Confessions from the Busiest Person You Know

I’m not here to get in a who-is-more-busy contest with you. That seems to be all we ever do anymore. “How you doin’?”

“Busy”

“Yea, busy is good.”

Let’s not do that right now. But, for the sake of context, I continually find myself in the upper echelon of work capacity. With three brick and mortar businesses, two online businesses, two traveling seminars, an inability to say no to recording podcasts, a daily blog, and two books in the works, let’s call it a tie for first. Deal?

Everyone said I’d burn out. “Slow down,” they’d beg me. “Don’t work so much,” they’d wish for me. I’m here to tell you what happens when you do what I’ve done, clear the air on the idea of burn out, and set the record straight.

It’s not the work. I could work harder than I do now for the next hundred years. Here’s a hint: don’t tell a motivated person to work less. It sounds like you’re telling a motivated person to be less motivated and you sound like an asshole.

This, of course, isn’t an article to say, “I told you so.” I’ve made grave mistakes, too. None of which, however, are based on workload. The key to longevity in any high demand undertaking is energy balance. Wait. Isn’t working too much and missing energy balance the same thing?

No.

Anyone who’s pursued something they believe in knows that the argument that there is a certain amount of work that is “too much” falls apart as soon as you compare how much time and effort an artist can spend on a painting and how much time and effort the same artist can spend on Turbo Tax. Hundreds of hours in to the painting, she’s there ready and willing to put in two hundred more. Three hours into turbo tax, though, and she’s “burnt out”. Work capacity is not a zero sum game. It’s relative and it’s important that motivated people have the space and freedom to tap their own wells of inspiration.

What, then, is energy balance? Some things give us energy and other things take our energy. Knowing which things do what for you is the key here.  What I’ve failed to do is make rules and boundaries to ensure that I’m taking on things that energize me and mitigate the things that don’t. I’ve taken a big hit from this failure and I’m paying the price for it. I’m learning as I go, nonetheless.

What you should hear from this moment of truth isn’t necessarily to work less or try less hard to create the things you want in your life. All you need to do is make sure you’re keeping tabs on the things that are vampires to your energy. After all, there are parts of every job that don’t serve us. There are parts of being in Aerosmith, even, that suck the life out of the band (SEE: travel). Consider evaluating the parts of your work that feed you and the parts that don’t. Mitigate those and you can win the Busiest-Person-on-the-Block Award, never burn out, and even have gas in the tank.  

Logan Gelbrich   

@functionalcoach