Afford Anything - How to Win at Work & Succeed at Life, with Michael Hyatt & Megan Hyatt Miller

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

#317: What if work and life can coexist together - without enormous trade-offs? What if all you have to do is ruthlessly prioritize within each area and manage the rest with automation and delegation? If it sounds like a pipedream, it’s not. Guests Michael Hyatt & Megan Hyatt Miller, authors of Win at Work & Succeed at Life, share how work/life balance is more achievable than you think. They also discuss how constraints increase productivity, why working over 40 hours a week can harm your mental and physical health, why rest is critical, and how self-care can give you an edge at work. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode317 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything, just not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention, anything in your life that's a scarce or limited resource. Saying yes to something implicitly means that you are accepting trade-offs. And that leads to the topic of today's episode. What if I told you that work and life can coexist and that that happens through ruthless

prioritization. So in other words, you don't trade off work in exchange for life or life in exchange for work. Instead, you focus on what's most important in each arena. That's what we're going to talk about in today's episode. My name is Paula Pant. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. And today, Michael Hyatt and his daughter, Megan Hyatt Miller, join us to discuss how to think of work and life in a way that is not in opposition to one another. how to get rid of this framework that we are doomed to be endlessly behind with both, or that we must prioritize one at the expense of the other, and how instead, through hardcore prioritization,

we can redefine and reimagine the arenas of work and life and break out of the scarcity mindset that many of us are in. Now, Michael Hyatt is a two-time guest of the show, and this time, as I mentioned, he's joined by his daughter, who is the CEO of Michael Hyatt and Company. Her name is Megan Hyatt Miller. Michael is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author known for titles like Living Forward, Your Best Year Ever, Free to Focus, and The Vision Driven Leader. They just co-authored a book called Win at Work and Succeed at Life,

where they explore how to design your life around the idea that you can flourish in both arenas. In this episode, we chat about how constraints can increase productivity, why working too much can be bad for both your physical and mental health, how to actually achieve and redefine that work-life balance, why rest is the foundation of meaningful work, and the power of non-achievement. Michael and Megan also bring examples of how they've implemented these ideas in their own busy lives,

and they share actionable tips that you can use to shift the work-life balance scales in your favor. With that said, here are Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller. Hi, Michael. Hi, Megan. Hey, Paula. How are you? How are both of you? We're doing great.

So fun to be on with you today. We've been looking forward to this. Yeah, thanks for having us. Absolutely. And you are, you're calling in from separate locations. Where are each of you? Are you both in Tennessee right now? We are. We're about three blocks apart. I'm in the office behind my house and Megan's in our office office, the official office. Well, at least you're not like calling from different. rooms in the same office.

Exactly. Yeah. So, Michael, you have been on this show before, but for the people who missed that episode, for anyone who doesn't know you, could each of you please introduce yourselves? Sure. I spent most of my history, most of my career in the book publishing industry. Most recently is the chairman and the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, which is now owned by Harper Collins. But in 2011, I launched Michael Hyatt & Company because I'd always wanted to be an author

and a speaker and a business coach. And that's what we do today. We have about 50 people in our company. Megan is actually the CEO. We made that transition in January. I've stepped back as the chairman. She's the one doing the heavy lifting now. Yeah.

So I joined the company in 2012. And we tell the story actually in our new book. But I started working part-time with my dad. I'd recently adopted two boys with my husband, Joel, from Uganda. and our business was just rapidly scaling. And at one point he came to me and said, hey, I really feel like the next step, this is a couple of years in,

is for you to become the chief operating officer. I'd love for you to do that so that I could focus on some other parts of the business. And I had this moment of, I really want to say yes to this, but I've got these kids that need my time and attention. You know, how could I possibly do that? We get in depth in the story and the book.

But I eventually said yes, but decided to set a boundary around needing to be done around 3.30 in the afternoon. that I could give my kids my full attention. We'd been doing that now for a bunch of years. And my dad said recently, we completed our succession plan that had been a couple of years in the works. And so I'm now the CEO of the company. And I loved that part of the book where you talk about how in the beginning you came in 10 hours a week, thinking this was just going to be kind of something that you do on the side. You went from 10 hours a week to becoming the CEO accidentally, almost.

That's right. Almost accidentally. Not quite accidentally, but almost. It certainly was an unconventional path in many ways. But as I look back, I'm really grateful for it. And I'm especially grateful, I think, for just the struggle and the challenge of trying to figure that out while being a mom of five kids. I have now ages 20 to two and growing a rapidly scaling organization at the same time, not wanting to compromise the results there. So it's been a neat journey for sure. Your two sons that you adopted from Uganda, how old were they at the time that you adopted them? They were three and 14 months and were actually getting ready this summer in June to go back to Uganda for the first time since they came home in 2011 to see their birth family. So that's going to be a really neat experience. Oh, wow. That's fantastic. And how old are they now? They are 12 and 10.

So they've grown up a lot since those days. Nice. Oh, that's really sweet. Michael, when you were building your career, as you yourself also have five children, you talk about how your wife, Gail, felt as though you were never home. She, in fact, at some point, said that she felt almost like a single mom because you were absent so much. Yeah, it was quite a story. It was one of those pivotal moments in my life where everything changed. But it was about 20 years ago, and I've been given responsibility for one division of Thomas Nelson publishers. it was a New York stock exchange, publicly traded company, and I was given responsibility for

one of the 14 divisions. And it needed to be turned around because it was dead last in every significant financial metric. It wasn't growing. In fact, it was shrinking, and it was the least profitable division in the company. So I told the CEO, I thought it would take three years to turn it around. He said, fine. I went back to my team, kind of painted a division for what I thought we could do. And everybody got really excited about it. We rolled up our sleeves. But we were working literally 70, 80 hours a week. We were working through the weekends, working evenings, foregoing vacations, and all of that was taking a toll on us. But we did turn it around. In fact, we were able to do it about a year and a half. We went from number 14 to number one.

So I was pretty excited, especially when I got this ginormous bonus check. The check was more than my annual salary was the biggest bonus check I'd ever received. And I couldn't wait to get home to share it with my wife, Gail. So I knew. she would be excited. I bounced through the front door, unfurled the check to her, and she was kind of nonplussed by it. She didn't seem that impressed. And she said, honey, we need to talk. And my heart sank. So we went into the den and we sat down and we had this conversation that you referred to. And she began to tear up. And she said, you know, I appreciate all that you do for our family. And I love you so much. But she said, if I'm honest, you're never at home.

and even when you are, you're not fully present. And I felt like I really wanted to defend myself because I felt like what I had accomplished was significant, but I knew in my heart of hearts that she was right. She reminded me in that same conversation. She said, your five daughters need you now more than ever. And then she began to cry. And she said, if I'm honest, she said, I feel like a single mom. And I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on.

Wow. You know, I thought I'd reached the pinnacle of success. What I discovered in that moment, in kind of the twinkling of an eye, was that it was a false summit, that everything I held near and dear was at risk. Megan, do you remember that time? How old were you at that time? Yeah. So when I think back to that time, I was probably late in high school or right after that. And my dad really wasn't around a lot. There were a lot of things that he missed. I was really involved in riding horses seriously. during that time. That was my passion. There was a lot of those things that he, you know, events and things he wasn't able to go to and school events, you know, that kind of stuff. I mean, he was there for the really big stuff, but there was a lot that he wasn't there for. And I just remember feeling sad about

that, you know, that we just kind of had to suck it up as a family and support dad who was supporting us, you know, my mom was kind of trying to put on a brave face. But it was really hard. as the oldest of five kids, that affected me more personally, probably than anybody. I mean, I remember more of it. It was for sure a loss. I mean, I've always loved my dad, and we're a lot of like. And I wanted his time and attention, but he was so focused on work during those years that he just didn't have much to give to the family before he would, you know, come home from work and we'd have a quick dinner. And then he would just go back to working again, trying to finish something up.

And so it was really hard looking back on that. I'm so grateful that it turned around and that that in many ways been redeemed as something that now that story and the transformation on the other side of it can be used to help our clients and the people reading our book and things like that. But certainly there was a heavy price to pay back then as we again acknowledge really openly. And so was that experience informative for you in terms of when you were trying to figure out how to manage life with your five children? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think two things were in play. One, I had that as kind of of a memory, you know, of I don't want to do it like this. And I'm also really ambitious. I know I have a

lot to contribute. But also my children have some special needs. And at the time when I made that decision of, okay, dad, if I'm going to be the chief operating officer, I'm going to have to be done every day at 3.30. I mean, it really felt more like an absolute imperative, you know, based on the needs of my kids. It almost didn't even feel like a choice. It was like, this is what they need and I can't delegate it. I can't outsource it. It has to be me. I've got to give them my time and attention after school so that they can heal and get to a place where they're thriving. And so in some ways, that choice felt like it made itself. But I think certainly looking back in the back of my mind was my experience growing up. And there were a lot of great things about

my experience growing up. But what I didn't want to repeat was being absent from my kids during those years. When you talk about needing to leave work at 3.30, one thing that's strikes me in that example is a concept that you that you discuss. And I'd like to hear both of you as you talk about this. The concept that constraints can sometimes increase efficiency, increase productivity, increase creativity, that Parkinson's law, work expands to fill the time you give it. And so sometimes those constraints can actually make you a better worker. Yeah, it's absolutely true. And in fact, the first part of my recovery was to hire an executive coach who said to me, he said, man, it seems like you have absolutely no constraints on your workday.

He said, now correct me if I'm wrong, but you're the kind of guy that in the middle of the afternoon, when you recognize that you're not going to finish your task list, you say to yourself, no problem, I can go home, grab a quick meal with the family and then crack open the laptop and continue. He said, am I right or am I wrong? And I said, well, that's exactly how I operate. He said, what about the weekends? He said, are you the kind of guy that on Friday afternoon you realize you're not going to

finish? you say to yourself, no problem, because I can go to work on Saturday morning or I can work Sunday afternoon. And I said, you know, guilty is charged. That's me too. And he said, okay, we're going to do something very simple. And in fact, this is profoundly simple, but it's going to make all the difference. He said, I want you to establish a time every day that you're going to quit. So you pick the time and tell me. And so I said, okay, how about 6 p.m.? Which, by the way, was a huge, you know, kind of threshold for me. It doesn't sound like a big deal now, but at the time, that was a real stretch. I did it. And then he said, okay, what about the weekends? And I said, well, I'm willing to give that time to my family, to self-care, and not work. And he said, great. But then here's the kicker. He said, well, if that's true then, I'm sure you won't mind that if I periodically call your wife and check in on how you're doing.

It suddenly got real. Right. The accountability was there. That made the difference because now of a sudden I had to make choices in the middle of the afternoon about whether I was going to allow myself to be distracted. or get involved in busy work or fake work, or if I was really going to hone in on the high priority, high leverage activities that I knew would drive the business forward. And that's what I started to do. And it was really not just a solution for my personal life, but I think I got more productive, more focused, more creative at work, and the results showed it. This concept, the concept that constraints can improve productivity and creativity

as well as freedom, that concept is one of five principles of what you're referring to. refer to as the double win. Can you talk about what is a double win and what are the other four principles? We'll start with the first piece. What is a double win? Yeah, well, the double win is the idea that you can actually win at work and succeed at life. So what we're kind of taught to believe is that we really have two choices. We have something in the book that we call the hustle fallacy, which is the idea that if we just double down a little longer, put in some extra hours while we get this business off the ground or while we secure that next client or while we launch this product, you know, that eventually things will return to normal, we'll get kind of the payoff from that

investment and we'll finally have enough time to have margin in our lives. You know, we see this where people are bragging about how much they're hustling and they're talking about not sleeping and, you know, that is kind of a source of pride. And unfortunately, what we see happen all the time and probably you do too is that this becomes permanent. Starts out as something that we tell ourselves is temporary, but it becomes permanent. And we start making these compromises in our most important relationships, in our health, we see the deterioration of those things.

And sometimes it goes on long enough that there's damage that's done that can't necessarily be repaired or at least we have regret. And so for some people, then they look and they say, I don't want to do that or I've done that and it didn't go so well. So what I guess I'm going to do instead is tap the information. ambition break. You know, I'm just going to go over here and tap that ambition break and be resigned to the fact that I'm not going to reach my professional potential in the world. I'm not going to have as much impact as maybe I can or maybe I'm going to have to settle for less than exceptional results,

but at least I won't have compromised my health, my most important relationships. And what we really talk about in this book is we don't like either of those options. You know, we kind of think they stink and we want to propose a third way, which is this idea of the double win. And we're a double win that work in life are not in opposition to one another, but that they're actually complimentary and that they can live in harmony with each other. And in fact, reinforce each other and support each other. And that idea of winning at work and succeeding at life is what we call the double win. And that's an interesting concept because so much of the time in our culture, work and life are presented as though they are polar opposites. Yes. The phrase work

life balance implies that they are in opposition to one another. Yeah. Yeah, it really does. And we hear all the time, and you've probably heard of two people, just say that work-life balance is a myth. And usually when I hear that, I know that people have done one of two things. Either they've settled because they haven't been able to figure a third way, so they've just written it off as a myth, or they think that somehow work-life balance means you have to give equal time and attention to all these different domains of life. But that's not really how it works. What we're arguing for is the work-life balance looks like giving appropriate amount of time and attention to the various domains of life. And just to give an example, this morning I worked out for 45 minutes as I do

Monday through Friday, I don't need to work out six hours or eight hours a day so that I'm giving equal time to what I'm doing at work. No, that would be crazy. I'm giving the appropriate amount of time. Same thing with my relationship with Gail. We've been married for 43 years. We don't spend six or eight hours a day. She doesn't want that much time with me. And I would, of course, love to have that much time with her, but she wouldn't want to have that much time with me. But just the point is that it doesn't require that for balance. And it looks much like a gymnast walking across a balance beam where it's constantly attention to be managed. We're kind of going in and out of balance. We're getting ourselves back into balance. And it's not a one and done kind of thing. It's something

that we have to work at constantly. Given that there are tradeoffs in life, you know, given that a yes to something implicitly carries that opportunity cost of a no to something else, how can there be a third way? I mean, aren't there inherently certain tradeoffs that need to be made? Well, in a way there are. One of the things that we talk about is this idea of defining your double win. So this is not going to look the same for everybody. So what it means for you to win at work and succeed at life is probably going to be somewhat different than what it looks like for me. And that is going to change depending on the season of your life too. So what it looked like for me five years ago is different than today and so forth. But what we talk about in the book, and this is kind of where the trade-off idea comes in, is that you really have to get clear on what your non-negotiables are.

And we talk about that in three categories. So the premise is that there's not enough time to do everything. You know, I think one of the reasons people get disillusioned with the idea of work-life balance is because it sounds like you've got to do it all. And we all know that doesn't work. You know, we've tried and failed at that. There's not enough time to do it all, but there is enough time to do the most important things in your life. But in order to do that, you have to be clear on what those are.

And so we talk about it in terms of your non-negotiables for self-care, your non-negotiables for your relational priorities, and your non-negotiables in terms of your professional results. And we walk you through an exercise where we have you really define what that is for you. And the truth is, there is enough time for those things. There's not enough time for everything. Everything can't be a non-negotiable. But the things that are truly non-negotiable in your life, there is time for. So that's how we begin to frame up this idea of the double win.

And then we get into several other concepts in the book for how to actually implement this in your life. I want to talk about those concepts. But first, let's go back to the principles of the double win. As we mentioned earlier, the constraints that foster productivity and creativity are one of five principles of the double win. What are the other four principles? Well, the first one that we talk about is that work is only one of many ways to orient your life. And I think that if you listen to people like celebrity entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, for example, who's quite vocal about this, he tends to think that all of life is work, that that's the only

way to orient your life. And in fact, he advocates that young entrepreneurs work 100 hours a week, which from our perspective is a recipe for a disaster and for a crisis. You know, you're eventually going to pay for that because life is a marathon. It's not a sprint. So work is only one way. And the truth is that work is multidimensional. You know, you've got your interior life, whether it's your spiritual life or your intellectual life, your intellectual life, your physical well-being, all that's part of it.

If you're married or in a significant relationship, that's part of your life, your relationship with your kids, your hobbies, your vocation, your finances, all of these make up the totality of your life. And all of these have to be attended to if you're going to have a rich and meaningful life. Right. So then after that, the next principle, as you said, is that constraints foster productivity, creativity, and freedom. We probably don't need to talk a lot more about that because we have. But then following that, the idea that work-life balance is truly possible. I think this is where we have to challenge our limiting beliefs about this, because what I find for people is that if they consider themselves high achievers, they're often resistant to this

idea of work-life balance because it sounds too soft. You know, like, this is for people that are not that serious, you know, and so that's one response, or that really it's been an empty promise, like I said earlier, you know, that we have all been kind of fed this line that, oh, yeah, you need to have work-life balance. But in reality, we're not being shown a practical way to do it that actually works, which then leads to, honestly, feeling badly about ourselves, you know. And so we're resistant to this idea. But in reality, in either case, you know, we think about this idea of the double win or

work-life balance as being a performance strategy that if you want to perform at the top of your game for as long as possible, then you've got to have this work-life balance. You've got to have the ability to win at work and succeed at life. You know, if you think about somebody like Tom Brady and, you know, so amazing to watch him win the Super Bowl again. And what he does outside of work is as important or outside of football is as important as what he does on the field. And in fact, what he does in his off time really enables him to perform and continue to perform against all odds at the highest level. And so for people who might be skeptical because this concept feels too soft and not serious enough, I just want to suggest to you that this is really a performance

strategy that's not only possible, but it actually gives you the edge to perform in a way that maybe you've never been able to access before. And that goes back to sometimes the more that you put long hours into your work, the lower your efficacy. Absolutely. It's a law of diminishing returns. And all the research really substantiates that, too. You know, once you start working past about 55 hours, you really start going backwards in terms of productivity and effectiveness. And some of the research that we've had at the book that's a little bit scary for people is the difference between working 40 hours and 55 hours is a 13% increase in your risk of heart attack and a 33% increase in your risk of stroke. So all these long hours, you know, are not

that beneficial. And in fact, that leads me to the fourth principle that we talk about in the book is the incredible power of non-achievement. Now, I'm somebody who is an achiever by nature. You know, you look at Gallup Strength Finders assessment. The achiever is my number one strength. But the problem is, is that there are some things in life. In fact, the most meaningful things in life that can't be measured or checked off a to-do list. You know, spending meaningful time with friends, working on a hobby. You know, these are non-achievement activities that actually rejuvenate us and restore us so that when we come back to work, we come as our best, most creative, most focused

version of ourselves. So this is why we encourage in that section of the book that people, develop outside interest, outside of work, so that they perform better when they are at work. And again, the research substantiates this. And certainly we've seen in our own lives and in the lives of our clients. And then the last principle is that rest is the foundation of meaningful, productive work. You know, this one is deceptively simple. And I talk to people often who say, gosh, coming out of 2020, my self-care is just a mess. You know, this one is. You know, You know, I was in survival mode just trying to keep my business going or just hoping to, you know, not lose my job or trying to juggle taking care of the kids.

You know, so many things happening all at the same time. And I'm just way off track. I don't even know where to begin to get back on because it all feels so overwhelming. And what we know is that sleep is the absolute foundation of good decision making, clear thinking, all that kind of stuff. And if you're wondering, where do I start? You know, I have my self-care is off track. Where do I need to focus? And you're thinking, you know, maybe you need to get a Peloton or maybe you need to, you know,

really start a diet or something. You know, those all have their place. But until you're getting high quality rest every night, those things can actually be problematic, you know, that what you need most is that rest and that it really does set you up for a great next day. You know, I know what kind of day I'm going to have based on whether or not I got in bed at nine o'clock. If that 9 o'clock is instead 10, 30 or 11, I know it's going to be harder the next day. It's going to be harder to not be overwhelmed to have stamina to make decisions. And I would just recommend, you know, for anybody looking for one place to start, that this is maybe the very best place.

You know, if I could just pick up on that, just one quick comment. You mentioned Tom Brady, Megan. Yeah. I did some research after the Super Bowl because I was so amazed at the fact that he won another Super Bowl at his age. Right. And one of the things I found was in part of his daily ritual, the single most important thing that he was committed to was getting nine hours of sleep a night because he knows that that's what it takes to perform on the field. That's right. Athletes know that.

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own life? Well, I would start with figuring out when you're going to end work every day. Commit to a time and then make that a non-negotiable, that you're not going to compromise that no matter what. And if you can find somebody to hold you accountable to it, great. You will make better decisions about the priorities of your day. You will be less likely to be distracted or get involved in busy work or fake work if you know exactly what time you're going to finish at the end of the day. And one of the practices that we encourage, we have a product called the full focus planner. It's an analog planner, physical planner. But one of the practices that is core to that planner is identifying every day your big three tasks. What does that you?

the three things that if I get these done, they're important enough that they'll really move the needle on my business. And if I get those three done, I'm going to celebrate and declare the day a win. Yeah, and just to add to that, another tip is to schedule what matters. So earlier, I talked about that idea of non-negotiables. You know, once you have clarity and a real vision for what the double win looks like for you, now we've got to get that on the calendar. Now we have to start putting, as Stephen Covey used to say, the big rocks in first. You know, because if you start with the small things or other people's priorities or the urgent things that pop up in the day, what we find is if we wait, there's nothing left, there's no room left for our non-negotiables. And so if they're truly

non-negotiable, then they have to go into the calendar first. And in the full focus planner, we have a tool in there called the Ideal Week, which is basically a template or a time blocking tool where you start to sketch out. Here is where these big rocks fit in my life. You know, here is where these non-negotiables end up so that when I'm considering opportunities, when I'm considering how to structure my week, I have some kind of a guideline to go by so that I can honor those non-negotiables and not just find myself drifting into, as my dad often says, a destination that I wouldn't choose. We instead want you to design your life around your non-negotiables, which become another form of constraints so that at the end of your life, you can look back and you can say, you know,

I didn't get to do everything, but I got to do the most important things. I don't have regrets. And how we do that is by scheduling what matters. What should a person do if they have an employer who demands an exorbitant amount of their time? You know, if they themselves want to put constraints on their time, but the demands of their employer or their team dictate otherwise? This is a great question. We get it often. And the thing I would say in general is that you may not be able to do it.

everything, but you can probably do something. You probably have some discretion. And if you can take control of what you can control, that can become a foothold so that you can gain more freedom and more discretionary time later. But in addition to that, sometimes it requires sitting down with the boss and stating your expectations and especially getting clearer on the results. In my experience, and I've spent, you know, four decades in corporate America, most bosses what they're looking for are results. And if you can get clear on what the results are, the time that you actually spend in the seat is not as important. But I would have that conversation with my boss and get very clear on it. That's essentially what Megan did with me when she came to work

as our chief operating officer. She said, Dad, are you willing to view my work in terms of the results I accomplished, not the amount of time that I'm actually spending out work? And I said, well, of course. That's all I care about. You know, the time in the seat is kind of a proxy kind of not a very good proxy for whether the work's getting done. The more important thing is, are you delivering the results that I hired you to deliver? And so to have that conversation with your boss, I think can be one of the most important pivotal conversations you could ever have. Is there necessarily a financial tradeoff for spending fewer hours at work? And specifically, I'm thinking about the people who are listening to this who have maybe already negotiated their

way to the top of what they could reasonably be earning at their nine to five job. And they want to earn extra money so they have some type of side hustle. They have some sort of freelance or consulting or evening and weekend income. Do they need to be working hustle culture hours in order to have that supplemental source of income? Well, I love this question because I think that most of us go to the place fewer hours equals less money, you know, or less impact and therefore, you know, lesser results. I'll tell you first, kind of the story of how this worked in our own company, and then I'll address the question about the side hustle. So in our own company, as I shared at the beginning, you know, this idea of the double win for me had looked like working a six and a half

hour day for a long time. And in many ways, I think that was a big part of why I was able to be successful. You know, those constraints really force me to make better decisions. But last year, with COVID, about this time last year, our team came to us and they said, gosh, guys, we are overwhelmed with our kids home with the daycare clothes and the remote school and all the stress that's going on with a pandemic. And working eight hours feels like working 16 hours. You know, we're just, we're just overwhelmed. What can we do? And my dad and I talked about it and we decided to do an experiment and go to a six-hour workday for our team without cutting any of their pay, but basically cutting their hours by 25 percent with the real belief that these constraints would

foster innovation and creativity. Well, we had an aggressive. profit goal for the year, as we always do, 100% more than the year before, we ended up, in the end, beating our goal by 50% while working 25% less time. And that's pretty astonishing. You know, it wasn't a perfect year by any means. Certainly there were challenges with that six-hour workday, but on average, that's where we were. And we accomplished this amazing feat in terms of our operating results. So our contention is actually that fewer hours should result. in better financial results, not worse financial results. So just kind of as a principle, I'll share that to begin with. As a follow up to the story that you just told, why do you think

you beat your revenue goal? What were the causes? Well, I think a couple of things. I think we intended to beat our revenue goal. I mean, that was a stretch goal that we set at the beginning of the pandemic. You know, I felt like as I was leading our team, that I didn't want people to get into a victim mentality. Certainly there are many businesses. Some of those are owned by some of our clients, you know, that were in industries that were really hard hit. But it seemed to be that maybe ours wouldn't be one of those industries and that there was real opportunity. And I didn't want to kind of give in to the cultural narrative that there was nothing we could do. We better just kind of hunker down until this was over. You know, I wanted our team to feel empowered. So part of it was setting that goal.

But then I think the other part of it was around the execution, you know, and the execution around that goal was driven by a lot of innovation and creativity, and we were forced with 25% less time to make different and better decisions than we would have if we had felt like we had 8, 10, 12 hours a day, you know. And so I really think that those constraints forced us into a place of creativity that brought up new ideas and solutions to problems and, you know, pathways to that goal that we would never have seen or experienced had those constraints not been in place. So I think it starts with, you know, this idea of what would have to be true. to accomplish better results with 25% less time.

You know, that's really the question that we were asking. Yeah, I think one of the weird things that happens is when you don't have constraints and you think, you know, I've got all day and all night to work on this, there's no sense of urgency. And you kind of never get to the really important stuff. It's really easy to procrastinate it because you think, well, you know, I can just do it tonight or I can do it tomorrow. But suddenly when you put those constraints on the front and the back end of your work day, then all of a sudden there's a sense of urgency.

It's kind of like on that Friday before you go. go on vacation and you know you've got to get all this stuff done so you don't have to drag it into vacation. I mean, you're uber productive. You're focused like never before. When you have constraints on your work day, every day becomes like that Friday before you start a vacation. And you know, for those people that are thinking about, I'm trying to generate income outside of my day job. And how can I do that in a way that doesn't compromise my margin where this double win idea is out of reach for me? I think, again, constraints are your friends and good questions are your. your friend. So the question is, how can I make more income on the side, but do it in a way that doesn't

compromise my margin, you know, in a detrimental fashion? So for example, you know, maybe instead of doing one-on-one client work, maybe you can achieve way bigger financial results by doing group coaching or a mastermind, you know, or a digital course or something like that. You know, the question is, where can we get high leverage results? You know, where can we get a disproportionate return on investment for the investment of our time and energy instead of trading our time for dollars, where can we get something that's bigger than kind of a one-to-one sort of a situation? And so that's the question I would be asking. Again, though, these constraints are going to force you to make better decisions for your

business, for your side hustle, than you might ordinarily, if you think to yourself, yeah, I've got another 15 or 20 hours, you know, on the weekend and at nights. If you think to yourself, I've got five extra hours or eight extra hours a week that I'm willing to devote to this, how can I get the maximum or, you know, turn on investment, I promise you the ideas you come up with will not only be less exhausting, but far more profitable. Well, to give you a concrete example on this, Paula, back in 2004, so this was a couple of years after I had that fateful conversation with my wife, Gail, in the Den, a couple years later,

I decided I wanted to start a blog, sort of a side hustle. I didn't know where it was going to go. At the time, I was the chief operating officer of Thomas Nelson, so I had a very busy job. But I decided that I was going to devote an hour every morning. I was going to literally put that on my calendar and schedule that as a time to write. And that blog is what became the foundation. I didn't know it at the time, but it's what became the foundation of the business that we're in now. But I was able to schedule it.

And part of what we say is what gets scheduled gets done. What's interesting to me is that we started this conversation with the idea that there isn't necessarily a tradeoff between work and life. There's a third way, a third way in which you have both and you accept. in both. So we don't need to paint work in life as a false dichotomy. But where the trade-off exists is specifically what you do inside of the verticals of work and life. You trade away the low-leverage activities in place of high-leverage activities. Yeah, that's absolutely right. I think that we have to let that stuff go and we have to become intensely critical about how we spend our time because, again, there's not enough time to do everything, but there is enough

time to do the most important thing. So our orientation really becomes focus and prioritization and a question around leverage so that we know what is the return on investment, whether it's at home or at work for this time that I'm just about to expend. What would be some examples of high leverage activities at home or in that life sphere? Such a great question. So for example, one of my non-negotiables in the area of personal relationships is eating, with my kids around the table five nights a week and my husband, obviously. You know, I want to look at my kids in the face. I want to hear about their day, what they're grateful for, what their best thing is, you know, the research on families eat dinner around the table is so compelling. And really,

that's the highlight of my day. So I've decided that's one of my relational priorities. It's a non-negotiable for me. Well, what's not non-negotiable is necessarily what we're eating. It could be frozen pizza like it was last night or occasionally chick-fil-a or something on paper plates. That's not the most important thing. That's not non-negotiable. But what is non-negotiable is sitting down at the table. You know, over the years, my husband and I have negotiated around what things he's going to do with the kids in the family, in our home, and what things I'm going to do, because that tends to skew unequally toward women, if you look at the data. And so recently, we had a conversation around kind of what we were doing in our home and who was doing what and how that.

that was divided equally or not. And we realized that it kind of crept into a place that was a little bit unequal. And he said, you know, why don't you let me do a bunch of the doctor's appointments with the kids? You know, I think that that's something that I can handle my schedules a little more flexible than yours during the day and it's easy for me to get away and take him to the doctor. And I thought about it and I thought, you know, that's not really for me a high leverage activity. It's necessary. It's important for the kids.

But who does it is much less important. You know, they're not going to look back and say, gosh, if I'm only my mom would have taken me to the doctor, you know, as long as they got to the doctor, they're okay, you know. And so that's an example of a question around leverage, you know, however, sitting down, not taking meetings in the evening so I can be home with my kids and have dinner at the table, that's high leverage. I get a disproportionate return on investment for sitting down at the table every night.

So that's, this is a really practical example from our life about how I'm thinking about that and how my husband and I are thinking about that together as we're considering how to divide up those responsibilities. We'll come back to this episode in just a minute. But first, what should a person do if they're listening to this and they're thinking, gee, in either sphere of my life, either the work sphere, whether that's day job or side hustle, or in that home sphere, they're thinking, I don't know exactly how to delineate what's high leverage versus what's not. And going back to the side hustles or the day job, if someone is a beginner, if they're at the beginning of their career, if they're just starting out their side hustle, if they're in their

20s, they've just graduated. They might be early enough in either their day job or their side hustle that they're still learning the landscape and they haven't yet developed the judgment to separate high leverage from busy work. What should they do? Yeah, I think one of the things they can do is take a page out of Stephen Covey, whom we mentioned earlier. But, you know, one of his principles and the seven habits is to begin with the end in mind. And to sort of fast forward and and think, you know, 10 or 20 years from now, what am I going to look back on and think was important? And it's so easy for us to get swept up into all these activities that at the end of the day, and when it comes to the end of our life, we look back on and we think, well, that really wasn't

that important. But you can always count on the fact that relationships are important. Making a difference in the world is important. Taking care of yourself so that you can play the long game is important. But those are the kinds of things I would consider if I were asking myself that question. I think the other thing is just to pay attention, you know, to start being a good student of your life, to notice, where am I getting results? You know, where do I really feel a payoff? You know, things like exercise, things like quality time with the people that I love, sleep, you know, where do I really feel my best? Where am I performing my best? And start to just be a good student of how you work as a person because everybody works a little bit differently. You know, I think sometimes we don't start paying attention until there's a crisis.

And if you can learn to do that early in your journey, my gosh, you'll be so far ahead of most people because you will have developed the skill of self-awareness. And from that place of self-awareness and clarity, as you're able, you can start making really intentional choices. Megan, you mentioned that there are some tasks that are necessary but not high leverage. this is sort of those almost the administration of life type of tasks. How much time should a person allocate to that? And how do we, given the fact that these are necessary yet not high leverage tasks? Sure. Are there any ways that we can make these tasks more efficient? Well, first of all, let me just say that what I mean by leverage is not, it's not really a question of value because you're right. There are many things in our lives, like taking my kids to the doctor, is very important. It's

valuable, right? They've got to get their checkups. They've got to get whatever. I mean, that's really important. So it's not that it's not important. It's just maybe not the highest and best use of me. And so the question, and it's the further you go in your career, the more success you have, the more responsibility you have, the more important it is to ask this question, the more autonomy you'll have to ask this question. So the way I think about it is, what are the things that only I can do? Where am I really adding value in ways that maybe nobody else. and my company can. And where can I invest my time where I'm really, really driving results for the company. So that's what I'm thinking about. And I'm thinking about in my case, and this is not been true for

my whole life, but as I've been in various leadership positions, it is, you know, what can I possibly delegate? You know, so I have an executive assistant. She does a lot of the administrative tasks that need to be done. And those are very valuable and very important for me and for our company. So what's maybe low leverage for me, not low level or low value, but low leverage for me is going to be high leverage for her. So it absolutely varies based on your role. Now, not everybody's in that situation. You know, many of your listeners may be at the early stage of their career where they don't have somebody to delegate to. And that's fine. You know, what I would think about in that case is two things. What can you just stop doing that's not giving you

value of any kind. It's just a waste of your time that's taking up time that you could be investing somewhere for more value. So maybe you're spending too much time on social media, which is keeping you from getting to bed on time, which is keeping you from being able to perform at your highest level. And you just need to like knock that off and, you know, fire up that screen time app on your phone or something like that. But then maybe a better question is, what could you automate? So for example, you know, everybody's got to get to the grocery store, right? We've all got to eat. We've all got to figure out what's for dinner. But maybe you could take advantage of some of the apps that we all became intimately familiar with in 2020, things like

Instacard or shipped or some of those other apps. And maybe for a small fee, you could not have to go to the grocery store and repurpose that sort of administrative time for something that you feel like is more high leverage. Maybe that would enable you to cook for your family at night. Or maybe it would enable you to get a workout in or to pursue a hobby if you didn't have to spend that you know, a couple hours a week grocery shopping. So those are some of the things that I would think about where are their efficiencies, particularly in the area of different kinds of automation that you could leverage to lessen that burden of those sort of for many of us are kind of drudgery administrative tasks that we've got to do, especially at home, you know, to just keep our life running, you know,

like Amazon subscribe and save is another one that I love. What can we automate so I don't have to think every month like I need toilet paper, you know, it just shows up on my front porch magically. So those are just a few really practical ideas. Right. Yes. I have my groceries delivered every Wednesday. And I cannot imagine anything other than just having it sent to me. Yep, exactly. You know, one of the things that we advocate also, Paula, is when you're creating your to-do list for the day. And again, this is baked into the full focus planner. But we say, identify your big three. What are those high leverage tasks for you? But then there's a place for you to put your other tasks, the things that are more low leverage that you can't delegate, but at least if you have them sequestered from the other, you can batch them

and be more efficient in executing them. So that makes sense? Right. Exactly. So that batch planning. Exactly. And maybe even to block out time on your calendar for those kinds of things to run errands so that they're not, you know, populating your day, you know, throughout the day, because there is a switching cost. You know, you're going from something that's really high leverage and then you do something low leverage and you get sidetracked and you get distracted. There's a cost to all that. So you might as well just box it in by scheduling that time and then knocking it all out at once. Some of the key takeaways that I've been getting from this conversation include, number one, that work in life are not diametrically opposed to one another and that they don't

have to live in opposition. Number two, that the tradeoffs happen inside of each verticals as you find what's important and what's not inside of both the arenas of work and life and focus on that which matters most. and number three, that this is a constant work in progress. It's dynamic rather than static. Am I correct in surmising that as sort of the big picture of what it means to both win at work and succeed at life? Absolutely. I think you nailed it.

And I think that that last point is really important. This is a work and process. Be kind to yourself. Perfection is not the goal. Progress is the goal. I'm still learning at my age. I've been practicing this for 20 years, and I'm still discovering new ways to achieve the double win. So it's something that even after you attain it, it's not something that you can just coast.

You're going to have to constantly fight for it. You know, the world's full of gazillions of distractions and all kinds of things that can pull us off course, but it's totally worth it. To be able to really win at work and nail the operating results for which you're responsible feels great. but to know that you're doing that not at the expense of your personal health or your most important relationships really makes life worth living and makes it, you know, gives it the kind of meaning that we all want. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they would like to know more about you? Yeah, they can find out more about us at Michael Hyatt.com or certainly more about the book at when and succeedbook.com. And we will link to both of those in the show notes as well.

Thank you so much. Thanks for happiness. Thank you to both of them. What are the key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Here are five. Number one, work and life are not in opposition. In fact, they can reinforce each other. Knowledge-based work requires brain power.

It requires mental clarity, focus, sharp decision-making, creativity. Knowledge work requires mental acuity. And how do you fuel your brain? You do that by taking breaks and resting. In fact, there's a quote from previous podcast guest Laura Vandercam who says that if you don't take a real break, your brain will take a fake one. Either you take a break or your brain's going to take one for you. So it stands to reason that you want to prioritize getting rest in order to be able to do your best work. You can give them most of yourself at work when you are well rested and happy in the non-computer facing parts of your life.

But most of us don't think that way when we're facing a never-ending to-do list. Some of us think that we can just stubborn our way through it and some of us buy into the hustle narrative that says that we need to work 80 hours a week in order to succeed. But what if we reframed that? We think about this idea of the double win or work-life balance as being a performance strategy. That if you want to perform at the top of your game for as long as possible, then you've got to have. this work-life balance, you've got to have the ability to win at work and succeed at life. Now, the idea of both winning at work and succeeding at life is counterintuitive for some of us. Entrepreneurs, people with side hustles, younger listeners who want to prove themselves in the workplace,

we've often been told that we need to buy into hustle culture, that we need to bust our butts at all costs in order to have success or to get promoted or to earn more money. But the reality is taking care of yourself is taking care of your business and your career. By prioritizing yourself, your health, your rest, you are able to play the long game. You're able to be a better employee, a better leader, a better innovator, and you're able to avoid burnout and stick with it longer if that's what you choose to do. So don't buy into the burnout myth. That's key takeaway number one. Key takeaway number two.

constraints foster productivity, creativity, and freedom. Have you ever noticed that no matter how hard you try to keep things on track, work usually fills the time we allot to it. It's Parkinson's law to a T. Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. It's no surprise that we'll figure out ways to fill that time, either by procrastinating or by doing busy work that doesn't actually move the needle. What if we tried setting more boundaries around our work time?

in order to create more urgency and in order to filter out the noise so we can focus on the few things that matter most. That's what Michael did when his executive coach told him to set a time when he would stop working for the day. That made the difference because now all of a sudden I had to make choices in the middle of the afternoon about whether I was going to allow myself to be distracted or get involved in busy work or fake work or if I was really going to hone in on the high priority, high leverage activities that I knew would drive the business forward.

As Michael said, this is akin to getting everything done before you leave on vacation. You have that sense of urgency that drives you past the noise. You're forced to prioritize because your time and resources are limited. This is when it's time to get creative and push out the best work that you can, given the constraints. Michael and Megan did this in their company, too. They experimented with six-hour workdays, and they found that fewer hours actually equated to more profit for the company and more efficiency. So here is a specific action that you can take. If you have the ability to set your hours, at least to some extent, try setting a boundary for when you stop work and communicate this boundary with your manager, your boss, your team, and your family with anyone who relies on you.

If you don't feel like you are in the type of workplace that would allow you to do this, can you start small? Can you ask about leaving half an hour earlier? or maybe cutting down on weekend work, can you set a boundary that says, hey, I'm not going to be available on Saturdays? Or I'm not going to be available past 7 p.m. Alternatively, you can look for a different job with the arrangement that Megan proposed to Michael, which was, hey, are you willing to pay me based on results rather than butt-in-chair hours? So, embrace the power of constraints, because constraints can foster productivity. That's key takeaway number two.

Key takeaway number three, work is only one way to orient your life. You know, sometimes I see people in the financial independence community who are so into the idea of reaching financial independence and retiring early that they will overwork. They work all the time to the detriment of their health, to the detriment of their sanity, to the detriment of their relationships, they'll work all the time with this goal of, hey, I'm going to make as much money as I can right now so that in the future I can quit. It's like the sprint to the finish line. But the thing is, a real sprint does not last for 10 years. A real sprint is only supposed to be a short-term burst. And if you are working for financial

independence, you are playing the long game. You're doing a multi-year and possibly multi-decent. project, which means it's got to be a marathon, not a sprint. And so approaching work, regardless of whether your goal is FI or not, approaching work in a way that is sustainable and measured and metered out and that treats it like a marathon and not a sprint, that's the healthy approach. As Michael points out, working beyond 55 hours a week has diminishing returns. You may think that you're working more because you're at the office, but you're not actually getting a lot more done. And so why risk your health to work 60 hours or 80 hours a week, especially to do it for months on end? It's not sustainable. And for many people, it's not necessary. And so it's time to rethink

the martyrdom notion of, oh, I live to work. The truth is that work is multi-dimensional. You know, you've got your interior life, whether it's your spiritual life or your intellectual life, your emotional life, your physical well-being, all that's part of it. If you're married or in a significant relationship, that's part of your life, your relationship with your kids, your hobbies, your vocation, your finances, all of these make up the totality of your life. And all of these have to be attended to if you're going to have a rich and meaningful life. Even if you love what you do, chances are that there are some dull moments that you don't enjoy. So having hobbies and interests outside of what you spend the majority of your time doing, having hobbies and interests

outside of work, that's a good thing. It refreshes you. It recharges you. It allows you to look beyond the silo of the work that you do. And so here's an action step. Prioritize one aspect of your life outside of work this week. Do it this week. And go to the community, go to afford anything dot com slash community, and share what that thing is going to be. Is it going to be your physical health? Are you going to go to the gym? Are you going to do an at-home workout? If so, what kind? Are you going to do some yoga? Are you going to go on a run? Are you going to prioritize your own finances? Are you going to spend some time sitting down with a spreadsheet looking through your own finances? Are you going to prioritize your mental well-being? Your relationships, cooking, playing music. What is it that you're going to do? Share that with our community and make sure that whatever that is, that you do that this week. That's your action step associated with key takeaway number three. Key takeaway number four, there is power in non-achievement. Try savering non-achievement.

Savor the experience of not achieving anything. Now, this is very difficult to do if you're a high performer or a high achiever, but it's necessary if you're craving a more well-rounded life. The problem is there are some things in life. the most meaningful things in life that can't be measured or checked off a to-do list. You know, spending meaningful time with friends, working on a hobby. You know, these are non-achievement activities that actually rejuvenate us and restore us so that when we come back to work, we come as our best, most creative, most focused version

of ourselves. Now, you may have found yourself lost in your work for so long that you might not know what interests or hobbies rejuvenate you. If that's the case, spend some time exploring. Ask friends what they're up to and if you can tag along. Or think back to what you used to do for fun as a kid or in your late teens or early 20s. Chances are there's creativity that's lurking there, waiting for the space that you need to carve out for it, whether it's painting or music or sports, whatever it is, carve out that time. And if you don't know what it is that you're interested in doing, if all else fails, going outside spending time in nature is a great

go-to option. And it's free. So that's key takeaway number four. Find the power in non-achievement. Finally, key takeaway number five, rest is the foundation of meaningful, productive work. A good night of sleep is severely underrated. Unfortunately, sleep is one of the easiest things to cut when you're feeling pressured to get other things done. So how many times have you said, I'll just go to bed later and make up for it some other time? Or I'll just wake up early and do it early in the morning. Except that you're dragging the next day. Our bodies need to rest.

They need to heal from the day's events. We can't keep skrimping on sleep, especially as we get older. We need to prioritize rest. What we know is that sleep is the absolute foundation of good decision-making, clear thinking, all that kind of stuff. And if you're wondering, where do I start? You know, I have my self-care is off track. Where do I need to focus?

And you're thinking maybe you need to get a Peloton or maybe you need to, you know, really start a diet or something. You know, those all have their place. But until you're getting high quality rest every night, those things can actually be problematic, you know, that what you need most is that rest and that it really does set you up for a great next day. So can you relate to what Megan said about knowing what kind of day you'll have depending on how many hours of sleep you get? I definitely can.

And if you feel that, then you know that the first thing you might want to prioritize in your schedule are the hours that you devote to sleep. And that includes your bedtime routine and your waking up routine. You don't just block off in your calendar like sleep seven and a half hours go. There's also the hour of wind down before you fall asleep. that hour where you shut off all screens and brush your teeth and maybe take a shower if you're a nighttime showering person. Then maybe you stretch or journal. I mean, that, you know, the hour that you spend in that wind down mode before bed, throw that in your calendar, make it a priority. Set a timer that tells you like, hey, it's time to shut off your screens. It's time to get ready to go to

said, parent yourself a little bit. If that's effective, if that's what you enjoy, and if that's going to help you, you know, if it's going to be efficacious, if it's going to help you get the rest that you need, because that rest is the foundation for everything that you will go on to achieve. So, those are five key takeaways from this conversation with Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow in whatever app you are using to listen to this show, whether that's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, please follow so that you don't miss any of our awesome upcoming episodes. Open up that app, hit the follow button.

And while you're there, share this episode with a friend or a family member. That's the single most important thing that you can do to spread the message of everything that we teach here about ruthless prioritization and about thinking carefully and deliberately about how you want to spend, your time, your energy, your attention and your money, all of the limited resources in your life. How do you spend it in a way that aligns with your highest priorities? That's what we discuss. And if you enjoy that message and if you think that there's someone in your life who can

benefit from it, please share this podcast with them. You can also subscribe to our show notes for free at afford anything.com slash show notes. That's afford anything.com slash show notes. Thank you again for tuning in. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast, and I will catch you in the next episode.