs out.
Then I have some emotion like,oh, I've got to grab another pen
(13:20):
.
But people throw in theseemotions like I'm never going to
get it done.
Well, henry Ford said if youthink you're wrong or you think
you're right, you're correct.
If you think you're not goingto get it done, you're telling
your brain and your mindset I'mnot going to get it done,
instead of going okay, what canI do in order to make this a
(13:41):
successful completion?
Could I ask for help from acolleague?
Could I ask for an extension?
Could I ask for help from acolleague?
Could I ask for an extension?
Could I bring it to my boss'sattention this is going to be
late.
Here's the circumstances.
That has created the situationwhere it might be late.
You let them know.
Then you get others involved tohelp you complete it.
They may say you know what,don't worry about section B and
(14:03):
C, we can do that later.
We just need Section A donetoday.
All of a sudden, you'rethinking okay, two-thirds of
that deadline just eased up.
Can I get Section A done?
Heck, yeah, I can do it.
And you're motivated, you gointo it, you're disciplined, you
get it done.
You get it done early, you turnit in, everything looks good,
yep, yep, okay.
Then you can go pick up yourkid, walk your dog, do whatever,
(14:25):
go to the concert, all thosethings.
But we doom ourselves intothinking I'm never going to get
it done.
And what are we thinking aboutall that time?
I'm never going to get it done.
I'm never going to get it done.
The more you're thinking aboutnot getting it done, the less
time you're spending on actuallygetting it done.
And that is a cycle thatcontinues in every aspect of
(14:46):
people's work lives, whichcauses prolonged stress.
Prolonged stress is what turnsinto burnout, and that's.
I see it time and time againit's like burnout isn't
something.
You wake up tomorrow morningand go oh, I caught burnout.
I wish it was that easy.
No, it's prolonged stress thatyou have not addressed and too
(15:06):
often people just stay down thatrabbit hole.
Many cases they cling on to thevictim card.
Oh, they're overworking me atwork.
Okay, are they?
You have a colleague that doesthe same job.
Are they overworked?
No, is their workload lighteror more?
It about the same?
Yeah, what's the differencehere?
(15:26):
A lot of it is mindset.
Now I'm not saying that peoplearen't overworked, they are.
Uh, there's a lot of peoplethat are.
But time and time again I seepeople are claiming to be burned
out, like you said, and they'rejust fatigued and they're just
their mindset isn't what itneeds to be.
But I I don't know that until Italk with them.
You know I'm working with anindividual.
(15:47):
Now that you know we're in theearly stages of trying to flush
out why they feel they're burnedout.
Because they say they're burnedout, I'm like okay, you know
what?
What does that look like foryou?
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 thatwe can do to kind of ease the
(16:08):
pressure a little bit, to getyou back to a more level state,
and then from there we can makethe decisions on okay, how do we
want to approach this toprevent it from happening again?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
No, yeah, I mean it's crazy, because I think that,
like you said, burnout is amindset thing.
Right and don't be wrong.
I, I agree, you know someemployers do overwork their
employees or their team, but atthe same time, I do feel that a
(16:43):
lot of people that have theemployee mindset, you know,
because, like, even like whenyou 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 toclock in, clock out, do as
little as work as possible andcollect a paycheck and leave,
(17:06):
and then, when all of a suddenthey get hit with a little bit
extra tasks or a deadline orsomething they're not used to,
all of a sudden it fires allaround them.
And then there's the employeesthat are getting fed everything.
There should be more employeesbut their employer isn't hiring
(17:26):
anymore.
So it's like there's two sidesof 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 dothat when it happens?
Right, like, if you're feelingoverwhelmed in the moment, then
(17:50):
you have to stop and think aboutit.
Then you can't let it prolongand prolong and prolong.
And now you're trying toreflect 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 topinpoint the little micro
instances that could have solvedthis problem.
I think, from, like, theemployer standpoint, especially
(18:11):
if an entrepreneur standpointit's like this, as, as harsh as
this sounds like this game isn'tfor everyone, right, right and.
And when you become anentrepreneur, everyone thinks,
because of social media, that itis.
You know, all of a sudden, yousign up and you become an
entrepreneur, you launch abusiness and then you're on the
beach.
You know, all of a sudden, yousign up, you become an
entrepreneur, you launch abusiness and then you're on the
beach.
You know drinking a.
(18:32):
You know Modelo with a lime init.
It's like that's not how thisrolls.
Like you just signed up, youtraded in a nine to five for 24,
seven, especially in thebeginning.
Right, and, if you don't likeproblems and you don't like
stressful, that is pretty muchwhen you start growing.
That is the name of the game,like my job now with my gym and
my franchise, I'm just prettymuch the problem solver, right.
(18:55):
So all I get is the stressedquestions, right, and it's like
once those questions come to me,it's like that's because
they're bigger questions orbigger problems than management
could have handled, or newquestions, so it's like you got
to be able to take that.
In that same time realizethere's a problem to every
solution.
You just have to be willing tofind it or ask someone to help
(19:17):
and not let that just sit onyour plate.
I mean, one of the things Iwant to get your opinion on it,
and this is I don't know where Ilearned this from, but this is
always, even from college and inhigh school.
You know, kids would.
Kids would essentially stressout about a test, right, let's
say, and I would, I wouldn't bestressed, right, because I would
(19:40):
study for the test just likeeveryone else would.
And then, walking into the test, you see everyone's nervous and
ready and it's like I'm justrelaxed.
And they're like what are you?
Are you nervous to the test?
No, nothing I could do rightnow to change what's going to be
the outcome, right.
And so my whole thing is if Ican't do anything about it,
right this moment, then I justdon't worry about it.
If it's out of my control, it'sout of my control, right?
(20:03):
If I can focus on it and I cando something about it, then I do
.
Otherwise, there's too manythings to focus on and stress
about that.
I'm not going to stress on theuncontrollables.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, it's spot on.
And before I forget, youmentioned something a moment ago
about you only getting the bigproblems.
What that tells me, just from abird's eye view, is that you
have hired and you have a teamthat can handle the majority of
the operational needs of theorganization, so you can be the
visionary and you can direct.
(20:39):
That did not happen by accident.
That happened by training andcoaching and guiding and
bringing on the right people todo the right roles.
And yes, when you're in aleader and the only thing you
get is like bad problems, it'skind of like being an emergency
room doctor.
No one's coming in there.
It's like, yeah, you know, Iwas bored, it's Saturday
afternoon.
I thought I'd come in and say Isee how you're doing.
(21:00):
No, that's not usually whathappens.
They get the big problems, theyget the emergency issues and in
your role you get the big,urgent things and like, well,
we've tried this and this andthis, nothing works.
And ultimately you go, okay,well, this is what we're going
to do.
And that one gives them thecomfort from a manager or an
employee to recognize okay, myownership or my leader is going
(21:24):
to take care of this.
I'm not going to be leavinghere just kind of hanging.
They're going to take care ofthis.
So that speaks volumes and moreleaders need to do stuff like
that.
But to go back to your question,one of the things and I've seen
this and you see these onsocial media all the time and
inspiring quotes and videos andall that which are good.
But you can consume all thosethings, but are you taking
(21:47):
action on them?
And that's the thing.
It's like my Instagram.
I've got so many things savedand I'm like, okay, they're
saved, what am I going to dowith them?
Well, eventually maybe I willgo through them, but we all know
that is not going to be thecase.
So eventually I'll just clearthem out or I'll just like, eh,
they're just going to be there.
But to your point, when, whenwe're facing something that's
really stressful, you said, okay, what can I control on this?
(22:12):
So the exercise that I saw theother day was from former
wrestler Diamond Dallas Page.
Actually, he's a leadership guynow and doing a lot of great
stuff and he posted a video.
He said when something'sstressing you out or a big issue
, or it could be a small issue,whatever it is write all the
things down that you feel rightnow about all the things that
are stressing you out.
Or you know a big issue, or itcould be a small issue, whatever
it is.
Write all the things down thatyou feel right now about all the
(22:33):
things that are stressing youout, 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 doanything about what the weather
is today.
I can do what I need to do toprepare for it.
You know, and you, and if you'rein Miami, well you know the
weather is going to be a littlebit different than it's going to
be in Minneapolis usually.
(22:54):
So you prepare accordingly andyou 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.
Why focus all my attention ongetting upset?
But what happens?
We've conditioned ourselves,much like push button get cheese
(23:16):
type of thing.
We've conditioned ourselves tobe 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 likingand subscribing and connecting
with content that isanti-negative, then you won't
(23:39):
see that stuff as much.
So we gravitate towardswhatever we're interested in and
unfortunately, sometimes someof us get into this negative
thing which has a ripple effecton how we look at life and work.
You know you have a colleague ora co-worker that complains
about work all the time.
You okay, that's, yeah, theyjust they're always complaining.
(24:01):
What happens if you've got 10of them?
Now you know, in your gyms,let's say, you get one trainer,
that is just.
You know eeyore never happyabout anything and everybody
else is like.
You know the bouncing tiggeryou bounced around kind of like
what my puppy is.
He's sometimes I think he'spart rabbit, quite frankly, the
(24:21):
way he bounces, uh.
But he, he's so different thanour last dog because our last
dog was a lot like you arelovable, but he's so different
than our last dog because ourlast dog was a lot like Eeyore
Lovable, but just kind of okay,whatever.
And so you know, differentstrokes for different folks.
But if that Eeyore is causingeverybody else to turn into
Eeyore, all of a sudden thetemperature of your company
(24:45):
changes and all of a suddenproductivity 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.
(25:08):
So you know what I'm going tonegativity to permeate in the
rank and file.
So, as leaders and owners, youhave to be on top of that and I
say squash it, which, yeah, youneed to.
But you have to understand okay, why are they negative?
Is there something going on inthe company that's causing them
(25:29):
to be this way?
Maybe it's something, and a lotof times it's just something
going on in their personal lifeand they're just going through a
rough bit of time and you justgo, okay, well, what can we do
to help with that?
Because if you can make workand I've seen this, I've seen
people going through some realcrap, even people that have
(25:55):
worked for me before gonethrough some real crap
personally, but I did everythingwe could you know that we could
make work more like a sanctuaryfor 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 theywere going through some pretty
difficult personal things, butyou wouldn't know it and they
just need to be heard andrecognize okay, when I'm here,
I'm here, and that's hard forpeople to do.
(26:18):
Because you know life, I tellpeople don't silo your life, but
sometimes you need to keep thework stuff at work and the home
stuff at home as best you canand try not to let them bleed
over.
But we're human beings, they'regoing to happen anyway.
But, um, you know, and you knowthis, you know one of the best
ways to relieve stress isphysical activity.
(26:40):
Kids, get into the gym, go fora walk.
I tell you what man it gets you, gets you out of your mind and
in your body, and your body isthis amazing resource that'll
make you feel better.
So if you're down or depressedor stressed out at work, move,
get some action and it makes ahuge 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'tmean it's easier for me to work
out Right.
And, honestly, some some daysit feels like it's harder to
work out because I've been inthe gym all day or I've been in
the office of the gym.
The last thing I want to do isspend another hour here, right,
and the hardest part is to getyour workout started Right.
(27:30):
And so even for me, likewhenever I've or you know a
problem that I just, you knowwas just consuming, like my
thought process, I would go on arun and I hate running, right
so, but I would go on a runbecause getting outside, you
know, and only just kind ofletting your mind free and not
thinking about anything else,all of a sudden, once you stop
thinking about it so much, theanswers tend to come Right.
And I think one of the bigthings you mentioned a second
(27:52):
ago was, you know, leaving thework stuff at work and the home
stuff at home as best aspossible.
I mean, that's one of thethings in the beginning of
entrepreneurship, or even thebeginning of starting a career,
right that that line blends, buthaving that boundary does, in
my opinion at least for me, helpwith feeling burnt out.
Because if there is no offswitch or you know reboot time,
(28:18):
then yeah, if it's always onyour 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 doingthat allows you to focus on the
task at hand a lot more indepth and a lot more intently
than if it's just all the time alittle 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 toread it again.
It's been a while since I'veread that book, but it's when
you're there, be there, work.
And you know, one of the thingsI say all the time is these
little devices are awesomebecause you can work anywhere at
any time, but they have areally big negative side effect.
(29:00):
You can work anywhere at anytime and we do.
We get the notifications, wesee that little red circle on
the Slack message or the textmessage or the WhatsApp or
whatever, and our brains go mustaddress and we conditioned
ourselves In many ways.
It's a dopamine hit.
It's like oh, I finishedsomething, yay, you know, kind
(29:22):
of thing.
And to your point, you have tohave boundaries around when you
work and when you don't.
And if you're with anorganization, you've been there
a while and they've been able toemail you and message you all
hours of the day.
It might be a difficultconversation to kind of wean
that in, but go into it with theframework of I want to
(29:44):
establish some boundaries whenI'm working, when I'm not.
So when I'm working, I'm thebest version of me for you.
If I'm working late hours.
Quite frankly, I'm not givingyou quality work.
Now.
If they decide they don't wantyou to work there anymore,
consider that a blessing.
I know that's hard for people tolose their job.
I get it.
I've been on both sides of thatfence.
(30:06):
I have lost my jobs before.
I have had to let people gobefore.
Not fun, no matter what.
However, there's so manyopportunities 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 whenyou work and when you don't, and
(30:28):
a lot of times that takes someeffort to figure out.
You know what's the sweet spotwhen 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 Iwas editing and doing some
online coursework and I wasfinishing up the retuning the
(30:51):
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, butI'm usually up and doing work
probably by 5.30 in the morning.
Now if you ask me to dosomething at eight o'clock
tonight, good luck.
(31:11):
It's not going to look goodbecause I know that my sweet
spot of work time tends to be inthe morning to early afternoon,
then after that is more okay.
Relax Doesn't mean I'm notgoing to do something, but I
recognize that.
Okay, whatever I'm doing, isthe quality going to be there,
(31:32):
or is this going to be more kindof pie in the sky, dreaming
thinking about different things,coming up with some ideas?
Even then, that may not beclear for me, and there are
people that are the absoluteopposite.
I worked with a doctor once andshe worked at our clinic and her
shift was basically 1 pm to 9pm at our clinic, and one time
(31:56):
in the years that I was there,one time we had to have her come
in at a meeting at 10.30 in themorning.
Sweetest soul, one of thesweetest people I've ever met,
an amazing doctor.
Love her to bits.
10.30 in the morning if you'veever seen the movie Gremlins and
(32:16):
they get the water on them.
That's what she was.
At 1030 in the morning.
I'm looking at her going.
My first thought was she's got atwin 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 toldthe other physicians and
everybody involved.
(32:37):
I said we will never haveanother meeting that requires
this doctor to be here prior to1230 PM.
Got it Understood,automatically, declining it, not
doing it, and I and I told herto.
You know, a couple of dayslater it's like yeah, sorry for
having you come in so early,we're not going to do that again
(32:59):
to you.
And I didn't, you know, Ididn't mock, you know, mock her
for being rude or anything likethat.
She said, yeah, I'm not amorning person.
I said I get that.
So, but again, it'sunderstanding where your energy
levels are.
You know, especially if you'rean entrepreneur, you know.
You know figure out what thosehours of the day work.
It may not be consecutive,maybe two hours here, two hours
(33:21):
there, two hours, differentblocks, 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'renot going up against the grain
oh, definitely, and I thinkthat'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 theentrepreneurial space, you do a
(33:49):
bunch of micro tasks that don'treally they're just what you're
working in your business andinstead of doing the one or two
things that actually are workingon your business to grow it, to
scale it, and that's where, inmy opinion, like, the real
change started happening when Ididn't try to plan that
Obviously you have month goals,week goals, year goals, whatever
(34:10):
, but I think of them as daygoals, right?
So, like today, I have, you know, things to get accomplished,
and then I have other thingsthat if I can get them done,
awesome, right.
But if I don't, then it is whatit is, that's not, that's not
super important, right?
And so I think you know, inreading the book eat the frog,
(34:32):
you know it makes a sense, youknow, relating that to people,
it's like a lot of people willwant to do like an easy task,
first to get their engines going, and then all of a sudden
they're like, okay, well, thisother task doesn't take five
minutes, I'm going to do thisone 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 thatneeded to be done.
Until, all of a sudden,deadlines do Right.
(34:54):
So I think that for me it waslike focus on the one thing,
even two things that need to getdone today, or you want to
really get done today and thenadd in the extra couple of
things afterwards and if youdon't finish it, you're not
stressed out, you're not, youknow, mad that you didn't get it
done.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Agreed.
And you know I'm a big fan ofBrian 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 doit.
And even this morning, you know,doing that course outline, it
(35:30):
was revising it because the teamthat I have helping me build
that they needed me to adjustsome things, because sometimes
when you build courses and I docoursework for other
organizations sometimes Igrabbed the wrong thing from the
wrong folder and put an outlinetogether for a completely
different course.
It's like this is just to seeif you're paying attention, kids
(35:52):
.
But no, it was like, oh, wow,geez, I completely dropped the
ball on that one.
So for me it was like I'm goingto get to it.
Because the email came inyesterday.
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 atall.
We procrastinate.
We spend more timeprocrastinating and fretting and
(36:13):
worrying about or being anxiousabout it than it takes in many
cases to actually do it.
So I'm a big fan for that.
The only caveat that I wouldsay is, if you're recovering
from burnout or depression,sometimes those little five
minute quick win things can helpyou get some momentum going,
(36:33):
which is good, but use itsparingly.
Or if you're just if it's a daywhere you're like I just I
don't feel like doing that, thenokay, get some things done.
That'll move the needle, butdon't do something that's busy
work.
It's like you know what.
I'm going to reorganize thejunk drawer in the kitchen
(36:54):
instead of actually writing thisproposal for this new
partnership for my gym thatwould expand our business by 30%
.
You know, I'm going to go seehow many of those little weird
screws from Ikea I've gotten myjunk drawer instead.
No you know and I get it, thenthat's a lot of that's our brain
.
Because our brain goes you'regoing to, you know.
(37:15):
It just starts telling us, youknow, negative things, it's like
you're not going to get it, youwon't get the proposal, they
won't like it.
You know all theseself-limiting doubts that pop in
your head just from pastexperiences 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 notselect you, so you know what Do
(37:37):
the proposal, worst casescenario, they don't choose you
but you have a template that youcan use for the next one.
And when I worked in nonprofitgrant 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 youknow we had boilerplate items of
things that were constantlydropping in, which then turned,
(38:00):
you know, reduced the amount oftime it took to fill out all the
grant paperwork and we wereable to be successful and didn't
have to spend as much time onit as many other organizations.
Because they go okay, we'restarting page one, section A,
again and again and again.
It's like half that stuff isjust utilizing your kindergarten
skills copy paste, copy paste,copy paste and just look for and
(38:25):
that's kind of a side note toavoid stress figure out the
systems that work for you, youknow, and shortcuts and
techniques, and if you do thingsseveral times over and over
again, look for ways to automatethat or delegate it so you're
not doing the same thing againand again.
Keyboard shortcuts, for example,something I live and breathe
(38:47):
every day.
I mean, I've got a handful ofthem.
I'm on the Apple ecosystem, butyou can do this in Google or
Windows or anything else as well.
You just come up with somekeyboard shortcuts for things
that you're constantly typingand all of a sudden you type in
the characters you have for theshortcut.
It types in the sentence orparagraph, whatever you have in
there.
You just save yourself, I don'tknow, maybe five seconds, ten
(39:10):
seconds.
It adds up over time.
But, you know, figure outsystems that work for you, and
you know to streamline things.
You, and if it means moving, ifyou're left, handed your
phone's over on the left side ofthe desk instead of the right
side, if that makes you moreefficient, do it.
You know, just figure out howto be the best version of you,
(39:31):
both from a productivitystandpoint, health standpoint,
mindset, and what you will findis you will be success.
I don't say success isguaranteed, but the ingredients
for you being successful inwhatever you do are definitely
going to be improved becauseyou're doing everything you can
to be the best version of you.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
I love that.
And so one final question Ihave for you and this is not a.
For some reason some peoplestill give it to me.
It's not a tombstone right.
It's not a obituary, anythinglike that.
This is the legacy wall rightand on michael.
On michael's legacy wall, whatwould the message be?
That you learned along yourlife's journey that you would
(40:16):
leave for the up-and-cominggenerations?
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 Iwant to have this much money in
the bank account, or I want tohave 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 thatdestination we're like, yeah,
(40:50):
I've got it, and we don't taketime to celebrate what it took
from us to get to that point.
We just kind of push it off tothe side.
If we didn't go through all ofthose steps, we wouldn't have
what we have.
My business where I live, allthe things that I have in life
(41:11):
were because of steps anddecisions and things that I did
along the way.
And it's important for you tolook for those steps and reflect
on them Because, from a systemstandpoint, you may be able to
go.
You know what.
I was successful in thisbecause I remember the steps.
I can do it again.
That's why you seeentrepreneurs and franchisees do
(41:34):
so well, because they figuredout okay, I opened up my first
location.
Okay, I figured out how tofranchise it.
Okay, is this next one going tobe easier?
It depends.
There's people and locationsand all that kind of stuff.
But once you get a system inplace that you follow, it makes
(41:54):
it easier for you to roll thosethings out.
But again, it's understandingthat you pay attention while
you're going along the journeyto your destination, because
when you get there, for me it'smore fulfilling.
You go, I know what it took forme to get to this point or to
(42:14):
acquire this thing or to do thisthing.
I know what it took and I canlook back at it and go okay,
I've invested in myself, andthat's what the journey is all
about is.
You know twists and turns allalong the way.
Invest in yourself all alongthe way.
Um, what you'll end up doing isyou'll have bigger destinations
(42:37):
and bigger goals because you'reable to accomplish more and
more.
So pay attention to what'sgoing on while you're going
along the way because it maygive you some lessons on how to
do it a little bit differentlynext time.
Or and this happens a lot,especially for somebody like me
that's pivoted so many careersyou get to it and you go.
You know what.
(42:57):
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 elseand I know because I paid
attention to the journey.
What do I need to do in orderto segue into something
different?
Okay, what are the steps?
Okay, you just do it.
It's like baking or doinggardening or anything like that.
It's all about the ingredients.
Follow the recipe, more or lessUnderstand there's going to be.
(43:22):
Oh, I'm out of this.
What spice can I use instead ofthis?
All right, good, you know,usually that doesn't blow up in
your face.
Sometimes that's when you'recalling doordash and your grub
hub and going, all right, yeah,dinner was a disaster, we're
ordering out, so we're going outit.
But that's what life's allabout.
You're.
It's trial and error in manycases.
But you know, you try, you fail, you do it again, you, you pick
(43:44):
yourself up.
You'll be successful.
But yeah, it's all about thejourney, not the destination I
love that.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Where can people connect with you at?
Speaker (43:52):
breakfastleadershipcom .
Uh, this is the best place.
I'm on most of social mediachannels.
Just look up breakfastleadership or be fast leadership
, the letter b, then fastleadership, um, you'll find me.
I'm active on linkedin, youknow.
I'm, you know, pretty active onother channels as well, but
linkedin is usually where yousee a lot of my stuff and then
obviously the content, thebreakfast leadership show, all
(44:13):
on on the major platforms andthe 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 anotherplatform, but you know, just
reach out to me anytime.
Happy to help in any way that Ican.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Perfect and all that will be in the show notes.
Guys, make sure you guys leavea review, send this to to them.
But, michael, thank you so muchagain for taking time out of
your day to drop some knowledge,especially in such an
interesting topic that I feel somany people feel, or think they
(44:52):
feel, which is burnout.
So again, thank you again forcoming and dropping that
knowledge.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
My pleasure.
Thank you for your time.
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