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If you’re an entrepreneur who has ever suffered from burnout, then you know the impact it can have on both your health and your business. It creeps in slowly, sapping your energy, clouding your judgment, and ultimately leaving you overwhelmed and exhausted. But avoiding burnout isn’t about working harder — it’s about working smarter!
Michael Levitt, CEO of Breakfast Leadership Network, advocates for exactly that. With years of experience in high-pressure corporate and nonprofit environments, he reached a breaking point that forced him to reevaluate how he managed his time and energy. After suffering a near-fatal heart attack and experiencing job loss and financial turmoil, he dedicated himself to understanding burnout and developing strategies to prevent it.
Now, through his consulting, books, and The Breakfast Leadership Show podcast, he helps entrepreneurs and professionals regain control of their schedules, avoid stress overload, and create sustainable success. Want Michael’s proven strategies for managing time and energy effectively? Check out his key takeaways to help you beat burnout before it beats you!
Know Yourself to Protect Yourself
“You get a little bit more aware as time goes on, if you pay attention. And I think that's the big thing too, is you kind of have to understand how you tick and how you operate. And I find, unfortunately, a lot of people don't really know.”
Michael emphasizes that self-awareness is the foundation of burnout prevention. Many entrepreneurs charge forward without understanding their own limits, energy levels, and personal triggers.
Start by tracking your habits, your energy fluctuations, and what drains or fuels you. This awareness will help you make better decisions about how you structure your day and allocate your time.
Michael learned this lesson the hard way, as he worked himself into severe burnout without recognizing the warning signs. It was only after losing his job and suffering a heart attack that he was forced to take a step back and assess how he had been operating.
Recognize the Warning Signs Before It’s Too Late
“All those things happened to me because I was burned out. I was making mistakes at work, I wasn't resting, I wasn't eating well, my relationships were falling apart, you name it. I was living life burning the candle at three ends.”
Burnout doesn’t happen overnight — it’s a slow decline. Fatigue, forgetfulness, irritability, lack of focus, and neglecting things you once enjoyed are all red flags. When you start seeing these signs, it’s time to take a step back and reassess your workload before you hit a crisis point.
Michael recounted how he gradually gave up things he loved — such as attending Detroit Tigers games — because he was too consumed by work. This loss of balance was one of the clearest indicators that burnout had taken hold.
Align Your Work With Your Energy Levels
“The idea is to maximize your energy, align it with what you’re working on, so that energy matches up with the work you need to do.”
Not all hours are created equal. Michael suggests tracking your energy levels throughout the day and aligning tasks accordingly. If you're sharpest in the morning, reserve that time for deep, focused work. Save lower-energy periods for administrative tasks, emails, or meetings. This approach helps you accomplish more while expending less effort.
He also points out that eating the wrong foods can impact your energy and cause inflammation, making you feel more sluggish. By paying attention to both physical and mental energy, you can fine-tune your schedule to work more efficiently.
Batch Similar Tasks for Maximum Efficiency
“If you're using this quadrant of your brain to do this kind of work, look at the other things you get to do during the day or the week and see if you can pair them up.”
Jumping between unrelated tasks drains mental energy. Instead, group similar tasks together — write all your content at once, schedule back-to-back meetings, or dedicate a block of time to strategy. By staying in the same mental mode for longer stretches, you’ll work faster and more efficiently.
Michael explains that when entrepreneurs constantly switch between different types of work, they lose time and focus in the transition. He advises taking a step back, assessing all the tasks on your plate, and strategically organizing them to optimize productivity.
Use a Color-Coded Calendar to Maintain Balance
“If you’re not seeing enough of your favorite color, that means that particular day or week, you don’t have enough of that me-time.”
Michael recommends color-coding your calendar to visually track work, meetings, and personal time. If you’re not seeing enough of your designated self-care color, it’s a sign to adjust your schedule.
Whether it’s a hobby, exercise, or family time, scheduling non-work activities ensures that you’re actively prioritizing your well-being. He stresses that this simple visual trick makes it easy to see when work is creeping in too much and allows you to make immediate changes before burnout takes hold.
Learn to Let Go and Delegate
“You can’t do it all for the long term. Short term, I get it. But long term, if you want your company to grow, you need help.”
Entrepreneurs often wear multiple hats, but trying to do everything yourself is a surefire path to burnout. Recognizing when to delegate — whether it’s hiring a virtual assistant, outsourcing certain tasks, or bringing on a business partner — frees up mental space and energy for the tasks that truly require your expertise.
Michael shared that his business really started to take off once he let go of control and brought in help. It’s not easy to trust others with your vision, but doing so will ultimately allow you to scale and maintain your sanity.
Adopt a “Good Enough” Mindset
“ Waiting to have everything perfect, you will never launch.”
Waiting for perfection will paralyze you. Instead of striving for flawless execution, embrace the philosophy of continuous improvement. Get your product, content, or strategy to a “good enough” stage, launch it, and refine as you go. This prevents you from getting stuck in an endless cycle of revisions and delays.
Michael compared this to software development — just like Microsoft continually updates Windows, businesses should expect to iterate and improve over time rather than waiting to get everything perfect from the start.
Final Thoughts: Prioritize Yourself to Sustain Your Business
As Michael put it, “Life is meant to be tasted and enjoyed.” By understanding your energy patterns, batching tasks, color-coding your calendar, delegating wisely, and embracing imperfection, you can build a sustainable work-life balance.
…Class Dismissed!
The key to long-term success isn’t grinding yourself into the ground — it’s managing your time and energy so you can thrive both professionally and personally.
Want to hear the full interview with Michael? Click here!
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Transcript
Michael: [00:00:00] You get a little bit more aware as time goes on, if you pay attention. And I think that's the big thing too, is you kind of have to understand how you tick and how you operate. And I find, unfortunately, a lot of people don't really know.
Brien: Welcome to the Millionaire University Podcast. I'm your host, Brian Giran, back in the saddle with you today. And on this edition of the MU pod, I'm joined by Michael Leavitt. He's the CEO of Breakfast Leadership Network, and he specializes in fighting burnout via media therapy, books, and executive coaching.
Michael, welcome to the show. I'm going to give you a minute for a better origin story than that, but I'm, I'm excited to have you here today.
Michael: Good to be with you, Brian. Really looking forward to our chat today.
Brien: Yeah, this is a pleasure. I think the message that you're going to share with our listeners today is very pertinent, especially as we're heading into the new year here, as we record this thing, I think there's going to be some great messaging that everyone's going to want to consider as we're all excited and kind of hitting [00:01:00] the runway for coming out in 2025 strong, but before we do that, our topic today is more importantly going to be about managing yourself, managing your time and how to leverage it.
And by doing it right, you can avoid stress and avoid burnout. That's so many entrepreneurs. Find themselves in time and again. So again, that's why I'm super excited today. But before we jump into that, I want to hear a little bit about your origin story. How did you find yourself where you are today?
Michael: Yeah, a series of unfortunate events.
Uh, never, I never set out to be a keynote speaker, a podcast host, writer, maybe, but it really wasn't my desire when all of this was thrown in my lap. Back in 2009, I was working in, in healthcare, which is kind of ironic when you hear what happened to me in a moment. But big career in Fortune 500, working for organizations, and then went over to non profit and healthcare and social services, and which, you know, the big difference between non [00:02:00] profit and Corporate is budget.
Other than that, the work is the same. Sometimes the demands are higher in nonprofit, but I ideally when it happened back in 2009 is what I like to refer to as my year of worst case scenarios. And over a period of a year from May of 2009 to May 2010, I had a heart attack that should have killed me. And then 17 weeks later during the great recession, for those of us to remember that time, I lost my job and I was in an area that was deeply impacted by the recession, so here I am, fresh off a cardiac event, now I don't have a job, and it took me several months to find a new role, which required a relocation and upgrading my family and all of that, and ended up finding a new place and a new job, so was working out of town and commuting back in the weekends with packing and all of that kind of stuff to get ready to sell our house and and move up to where we were [00:03:00] and I was in my new role for about a week and a half and got a phone call from my oldest daughter who was 10 at the time and she's crying.
I couldn't understand a thing she said. And finally I was able to get from her that the bank had come and repossessed vehicle. Because when you lose your job and you don't have any insurance, you know, drug coverage or medical insurance or things like that, you have to make some choices on what you can pay.
And entrepreneurs, and for most people, it's a daily thing. Okay, what's my budget? What do I have to be able to afford things? For me was obviously food for my family, three small kids, and also the medication that I was now on, which was costing me a thousand dollars a month out of pocket. So needless to say, some things had to take a back seat, and we worked with our creditors.
The mortgage company and the auto loan company, the bank, which ironically there's a, that branches across the street from [00:04:00] where I live now and no ill will, don't blame them, was never mad at them when you have an agreement, say they're going to give me some money to go buy a car. My agreement is I will pay you back and if I don't pay you back, well, guess what?
They can take the car and they exercise that right. It's never mad at them. They just exercise the contract as the terms were there. But. So to rewind, heart attack, job loss, car repossession, finally found a place to rent for the family, moved the family up, unpacking everything, and then realized that we left the bunk bed ladder at our old house, which we were getting ready to put on the market in about a week and a half.
So that following weekend, I went back to town to grab the ladder and anything else we happened to leave behind. And when I get to the house, there was the biggest padlock I've ever seen in my life on the door and a sticker on the door that said foreclosure. So, which is really interesting because I never got anything in the mail saying that they were like, hey, they just, you know, ran out of patience and again, not upset with the bank.
Same situation. Hey, you [00:05:00] give me money, I buy a house. I pay you back. I don't pay you back. You get a house. And that's basically what happened. So, in a year's time, heart attack that should have killed me, job lost during the Great Recession, car repossessed, home foreclosed. And all those things happened to me because I was burned out.
I was making mistakes at work, I wasn't resting, I wasn't eating well, my relationships were falling apart, you name it. I was living life burning the candle at three ends. And unfortunately, we see a lot of entrepreneurs do that because when you are Employee number 1 to 100, there's a lot of things you have to do in order to run a company, and even though this healthcare organization I was running was not my company, I treated it as if it was, and didn't manage my time, didn't manage anything.
And thankfully I was given a second chance because the cardiologist that put the stents in my left anterior descending artery and if anybody's familiar with that artery it has a nickname in the cardiology world it's [00:06:00] called the widow maker because when you have a blockage in that artery and you have a cardiac event you're usually viewed instead of seen and thankfully I was given a second chance because the cardiologist that put the stents in my left anterior descending artery and if anybody's familiar with that artery it has a nickname in the cardiology world it's called the widow maker because when you have a blockage in that artery and you have a cardiac event you're usually viewed instead of seen and thankfully I'm still here.
I took that opportunity to go, okay, I don't want to do that again. So, which was one of two choices. I could have chose. Look at me. I survived all of those things. Um, I'm like Superman. I'm invincible, which I'm a Batman fan. So I usually never say I'm Superman, but I'm like, I'm, I could have gone down there.
I'm bulletproof. No, no, I wasn't. I was, I realized right away. It's like, okay, the way that I was living. Was not the way I should be living. So I took the long journey over a couple years to really dig in and figure out. Okay, why was that important to me? And what's important when? And this is something I tell people [00:07:00] do all the time.
Doesn't matter if you're looking for solutions to problems or just Understanding, reach back in the archives and find that childlike curiosity that you had when you were little. Because you always ask questions. I know everybody does, because we don't know. We weren't given a manual when we showed up. We were always asking, what's this, what's this, how do I do this, what's this?
And that's how I approached the review of how things happen. I'm like, what was I thinking? Behind this, but I did it with a childlike curiosity. I didn't beat myself up. I mean, I was beaten up enough So I thought okay, let's approach that. So I came to grips with what was important. I thought okay I need to do things differently and I did and Found a new role.
It was in health care. My parents wanted to have me committed. They're like, are you nuts? You're going back to the field that nearly killed you I said, yep, I am, and I'm going to do it differently, and I'm going to do it better, and I was in the sector for almost six more years, and [00:08:00] Thrived was on boards, directors, uh, planning committees, funding committees, you name it.
I was doing all kinds of different things and I wasn't burning out because I knew what caused my burnout. And I made sure that I had the boundaries necessary to be able to do a lot. And less time and be really efficient with how I spent my time and having going through all of that. I was looking at my peers in the sector, and this was 2014, early 2015, and I'm looking at them.
I'm going, Oh, I know that look that was me like, so I would say, Hey, uh, you're going to want to check yourself because you don't want to go through and I didn't share what had happened to me. A lot of people didn't know, uh, yes, you're going to want to. Take care of yourself because this could go bad quickly.
You know, health care, you know what could happen under prolonged stress. We're just going to work through it. I'm like, okay, well, I got to do something about this. So I [00:09:00] thought part of the journey of recovering and healing from traumatic experiences sometimes is just writing about it. So I started writing things out and I was talking with some mentors and peers of mine and they said, you know, Why don't you do some talks about this, write some articles, do some things.
And it kind of started off that way. And then from there turned into a podcast show, turned into creating a company. It turned into trademarking Breakfast Leadership. That's trademarked. I got that from the U. S. Patent Office on my birthday a couple years ago. I was able to trademark Breakfast Leadership.
It was such an awesome birthday gift. It's like, this is cool. It's not good. I can't go to dinner with this, but it's cool. But. From there, it just kind of took a life of its own and fast forward to now, you know, I get to do some amazing things and work with some great people because I want people and organizations to be their best because when people and organizations are thriving, the products and [00:10:00] services they make are better, which you and I benefit from.
So that's my ulterior motive is I want people to be their best so I can get good stuff. And everybody else can too. So that's kind of a long winded whirlwind of the backdrop and kind of brought you to what's going on today.
Brien: Yeah. Well, I'm super curious. It's an incredible story. First of all, you're almost basically on your deathbed.
You survive it. It's your life bed now, but then you have a whole waterfall of just unfortunate events. Like I feel like that could have easily buried you again or, you know, actually buried you. Right. So, I'm really curious, what was it, after all these bad things happened, and you recognize that I'm burnt out, I'm doing this wrong, you said you started writing, but what led to that mindset shift?
Did you just, was it kind of one of those moments where you're like, this is ground zero, I'm either, I've got two choices, it's either continue what I was doing, and clearly I'm not gonna last very long, or option B, which is, Fix it, go do [00:11:00] something.
Michael: Well, I'll think Thomas Nelson publishing, Michael Hyatt, leadership guru used to be the CEO there before he branched out on his own.
And during my recovery period, because I was off of work for about 17 weeks before the organization decided to go in a different direction. So it wasn't working. So going to complete grind from 6am to 11pm, seven days a week to you're not going to work for four months. And it was. I'm like, okay, now what do I do?
So, thankfully, at the time, Thomas Nelson, they may still do, I don't know, but they had a book club. So, they would mail you books, you read them, you write a review, and you post it online. So, I was starting to read some books, and I used to love to read. I used to read a ton before college, and then college, you read textbooks, and I'm like, I don't want to read anymore.
I'm done. This is killing me with this stuff. So, so I, You know, return to an old [00:12:00] hobby and was enjoying it and it was reading different kind of books and it was giving me some different perspectives, which really helped me kind of come to grips with things. So it's kind of like having a paperback therapist in a way, and I was Selectively choosing books that would be inspirational, to motivate, to pull the best out of yourself, and I was looking for that.
That was always something that I believed in, but I really wasn't living it. And I thought, okay, let's get some different perspectives so I can start living this way. So, doing that, that helped a lot. And helped me, quite frankly, navigate the job loss, the car, and the home. Because When all of those things happened, yes, uncomfortable, I was upset, of course, for a moment.
But I'm like, it's done. I can't change the fact that I don't have this job anymore. What do I need to do? I need to find a new job. So I went on that journey and [00:13:00] eventually found a job. Same thing with the vehicle. They took the vehicle. Thankfully, we had one that was paid off. So we didn't lose that one.
That was good. Okay. Okay. House gets foreclosed. Well, call the realtor. Tell him, well, you might still be selling this house, but you're going to be working with this bank instead of me because they own it now. So it saved a lot of the open house nonsense and things that we didn't have to deal with. So there's a positive for that, I guess.
But going through all of those experiences, I realized Okay, I am going to take the opportunity, and this is something that I chose to do, and I always, I always mention this to people. 99 percent of people that burn out do not need to reinvent themselves. They don't. They have to make a couple adjustments here and there in their life.
It's all you'll need. For my situation, I decided to take the junk drawer. Empty it completely, put the drawer [00:14:00] back in, and be very, very particular on what went back in there. And that's what I did, and it was necessary for me, but like I said, the majority of people don't have to do that. By doing that, I could really get a little bit more, I guess, intentional with how I was spending my time, what I was doing, what was important, what's the end goal, is this beneficial?
Or is it a distraction from other things? And that's an ongoing thing. It's not a set it and forget it. It's ongoing. Today is different than yesterday. Yesterday was different than the day before. There's a framework that I follow, but I also give myself the flexibility, understanding that there may be some external things that come up that need addressing, and I need to address that.
Real life example, living in a condo building, condo is about 14 years old, and with, unfortunately, sometimes with condo buildings and high rises and whatnot, the [00:15:00] contractors that build these Buildings do not use top notch equipment or things. Shocking, isn't it? I know. Especially if it's a company that ended up going bankrupt or something.
I saw that coming. 75%. Someone comes in, buys it, 10 cents on the dollar, and like, we gotta get this thing built. So, they basically dig up 50 year old drywall stuff, and they patch the thing up, and wow, the window leaks. Who would have guessed that? Um, thankfully knock on wood, we don't have a window leak here, but my, my closet, the shelving racks and things like that.
Came away from the drywall screws. So basically the clothes and all that stuff kind of went up against the door. So you open up the door and say, why is this door sticking? Next thing you know, you see all of your clothes, my wife's and I's clothes coming at me going cat. Well, let's not break the door. So let's, let's use, okay, I could use a third hand here, but we're able to at least get the [00:16:00] stuff and then unload all the clothes.
So past couple days is like, all right, well, I wasn't planning on getting a new closet system, but we're going to now. And so that took time, you know, thankfully, I was able to find something that worked and Was a lot more stable than, you know, that, because clothes can be heavy. I get it, you know, especially, you know, depending on what you have, if you got bulkier clothes or suits or whatever, you know, those weigh more than a t shirt.
So. It's like, let's get something that can hold some weight, and I got that, so, finished that up yesterday, actually. That was one of those, okay, well, I can either have all of our clothes piled up, but, I'm like, I have OCD, that's gonna drive me absolutely bonkers, so, we need to do something, we need to do something now.
So. Got it up and all that. So those were a couple days that were obviously a big distraction compared to what I had planned on doing, but thankfully in my managing my time was able to address accordingly and do everything I need to do. So thing, long [00:17:00] story short, things happen in life. You know, we have great plans, we're going to do this and this and then something comes up and the key of it is like, okay, what, what can I do about this?
Stressing about it's not going to fix it or change it. So you just accept okay, this is the reality. What do I have control over? That might just be your emotions of the situation and everything else is just completely outta your hands. Like, okay. Mm-hmm . And again, that takes effort. That's not something that they teach you in school.
And depending on your, your upbringing may not be a skillset that your parents had. Nothing against your parents. I can think back to both my parents. How they handled things and of course that kind of flows on through sometimes so you get a little bit more aware as time goes on if you pay attention and I think that's the big thing too is you kind of have to understand how you tick and how you operate and I find unfortunately a lot of people don't really [00:18:00] know.
Brien: Mm hmm. Well, I like the point you made about you don't have to completely reinvent your life because there's been low points in my life where I'm like what I'm doing in work and I got to completely revamp myself and then that just causes more weight on yourself that is probably gonna end up holding you back because really you probably don't need to completely reinvent yourself because that's overwhelming.
That's, that's a lot. But for you, it sounded like you went back to work at the place or in the industry that Mm hmm. almost killed you. And you said your, your family thought you were crazy. But in my mind, I was thinking, oh, you know, that had to have been pretty smart because you were probably talented at what you did.
You knew the industry. That's where your, your skills and your knowledge lied. But that doesn't mean that the industry almost killed you. It was your actions and the way you were handling yourself that almost killed you. And you had the wherewithal to recognize that and not sit back and be like, oh, I need a completely new industry.
I need to learn completely new things where that could have set you back multiple years because. You kind of have your lane, why not just go [00:19:00] attack your lane at a different angle and maybe do, you know, do things, uh, whether it's behaviorally or mentally a little bit different so that you don't get burned out?
Was that an, an obvious move for you? Or were you like, I can't reinvent myself, I just need to make this a little more simple? Or were you, did you have an internal battle with that?
Michael: It was one of those things where I did, especially when my parents were saying, are you sure you want to do this? And I said, yeah, because at that point I had done enough work because I had enough time off to know, okay, I'm going to approach things this way.
I'm going to lay down the guidelines of when I'm available, when I'm not. And 24 7, I am not. And thankfully, a person that I worked for at that organization was a strong advocate for When you work here, you're working here, but your nights and your weekends, unless something is going sideways, do not work.
Yes, you have a cell phone. Yeah, but don't send [00:20:00] messages. Don't do that. So very fortunate that I found an employer and a boss that. Mimic that. And more often than not, the bosses that I've had in my life, other than the one at the organization that I had my 369 days of worst case scenarios, I been very fortunate to have bosses that were, you know, understanding of that.
Because they didn't want to work those hours. You find that your boss is a workaholic, or maybe is an entrepreneur. Maybe you are. I'm not an advocate for it. I understand there may be seasons for it. My original career was in public accounting. So tax season, which we are, which we are approaching now. I'm sorry, folks.
It's not only the people that get to pay the taxes, but all the professionals that for the next three or four months, you will despise life. But. If you live in a cold climate, it's a great way for winter to go by quick because you're never outside. You're always in the office. So that's
Brien: right.
Michael: Take the positive.
So, you know, April [00:21:00] 16th or whenever the last day of tax season is, you go outside, you hear the birds chirping, the flowers are blooming. It's euphoric. It's, it's a wonderful, wonderful feeling. The stress on the shoulders goes away. And I've been outta that industry for decades, but I still, that day for some reason, it's, it's muscle memory.
I go, why do I feel so white today? like, oh, must be April 16th. I feel great. Oh, yeah, tax season is over. Yes. Awesome. Okay, now I know why. Yeah, so, but understanding again, who you are and what motivates you in getting a grasp of what. You need to do and too often I see this with entrepreneurs where they will have everything up in here, which is good.
It's a good filing system per se, but they don't put it down on paper or at least map it out or have somebody else map it out. Have somebody look at it, love AI or hate AI. I'm one to leverage it as much as I can [00:22:00] just for ideas and also different ways to look things like it's like, here's all the things on my plate.
And I did this the other day. I said, Okay, here's all the things on my plate for January. How would you, you know, and I tell, you know, the AI, you are a seasoned management consultant that specializes in time management projects, things like that. Here's all the things I need to do. Prioritize them on based on getting these types of results, this type of ROI, whatever.
And Give me back a work plan for the next 30 days in like 15 seconds and flush that and I'm looking at it and I go, that actually makes sense that it does that way. It's like, no, that, that, that's out of, out of sorts. But it's again, it's not to replace anything, but it's to give me a different perspective.
Do the same thing, asking a mentor or a colleague, what do you think about this? Should I focus on this for Q1 or this? And again, it's, Going back to asking questions and being [00:23:00] curious, but unfortunately, many entrepreneurs, especially in the early stages, the first year or two of their business, the only questions they're asking is, okay, where can I find this?
What do I need to do with this? Are these funnels going to work? How am I going to get new clients? How am I going to do our, all these things start coming in and you start feeling overwhelmed easily. It's one of those things where sometimes you just need to take a step back, put everything out there, you know, all the good, the bad, the ugly, and go, okay.
What is going to get me to the point that I want to get to in 30 days, 60 days, nine days, whatever target you're looking at of all these things, what are the couple of things that will help me get closer to that target and probably should focus on that? Because you can't do 10 things at once. Just can't.
Well, maybe you can, it's not going to be any good. I see this all the time, entrepreneurs try to do everything. You're not going to get anything done. You gotta pick one. If you're missing out and FOMO [00:24:00] is horrible, if I pick this, what happens if this is what goes off? It's like, then it does. Okay, you adjust.
But what do you want to work on? What resonates with you? And this is an exercise I do with people all the time, and they're having difficulty picking between two things. I'll say, okay, if I take this one away and say, you're not allowed to work on it for the next two years, you can't look at it, you can't touch it, you can't Google it, you can't ask ChatGPT about it.
How do you feel about that? Meh. Okay, what about this one? Oh, that, that's bothering me. Okay, that's what you need to work on. Because that's where your passion is. That's where your energy is. gearing you towards. You can put the other thing aside and focus on that. Get, get it good. Get something, you know, good enough launch is something that, uh, Dr.
Frank Martino used to say in meetings all the time. It's good enough launch. And then there's other, his colleagues, other doctors are like, no, it has to be perfect. And you're like, Why do you think we call it medical practice? It doesn't say medical perfect, it's practice. It's all we're [00:25:00] doing. It's like, some are practicing more than others, but I'm not mentioning any names, now or ever.
Brien: Yeah. Well, and that's, that's the, what is it, the old line, perfect is the enemy of good, right? Like, good enough. Is what will prevent you from getting stuck and from blocking your own mind of like, I can't do this, I can't launch this, I can't start this, X, Y, Z, because it's not perfect. Well, Newsflash, it's never gonna be perfect, right?
Perfect's impossible, so why don't you get it as good as you can possibly get it, or good enough. And just launch it, just get it out there.
Michael: Get it out, launch it. Some of us are old enough to remember Windows 1. 0 and Windows 3. 1 and 3. 1. 1 for workgroups. Now they're at Windows 11. They've had multiple versions of that operating system.
Guess what? They're going to update it again at some point. Why? Because it needs improvement. They want to add features to it. Waiting to have everything Perfect. You will never launch. And I was [00:26:00] at a, it was a talk. I forget who the keynote guy was, but he, one of the things he hammered home is like, if you were issuing or creating a product or service as quickly as you can put out crap 1.
0 and put out crap 2. 0 and 2. 5. 3, whatever, get it out there. Yeah. Is it going to look horrible? Of course, but you get out there and you learn from people, get the feedback and go, okay, and then you get better at it to the point when you do release something new. It's like, oh, it's pretty fine tuned. And yes, there's always going to be things to tweak.
Come on. We're, as you said, none of us are perfect. There's no perfect system or product or service, but get it out there because the people need it. And the sooner you do that and yeah. You know, put the time and effort into it to, you know, don't just put something out there to put something out there, but aim high and then adjust accordingly.
Brien: I want to talk about what are the initial [00:27:00] signs or symptoms of somebody, whether you're an entrepreneur or you work at a company as a W2, whatever you do, when you're approaching burnout, what was it like for you? What were those kind of the end of all for you? It sounded like it was a heart attack, but What are the the signs and symptoms of things that you can notice where you're like?
Maybe I need to start taking a step back before we get so far into it where I might be having a heart attack or God forbid something like that.
Michael: Exactly. Yeah. You, you don't want to have to be taking, you know, Crestor and Coversil and all kinds of other medications if you can avoid them. But the signs that I see time and time again, and I had all of these, I checked all the boxes on this and people around me knew it and knew that I was burned out.
And, you know, several months after my cardiac event, I said, yeah, you were really burned out. I said, yeah, that's what I'm recognizing. Why didn't you tell me? And they said, we did. You wouldn't listen. So what happens is when you're burned out or approaching burnout, the signs I see time and time again is [00:28:00] one, the fatigue, you know, your, your body is just completely worn out.
You're not sleeping well. Your digestive system, of course, isn't working well because you're not sleeping well. And in many cases, I see this a lot with people that are working a lot of hours, you're not making the best stretch. nutrition choices. So when you're eating foods that are not good for you, your body's going to fight that because it's not natural for the body.
The body has to break down all these additional elements. It's like we use the junk drawer analogy. It's like, okay, you want to sort this stuff so you dump the entire drawer. And yes, there's things you want, but then there's all this extra stuff that you don't really know what to do with. Well, that's the same thing with our bodies.
There's certain foods that we have intolerances to. Some of us may have food allergies. And just a side note, a few years ago, I had a food intolerance test done. They tested me on over 260 foods. So, and it gave me a [00:29:00] beautiful color coded report. And it, you know, had Page of greens like yeah, your body naturally breaks these foods down.
No problem. You can eat this stuff. No issues. Yellow, eh, it depends. You know, you might have some issues. Inflammation is usually the side effect for some things. And then there was a page of red. It's like sirens going off and different degrees and scores, of course, but they're like, avoid this red page because You're going to have some issues if you eat that and by issues for me tends to be inflammation and other things we won't go into, but inflammation seems to be the biggest thing and one of the things about inflammation, especially if you're somebody that suffers with sinus pain or sinus pressure or congestion where you think you're congested, you think your head is full of stuff.
In many cases, if you have inflammation, Your head's not full of [00:30:00] mucus. It says your passages are swollen a bit because your body's inflamed because you're eating or consuming things that your body has an intolerance to. So that was a big thing for me because for years I always thought got all this, you know, gunk in my head and try to get rid of it.
Nothing's coming out. I still have it. There's nothing in there. Just your, my nasal passages were inflamed. So the You know, breathing was constricted, um, which caused problems. So a little side note on that. It's like, it's something that I never recommended, but I suggest if you're curious, you know, you might be eating some foods all the time that are truly not good for you because you have all this inflammation and all that inflammation causes sleep problems and pain and all of that.
So Those are, you know, sleep. Your food intake is one thing. A big thing for me, which was a humongous red flag, and I completely blew past and ignored it, was you stop doing things in life you enjoy doing, because like, well, I'm too busy. I'm working. I had the [00:31:00] opportunity to do the things I enjoy doing. I just didn't because I was too busy.
So, Wiped out, fatigued, tired to do it. At the time I was in the Detroit area and I was a season ticket holder for the Detroit Tigers. Now this was back in 06 they went to the World Series. And then kept throwing the third base and getting errors and St. Louis beat them. They should have won that series, but they just completely forgot how to play baseball.
So they lost that series. St. Louis capitalized. Kudos to Tony La Russa and the team. They did a good job. You know, I was able to go to the World Series and view all of that. That was really cool. And then seven was when I started in the healthcare thing. And by 2008, you know, I kind of like scaling back.
Nah, I'm not going to go tonight. And before that. It was like, clear the decks, I'm going, and we'd get there way too early, and we would hang out at the pub across the street, and by the time the rest of the crew that [00:32:00] were all grouped together in tickets, they'd come in, well, needless to say, I was well ahead of them on certain activities, so it was an absolute blast.
I don't drink anymore, so it's, it's like, I did that today, I'd be like, I guess I could read a book, but so I stopped going. And I love baseball. It's been my, my original career in accounting was because of buying baseball cards and figuring out the stats on the back of the cards. I love doing that. So for me to quit going to something that I absolutely adored should have been like, uh, Mike, what in the heck's wrong with you?
So if you stop doing things in the life you enjoy doing because you're too busy working, You got to look at how you're spending your time because life is meant to be tasted and enjoyed. If you start cutting out things you like, that's a big warning sign. And then another big one you see a lot is people making mistakes at work.
You're forgetful, more so than we normally are on a daily basis. But, uh, [00:33:00] Yeah, for me, it was just, you know, making mistakes all the time. And then, of course, the relationship thing. Your relationship with everybody. You are miserable in many cases. Maybe you are normally happy go lucky, and now you're a curmudgeon.
If you're normally a grumpy person, it's amplified. And everybody knows it. They don't want to be around you and you're short fused and irritated and all of that. So if those signs or any of those are resonating with you, there's a chance that you might be dealing with some prolonged stress and prolonged stress is what turns into burnout.
So You need to address it because you don't want to be laying on a table getting a hard procedure done when you're in your early 40s. That's not cool because you got a long life ahead of you and you don't want to have it be a situation where you could be debilitated or worse because you weren't taking care of yourself.
So those are the signs you tend to see time and time again.
Brien: [00:34:00] Absolutely. So you mentioned leveraging your time is a way to avoid stress and ultimately avoid that burnout. So when you were making these changes, or maybe even more so when you were opening your own business, you know, you, you'd been in corporate, you'd been a nonprofit, but then you started your own business talking about writing about and helping people with this type of thing.
What was it about leveraging your time that allowed you to prevent the stress? Yes.
Michael: For me, it was a couple of things. One. And this is something I discovered accidentally or maybe by osmosis. I don't remember reading about this, but it was understanding your energy levels throughout the day. People say, okay, I have a food journal.
So write down, and there's apps for this, you know. Okay. I had this. How many calories? Okay. It looks like I'm going to be a little bit, I want to be on the treadmill a little longer tonight. Oh, it's like, Oh, I'm going to have to ride two treadmills to work this one off. This is not going to happen. [00:35:00] It's like, don't, don't try to ride two treadmills at once.
Please, please do not do that. Cause otherwise you're going to be in the hospital for other reasons. And then you're not going to be able to work. You know, it's funny how that all happens. I started documenting my energy. Okay. And this kind of goes in with the food intake as well, where if you eat some foods and all of a sudden you're lethargic afterwards, and there's certain foods that do that naturally, you're like, okay, well, I'm not going to tackle that spreadsheet analysis this afternoon because the numbers are dancing on the sheet and I'm about ready to pass out.
So even if you're working for somebody, but if you're an entrepreneur, you definitely can control this is match the work. With your energy levels, but first you have to understand where your energy levels are throughout the day and what you're able to fly through and what is kind of a drag and sometimes.
It can be just the time of day you're doing [00:36:00] it, or it could be you hate spreadsheets. You want to go back in time and punch the person in the face that created the spreadsheet. Like, go away. So that goes back hundreds of years, by the way, so good luck. What you need to do is just kind of figure out where your energy levels are and align your work days.
To align with those different projects, and if you can't batch them together, and the reason why I say that is we use different parts of her brain for things, and if you're using this quadrant of your brain to do this kind of work, look at the other things you get to do during the day or the week and see if you can pair them up because in that way.
You're at that coffee shop in the corner of your brain for a longer period of time, and you're working on some things, and if it aligns with your energy and that side of your brain, there's a very distinct possibility you're going to get it done quicker and more accurately than if you were in this other region, and it's dragging and all that.
The idea is to maximize your energy, [00:37:00] align it with what you're working on, so that energy matches up with the work you need to do. And again, this is a self discovery thing, and some people are not really good at that. Write down your energy level throughout the day. Okay, it's 10 45 a. m. Okay, how am I feeling?
And just, you know, jot some things down. You can put it on a post it note if you want, or log it in a spreadsheet, or I'm sure there's apps that say energy level. Where am I at? And when you do that, you can look back at the report and say, okay, it looks like I have more energy between 11 a. m. And 3 p. m.
That seems to be a sweet spot for me. Okay, that's when you do things that match up with that energy. Maybe in the mornings, you don't have that energy for that, but those can be for conversations or other things, depending on what you need to do. But what happens with entrepreneurs is we do all of these things that don't use the same side of the brain, and we're going back and forth, back and forth.
It's [00:38:00] like watching a tennis match. At the end, you're like, okay, what did I accomplish today? You don't know because you just completely drained yourself because you've been haphazardly going to work and now with no plan. Like, yeah, I got to do all these things. So you start doing a little here, a little here, a little here, a little there.
If I would have done that with the closet build from the last couple of days, it would take me three weeks to get that thing done. I'm like, no, I want these clothes off of the bed and I don't want them on the floor. What do I need to motivate myself? I want to sleep in my bed. That's all the motivation I needed.
And I went to it and. Course you put something together and you go, okay, that shelf on that thing there is pointing in a different direction than the others. And it's square. My OCD is going to be bothered by that, but I'm going to tell my OCD to shut up right now. I'm just going to get this done. I'll fix it at some point.
Or I'll put a cover over it and I'll never see it again. I don't know. We'll, we'll, we'll cross that bridge one day. Again, [00:39:00] align your tasks with your energy levels. That was a game changer for me. And also too, this goes back to the taking care of yourself and doing things that you enjoy doing in life.
This is where color coding. Your calendar. Now, if you're colorblind, and I've worked with a lot of people, ironically, that are colorblind, use your favorite symbol instead, because I can't say, well, color that one red, or whatever colors they have difficulty with. That's pretty cruel to ask them to do that.
They can't see it. So, it's like, use, use a diamond, or a star, or a square box, or a dollar sign, whatever. whatever your symbols are. So what you do, a good colleague of mine in Virginia taught me this at a workshop years ago, is your self care time, or your me time, or your fun time, or whatever you want to call it.
The stuff you're doing in life that's good for you, that you enjoy doing, could be going to movies, golfing, you know, watching Netflix, or all the other streaming channels, [00:40:00] whatever. Schedule it. I know it's silly, like, I'm going to watch the national championship game last night. Yeah, okay, that's good. Why are you putting it on your calendar?
Because you're documenting your life. It's kind of a journal in a way, but you're doing it on a calendar. And, and what her tip was, was to color code all of your self care, me time, personal time, fun time, your favorite color. And the real and if you're colorblind use your favorite symbol. The reason why is our brain is naturally attracted to whatever our favorite color or favorite symbol is.
We could pick it out, you could look at things and there could be 500 things in your vision. You're going to recognize a symbol or a color. You're going to focus on that almost immediately. So you do that with your calendar and what I do is I'll look at my calendar and And of course there's text and colors and all that kind of stuff.
And all I need to do is just squint. So I can't read the text, but I can still see the colors. And if you're not seeing enough of your favorite color, that means that that [00:41:00] particular day or that particular week, you don't have enough, and enough varies for people, of that me time. So adjust accordingly.
This is an ongoing exercise. This is not a set it and forget it. I can look back at my calendar last week and I can see it was a little intense and that was understandable and I knew it was going to be that way because I more or less shut down over the holidays. I'm like, I'm not booking a lot of stuff.
I'm not going to do a lot other than, you know, strategic planning and all that kind of good stuff, but I'm not going to do the normal Things I get to do a week to week. So that first full week back was gangbusters like, and afterwards I'm like, why do I do that to myself? But I recognized it and I knew it going in and you can look at it and go, okay, is there anything that I can adjust or move around?
[00:42:00] Or let's maybe move a couple things on Thursday and let's see how this goes. And. You know, I got to the end of the week and it was like, okay, I can feel that that was a really chaotic week, but I don't feel overwhelmed or wiped out. And it's like, okay, all right. That doesn't mean that I'm gonna load up this week that way, but it's an ebb and flow.
And, you know, there's going to be some days that you're going to feel like taking on the world and you want to get. 18 things done, I would suggest try to tackle the complete to do list in one day. Get a couple things done and take a moment to reflect on what worked. What did you do in order to complete that so quickly or efficiently?
There might be some lessons there that you can apply to other things you do. And from there, you get more efficient at what you do. So that means you can actually do more in less time. And when you can do that, that [00:43:00] makes you really efficient as an entrepreneur and also creates the opportunity for growth and additional revenue.
So you can hire some people to help you because you can't do it all for long term. Short term, I get it. But long term, if you want your company to grow. You can't do it alone. You need help. And, you know, hire before you can afford it is a phrase that I've heard many, many times and painful, yes, but if you can, do it because the extra hands and eyes can really help you work on the things that only you can do.
Brien: Yeah, I can tell you from my own business, once I started hiring out, bringing in and help to help me actually do the thing. That's when I just noticed that there's so much more time available to actually grow the business, because it's one thing to bring in business and do it and fulfill it and keep everybody happy.
And then it's another thing to do that plus trying to continue growing it. And it, many times I hit a plateau where I'm like, I'm approaching this plateau and I think I need more help in terms of fulfillment. I think that's a great point. Maybe a good one to land the plane here is [00:44:00] recognize these inflection points where maybe you could really save yourself a lot of stress and a lot of burnout.
Possibility of burnout just by having other people help you, whether that's through maybe just talking to a friend or a family member or coworker, somebody, or bringing in people in your business to handle specific jobs within your business that perhaps you shouldn't handle anymore, that can allow you to free up time to handle yourself, manage your time or grow your business, do whatever you need to do.
But at the foremost, avoiding that burnout. Absolutely. Yeah, I love it. Awesome. Michael, well, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for all this information. I think this is just, whether people have heard it before or not, this is just information that I think we all need to at least every so often keep hearing to remind us and kind of, cause it's really easy when you're starting a business and you're growing a business, it's so easy to get lost.
And to just throw yourself to the wind, but we all need to remember that it's, it's absolutely necessary to sometimes take a step back, assess where our, our shortcomings are, and to patch them the right way [00:45:00] and making sure that we avoid that burnout. So I want to make sure that all our listeners can check you out or get ahold of you if they want to reach out to you, maybe work with you in some fashion.
What are the best ways to do that?
Michael: Best way is just go to breakfastleadership. com. There's a contact page down at the bottom and you can send a quick message and we'll get back to you on that. On most of the social media channels, you know, Instagrams and LinkedIn and X and TikTok. Well, we have it again.
Brien: You
Michael: know, who knows? Crazy things happen in this world. That's right. But the website is locally owned and operated, so it shouldn't get, you know, shut down, hopefully. All right. But yeah, breakfastleadership. com. And then from there, you can find all kinds of different resources from the podcast to articles to links to interviews that I've done.
You name it. There's all kinds of fun stuff on there. So have fun going down that rabbit hole.
Brien: Yeah. And what's the name of your podcast again? The Breakfast Leadership Show. There we go. Breakfast Leadership Show. So guys, make sure you check out Michael's [00:46:00] podcast. Check him out on his website. Michael, thank you so much for joining us today.
You brought a whole lot of knowledge to our audience and it was a pleasure to have you.
Michael: Thank you so much for your time today, Brian. Appreciate it.
Brien: All right, and that is a wrap on the Millionaire University podcast, big thanks to Michael for joining us today and sharing his information, his knowledge, his tidbits on how to best manage and leverage your time to prevent burnout and to prevent the stress that leads to burnout.
As I said in the show, I think this is a big point that whether you've heard it or not in the past. I think it's something that we just need to be reminded of a few times a year, just in case that burnout is creeping up on us or that stress is approaching a level that could become unhealthy for us. So hopefully this served as a, either a wake up call for some, or maybe just a little check in notice for the rest of us that your time is valuable, your business is precious, but at the same time, You want to keep your sanity.
So, all right. I hope you all found some value today. I can't wait to catch you on the next episode of the Millionaire University podcast. But before I go, if you'd be willing to, and [00:47:00] you enjoyed this episode, please hit the share link in your pod player. Send this episode via text message to your best friend, coworker, colleague, whoever it might be that you think would enjoy it too.
We want to share our information with them and thank you for tuning in and for listening to our episodes here into our show. We do this for you, and it's, it's a ton of fun. So, I cannot wait to catch you on the next episode of the Millionaire University Podcast. Brian Guerin signing off, and I hope you are all going out there and crushing it today.
We'll see ya next time.
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