How to Avoid Burnout: Choose Your Life, Not Just Your Career

imagine you got everything you ever wanted money Prestige Fame but it came at a steep cost 100h hour work weeks would you do it even if it was months on end would you push through and if you did would you know when to stop or would your body Force you but the thing that finally finally broke through my uh my veil of ignorance was when my body collapsed I've been pushing really hard to get through the end of the year I made it to Christmas Day and I woke up with 103° fever and so I went in I

talked to my manager I'm like yeah I'm not doing this anymore not going to work that hard they looked to me like an alien the whole idea of you have a choice came in that week to me what if I said no to more work what if I said no to the promotion hey I'm Devin kums CPA MBA and I lead multi-billion dollar negotiations and financial advice for Google Cloud but for fun I also do this podcast ambition aligned where we take on high performance high potential individual uals who made career

decisions based on values rather than based on money and so today my guest exemplifies that Eric was chief of staff for some of the top leaders at Google had a great salary secure job but decided to leave that all behind to pursue a more meaningful career in Executive coaching and being an author for his book you have a choice which I've read myself and I have to say is excellent I think we all can learn a lot today from him it's extremely valuable lesson on making value based decisions

for your life so you're heading the right direction you've had some moments in your career that look wildly successful on paper yet internally you felt like something was off something was maybe breaking can you take us back to one of those moments what did it feel like and when did you realize that something had to change it is one of the kind of um different from the inside and outside on the outside I'm in this position where I'm meeting with the VPS of Google regularly I

the you know leading the discussions about their business strategy reviewing their you know taking taking responsibility for the budget for the revenue projections um I'm in all the rooms for it matters and I'm also working 10000 hours a week and I've been doing that for almost three years now and I have not done anything outside of work for those years because that's a lot of time to be spending at work um and I felt okay with it it's like well this is an opportunity you don't get these kind of opportunities to

work with top Google leaders very often I I just have to make the most of it while I can and um I was also at the time gutting for a promotion uh at Google and like wanted to really prove I belong there really prove that then made a mistake and hire me that I could really play at the big the big time level and so my manager was telling me hey if you want that promotion you got to show more show more do more take this on take that on I'm like yes I will take it all on because I want that

promotion um so you know promotion track lots of exposure top prestigious company everything looked great except for the fact that I was completely exhausted and I kept on pushing through I kept on pulling the late night I was regularly working till midnight every night and um I I was like oh that's fine that's just what it takes that's what it takes to succeed so the thing that kind of maybe real

well there are lots of signs that I should have changed I didn't listen to them like my friends are like you're a workaholic and we never see you anymore like yeah but it's an important job I got to do it or at one point I was uh I was trying to date at the time and this girl that I liked was like yeah I really like you but I don't see you because you're always working like yeah but well you don't understand it's a really important job I I you know whatever and so that didn't work out um but the thing that finally finally

broke through my uh my veil of ignorance was when my body collapsed I was like I'd been pushing really hard to get through the end of the year I made it to Christmas Day and I woke up with 103 degree fever I was basically sick in bed for a week all my plans for the holidays evaporated because I was just too sick to do anything and I was like well that was kind of the moment that's like what am I doing what like this is this is real this is serious and CU I'm not the kind of person that typically gets sick

and for me my body to collapse like that meant I was way way way past the red line so that's kind of the moment where the moment of Reckoning for me of is this really what I want to do yeah and what what I'm hearing let me recap that is and I'm sorry you had to go through all of that and I appreciate you sharing it um what I'm hearing though is your mind your mind was so powerful You're such in a high performance mindset that you're body had to be the thing that shut down before your mind caught up to your body

right it was is that right yeah that's a great way to put it I mean that's something that people hyperforce take pride in like mind over matter I can push harder I can work harder I can overcome anything if I just am strong enough if I my I have enough willpower and like this is a characteristic that carried me to a lot of success when I was in college there was a time when I pushed through and did like two semester long projects in a week cuz like I needed to and I you slept two hours a night and I pushed

through I made it happen and everybody was like you're amazing that's awesome you know it was a point of Pride not a point of like embarrassment that I procrastinated enough that I needed to do it all in the last week and you know that's something that I kind of grown proud of and and saw as a core part of my identity is I would just push through make things happen no matter what and yeah a great great trait until it isn't what what I think is so fascinating from that is well and I

relate so much to right I'm I was Chief of Staff in my or at Google and I know what it's like to work those 100 hour weeks and it's easy to say that but when you do that for years on end the toll it takes the toll stress takes on your body is just enormous and people don't recognize it you know people say hey if you have more stress you'll die 20 years younger but you don't realize the toll until you're living it and so I guess my question to you would be how do you go from a place of driven performance like

that to being confident in making a choice similar to your book having the choice to make something completely different become an author an executive coach and live a life of Freedom where you can reclaim your health and still have that high performance identity how did you do that I mean it started that week in bed because that was the moment where I first realized I had a choice before that I was like I don't have a choice I

have to work these hours I have to do everything my manager asks of me I have to earn that promotion there was no choices there it was all I have to I must I can't say no if they need something with me I have to say yes all those years of 100 hour weeks it would never occurred to be like oh I don't have to do this but for some reason I was so burned out I was so exhausted I was so tired that I was like what would happen if I said no to some of these things and I was tired enough

and I was done enough that I was ready to say yeah like okay maybe they'll just fire me on the spot if I say no and I would be okay living with that consequence they're like what what do you mean like that was I I can't do it it's too much like well if you can't handle the work we're going to find somebody that can I'm like I understand if you can't handle the work that's means your promotion's not happening like that is what it means and so they took away half my team

they slashed my performance rating and the world didn't end that was the moment of Reckoning for me I'm like oh I had always lived in Terror of not delivering above expectations and I I said no to the expectations and yeah there were consequences but the world didn't end and I have the possibility there are possibilities now that I didn't have

before and it was it was just this moment of realizing oh I can make different choices if I am willing to accept the consequences of those choices and I think that's a part people miss a lot of people miss when they first hear about the book they're like you have a choice they're like yeah but what's the what's the right choice how do I get everything that I want I'm like sometimes you can't but you can still choose what you want what from the options available you can still choose and live with the consequences of those actions and in my case yeah I didn't get

the promotion I didn't get you know the the the upward trajectory I wanted but I did get my life back I did get time to pursue hobbies and see my friends and see my family again and I decided that was more important to me than getting that promotion that was the choice I made um and that choice that was gosh almost 15 years ago now um that's rever reverberated since then because once I realized I had choices I started exploring I started experimenting I'm

like what if I did this what if I did that what if I tried this other thing that I never thought I could do and each one opened up more possibility for me what so here I am you know at the yeah no go ahead go ahead I didn't mean to cat you off go ahead uh so at that time that I you know had this epip mini Epiphany I would had been single my whole life now I'm married with three kids at the time I was like thought I'd reach you know the height of what I ever would I I wasn't

get that promotion and it was only after that that I became the chief of staff and led the search ads team business strategy and operations team at Google for six years and then I became an executive coach and then I wrote a book and now I offer a bunch of other services all that stuff was stuff I created later in life in my 40s like people are like oh you you know you think about oh your your the stret of life is set by the time you're like know 25 or something like no I changed things in my life in an unrecognizable way in

my 40s and part of the reason I wrote the book part of the reason I do these podcasts part of the reason I talk about this stuff is I just want people to know it's never too late you can always make a choice you can always CH start changing your life today can't change the past you know there's that Chinese proverb the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the next best time is now and so I just I want people to think that way like now is the time if you've been thinking about a change try it try something do

something so that's that's the message I want people to take away I that's a great message I'm curious zooming into that moment where you went to your boss and you had this health scare and you went to the your boss and said I'm not going to do this anymore I feel like that you mentioned that as one part of the story but there's a betting on yourself in that moment and that there's a immense courage to do something very different than you've been doing your whole life could you elaborate a little more on what that was like or how did you must up the courage if you will I

wouldn't even I wouldn't say it was courage it was more exhaustion it was just like please put me out of my misery like if they had fired me in that moment I would have been happy because then I would have had been able to stop working and so it's like that the the the worst case outcome in some case was the best case outcome if I had been fired then like I would have had a chance to recover I would have been a chance to recharge relax and I mean in some ways that you know that that wasn't what happened but that s that was kind of like I kind of thought about like that

would be the worst case outcome and I was okay with that and if you're okay with the worst case outcome it doesn't take much courage to do it because it's like okay whatever happens I'm okay with it and that's kind of a a sign I've learned and since then that you're living in alignment with your values and with your integrity that I this is how I want to live and I'll accept the consequences because no matter how it turns out this is the way I choose to be so it's something I often talk about with my coaching clients of like they're like well what's the right

thing to do here I'm like I don't know but I know there's one way that's going to feel like your way of integrity that's going to be in aligned with your values in alignment with your values and that's one that like you're not you don't care how it turns out because no matter what happens you'll be okay with it because you lived the way you meant to live so in that moment so what I'm hearing is in that moment it was health and family and friends or promotion path and you clearly your values were help my my health and my

family and friends are more important and then that reverberated to being much more success than you could have probably ever imagined at that point yeah absolutely I had no idea that I would have much greater success just a couple years down the road and um yeah and that I would someday have a family of my own like that was that that was unimaginable in that moment and yet here we are so what do you do then when since you're an executive coach and I I know you've coached many Executives

is this is not uncommon right I most executives are most high performers Chief of Staff anyone in those Realms I get the sense and I've been told it feels like running on a treadmill and the speed just keeps going up the higher up you go you always think the next level is going to be the one that you got to take a break and delegate doesn't happen the 100 hours become 100 hours and pl like flights in between right do you have any indicators that you see in people that can help you pick up on

someone who's heading towards burnout I mean the exhaustion obviously the working too hard the I'm so busy um the these are all indicators it's it's and this I think the the the main shift I invite a lot of my clients into is learning that delegation move of learning they don't have to do it all themselves and so that's going to be like the real the the one of the key

indicators it's like they're so busy they're overloaded and yet they're not willing to give anything up it's like yeah no you can't can't can't choose both those path it's not going to work and they they're like well but but how do I give up anything this is all important like some of more important and some of it's more valuable and for you to get clear on what's most important that's what's going to let you you know progress in your career because

your time has to be treated as the most valuable resource and that's the thing that people to miss like and I mean it's very common it's like you know it's like oh my time isn't worth anything I can just do you I'll do it all I had this the same I made the same mistake you know I was like oh I'll just take on more and I'll just do everything if I can do it I should do it like that was the bar it's like if I can do it like and as you get more senior in your careers as your time gets more valuable that's no longer a

high enough bar is it the most valuable thing I can be doing with my time the opportunity cost of our time and energy becomes a key criteria to consider and so that's something I work with with a lot of my clients like yeah you could do this but somebody could do it too and they might not do it as well and they might not do it as fast but if you could spend an hour coaching them to do it and they go off and do 40 hours of work that's a much better use of your time than you spending six hours of your time doing it

yourself is there making up those numbers but something like that I to no I totally get you it resonates and it reminds me of something I think I heard you say in a different podcast or something you wrote where you might have had an executive who couldn't figure out a way to do a priority because he was so overwhelmed and you're like well why don't you take a sick day why don't you take a sick day to do the priority and so yeah how do you how do you come up with these insights do you have a framework you're using when people come to you with problems that help you figure out what is their priority what

is the choice they should be leaning into um I don't know if I have a I mean I have a lot of Frameworks I guess I would say it's like I don't have a single framework then like this is the way we do things because every situation is different every people every person is different I have a lot of principles I try to apply but like in that case you the idea was look if you were out sick the team would figure out how to get by without you for a day it'd be fine so take a sick day and do this

thing that you've been putting off for four months that you are telling me is the most important strategic thing at the company that's going to set the future direction of the company but you don't have time to do it because you're responding to slack no I that's unacceptable it's an expensive slack line you know it's a very expensive message yeah I was like this is unacceptable like no you cannot think that way and I'm kind of picking a little bit on this one guy but it's it's this you would be surprised how many people are like that like oh I have to

be I don't want to be the blocker for other people I have to be available because what if they get stuck cuz I'm not there like then they get stuck and they'll figure it out or they'll wait till you're back but if you can go get some incredibly valuable strategic work done with that time that's going to be more valuable to the company than responding quickly but it's hard to think that way and I get it it's it is really hard to think that way because maybe you go off for two hours think about the strategy come back with nothing it's not

measurable there's no concrete action there's no concrete sign of progress whereas if like you're there and you're busy and you're answered 15 messages in that time you can feel so much better about yourself I did something today and I think that's part of the uh the shift as well that I talked to my a lot of my clients about is letting go of that dop dopam Rush of doing things so they can actually think about where do we go yeah so um what on that point like that's something I've been thinking a lot about it's like Direction matters

far more than effort as a leader you can put a lot of effort in going the wrong way and that's wasted effort doesn't matter how hard you work if you're go in the wrong direction yeah that's something I as a leader go ahead go ahead sorry I didn't mean to catch you off I'm just excited because that's that's something I've been really interested about lately too is how do you choose the right direction especially as you move up so many options become available to you and it's most of them you can't measure the cost you can't measure the upside either

there's risks there's trade-offs and MH I'm curious from your own life you bet on yourself you you did something most people never would ever dream of you got to Google you got a prestigious job and then you bet on yourself and started being an executive coach which when you started was was a lot less popular than it is today and it's not that popular even today it's still pretty unknown how how did you choose that goal for yourself or and how do how do you make

sure that how are you confident that was the right direction for you well I guess I'll there's two parts to that like I didn't know it was the right goal for me I it was something it was interesting idea when I first started considering it 10 years ago um I was like I was ready for something new I didn't know what and the um the specific story here is I was at this like retreat talking to some other people and I was complaining about

my chief of staff job and I said they're not measuring me on the right things and the person I was talking to said what are the right things how do you want to be measured like oh man I have no idea how to answer that question that's a good question then that's the right question yeah I was like oh well I have to go like reflect for like a few months here to figure out that figure that out and so I did and I started thinking about like what how do I want my how do I want to measure my life what does success

mean for me what is a life well- lived and I kept coming back to this idea that helping people reach their potential helping people get unstuck and find their way forward that was the thing that really energized me it motivated me I was excited about it my friend was like uh that's called coaching dude you should go be check out coaching I'm like that's a thing you like you can just go do that they're like just just go check it out and most people think like oh man then you must have just quit your job and become a coach immediately no I'm

not that kind of person I'm very conservative I mean I have a really good job at Google why would I give that up so there that started a three-year process to check out is this the right fit for me I started off by doing it for free Reach Out reach out to people I knew like hey does anyone want some free mentoring and coaching does everyone want to talk to me a bunch of people said yes and I would talk to them I would help them like man this is so helpful like I like doing it and they like hearing from me okay good that's a good start then I went and interviewed a

bunch of professional coaches like what does it mean how do you get started like how does this work and they all gave me some insights and they said you know even if you're a natural at this you should still go get into a training program because that'll give you this formal framework to fall back on like that that seems to make sense okay I'll buy that and so first I did like a little you know weekend Workshop a two-day workshop like that was fun and then after that I signed up for the year-long workshop still working at Google at this point in fact I got Google to pay for the the coaching the

training so I'm doing that on nights and weekends and uh while doing my day job it's a lot of work but I'm like I really want to do it and I'm learning a lot and I'm loving it I'm going deeper into coaching and as part of the program I'm starting to coach some actual clients and still loving it still helping people still feeling like I want to do more of it so I get through the program I'm now certified as a coach and I'm still like not ready to quit my job because just cuz I like it doesn't mean it's a business a business is something where

people will pay me to do this yeah especially if you're leaving the kushy Google job right so exactly it's very important to find out like there's uh this book uh so good they can't ignore you by Cal Newport he's like yeah following your passion is idiotic you can be passion about stuff and be terrible at it he gives the example of somebody that's like passionate about yoga they take out all their savings they open a yoga studio and they go bankrupt in six months because they're not actually good at teaching yoga yeah I was like that's I don't want that

to be me not going to do that so so I started coaching business on the side got people to pay me and once I had enough clients that was starting to interfere with my day job that's when I took the leap and said okay now I'm ready to go for it and even then I was like and I'm going to put away this you know 18 months of savings just to be safe if I get through a year and that money is not if I'm not making enough money by that point then I have six months to go find a job and honestly you know the the real thing that was helpful

here was realizing it's not a one-way door I'd worked at Google for 10 years at that point I had a lot of contact I had a lot of people that trusted me if I came back in a year begging for a job somebody would have given me something like my backup plan was a job at Google and when you know when you think about things that way like again what's my worst case scenario that's my worst case scenario is probably getting a job at Google at that point there's no risk like it's just not that big a deal you

know just like when I burned out my my worst case scenario is like I get fired I actually get to relax and recover that doesn't sound so bad so like actually thinking through the worst case scenarios and going like wait can I live with that if I can live with that what's the risk or can I reverse the decision like in that like I could leave Google and I could come back in a year I think it I even checked it out there was like this policy at that point where if you wanted to come back 364 days after your resignation date they would take you back without interviews so I was like okay I've got 364 days to figure out if

this is going to work for me that's hilarious I didn't know about that that's hilarious you know I don't know if that's still true they probably got rid of that at some point but it was but it was just like so it looks very courageous and brave from the outside but i' taken all these steps to build trust that this was a good direction for me and that's something I really cover in the book is like I'm not saying you change your life based on one Epiphany I'm saying you start running experiments small safe tiny experiments 30 minutes a

week to try something different to explore the possibilities to see what's out there that's not what you're already doing if you keep doing those experiments you will find directions that work for you I guarantee it because you're trying stuff you're learning so that's what I really try want people to get the hang of it's like you don't have to know the right direction nobody does but you got to pick a direction and start trying things and see if that direction works for you sorry one more analogy I'll throw in

here go uh um I used to hate dating I was hopelessly single for most of my life and long story about therapy and blah blah blah but eventually I went into eventually I realized the problem was I was going into every date first date with the question is this the right person for me is this my soulmate is this the person I want to spend the rest of my life with is this the right person for me that's an impossible question answer at a first date it was incredibly Stress

and Anxiety producing and eventually I realized the only question I had to answer on the first date was do I want to go on another date with this person and at the next date I just have to answer do I want to go on yet one more date that's all I have to answer do I take the next step so to answer your question like how do I know it's the right direction you don't have to know you just have to be confident enough to take one more step in that direction if you decide it's not the right direction you go a different direction that's it

it's not as it's not as all or nothing as we make it out to be wow yeah I love that idea of experiments and not taking it so seriously I think everyone had there's so many books saying find your why find your calling in life and your just really flips that on its head and says why don't you just try something new and if you keep liking it just keep going that direction and that might be the right way right am I getting that right absolutely that's what I'm saying it's like try something because where you are isn't working for you by the way

this is only if it's not working for you like the very first line of my book is how do you feel about your life if you love it this book isn't for you keep doing what you're doing because it's working but if if your life is not what you wanted it to be don't keep doing the same thing because it's not giving you the results you want try something different that's like if I if I submm the book in like two sentences that's it it's not working for you try something different yeah but that takes it's funny

it sounds so simple but then for people to even recognize that they're in that rut is a huge leap for a lot of people and so I'm really curious this I can't get rid of this question in my head for about you and your story in that moment when you turned in your resignation for Google even though you had done all those experiments and you knew it was a good path for you was there any fear any doubt there was uh a bit not at that moment but until like a month

beforehand um but there were two things that solidified it for me um one was I had to get my wife to agree important that's very important Eric so yeah I had just we had we were just getting married our first kid was on the way and I'm like so I know this is crazy because we have a kid on the way but I'm thinking about leaving Google and doing this coaching thing and I know I can't do it cuz I have to provide for the family and we need stability and she was like no you should do it like I'm sorry what she like of

course you should do it like that was not the answer I expected and she well first of all it helps that my wife is an engineer at Apple so we're going to have one big stable job in the family um but her point was look I see you on the days that you do your Google job and you come home exhausted and beaten up and tired and drained and I see you on the days when you do even one coaching call and you're full of life and energized and excited and passionate and that's the man I want to be with like okay well

that that's far more support than I expected so yes and even then I was still doubting it I'm like man is it irresponsible for me got a new kid I've got you know this great job like how can I walk away from it and I had a coach of my own at the time and she said asked me like is this the example you want to set for your son that should stick with a job that you hate that is draining your life for the sake of the money is money that

important I was like damn like that's that's a tough question but as soon as she asked it I knew what the answer was like oh okay no I'm pretty clear this is I this is something I have to at least try if I try it and I fail at least I'll know but I I got to at least try it and six years later I'm still trying it and still haven't failed and just got to keep trying one more you know one day at a time one month at a time that's where I am I just had someone on I I love what he said he said just keep failing until

you fail at failing and you'll be all right you it's pretty good yeah yeah yeah if you if you get if you get over the fear of failure it's it's huge it makes such a difference you're like you're not scared if you're not scared of failing and I mean I'm I say that like a t I'm still scared of feeling I'm still scared of looking like a fool but um but it's something that I think it's so important in my family with my kids I I we have this I I we have this family motto now

like if you fall down my kids will yell out get back up oh that's awesome that's so cool and we do biking we do skiing we do all sorts of different activities and they're like my daughter we were on a ski slope the other just over the weekend and she took a bad fall she's like sliding head first down the hill for like 20 feet before I was able to catch her and pick her up and she's freaked out out takes her a little while to calm down and then I said what do we do if we fall she's like get back up they took off down the slope again I'm like okay I'm doing something right

that's that's being a good parent right there you really drilled that in and I've heard of that people parents talking about getting their families together at a table and the exercise of every night being hey did you try did you fail at something today and if you didn't then you didn't try hard enough you didn't try something new you we want to fail and I mean that's really cool Eric yeah I haven't gone that far yet that that feels a little too vulnerable to me but maybe that's something I should try with my kids maybe not every day but once a week like hey what's your

biggest failure of the week let's all share yeah weekly sounds but daily sounds a little intense it's like crap I gotta fail again today this brutal man again can I have a day off yeah let's start I'm gonna start a little easier than that for me I think I think what's so interesting about what you're saying and what resonates so much with me and I'm glad you shared is the wrestling with doubt even though you knew the worst case scenario was you're going to get your job back you knew you had some Financial Security you had a backup

job but it was still tough to make that decision you still struggle with doubt until you envisioned a future for yourself where you are role modeling your behavior for your son and that's something I've noticed you know coming from being homeless at one time and having no family to where I am now I find it's harder to make decisions when you've actually have something than when you have nothing when I had nothing it wasn't too so bad it's like oh someone took my five bucks I can't buy a sandwich well life screwed

anyways all right buddy let's let's go it's fine I'll go get a beer instead but when you have something when you have the money when you have the prestige maybe it's an ego issue it's really tough to Let It Go for potential right that's the potential of something new especially as we get older and so yeah I mean that's just human nature though I mean what's his name um Daniel conman talks about the loss of version like losing something that we have feels like twice as bad as gaining something

that we don't have like it's just that is how we are wired as humans and so when you have something and you think about giving it up or losing it like it feels bad that's that's how it feels and it's a cognitive bias and if you know it you can adjust for it and compensate for it and and um do that but yeah it's it's hard to give up something when you have when you know what you have it's like the bird in the hands worth two in the bush kind of thing it's just we like certainty and

it's hard yeah hard to overcome that but sometimes the what you get on the other side is even better yeah and you won't find out unless you try yeah that is micro experimenting right we got to do those experiments to try I'm curious too yeah it's easy to overlook the aspect of going from an employee mindset to a owner mindset they're very different things you show up to work you get your paycheck you're not hunting for your food every day you know there's a lot of

other aspects you have to running a business how did you go about changing your mindset over time I guess I maybe I I guess I never really had the a good employee mindset I mean I had to some extent but I you my first many jobs were at small startups where it's like we had to work we had to work to make the company succeed together and we all had to take

ownership of the results because the company wouldn't succeed if we didn't work together and so that's kind of how the first 10 years of my career was like was thinking in that way and then I joined Google and then it's like oh I'm part of this big machine is going to succeed no matter what I do um but I was still thinking that way I would be like no we got to do this and people like that's that's not your job I'm like yeah but like it's a right thing to do for the company so let's figure out how to do it and people looked at me like I was like what are you doing I I still remember I had this um my first or

second year my probably first year at Google I was arguing with this other department in finance and I'm like hey we need your help on this thing it's a company priority it's really good change things and they're like no I'm not going to help you like what do you mean like it's not on my okrs if it was important it would be on my okrs I'm like it came up last week well if it was really important my VP would change my okrs been there man been there like are you kidding me like how will I convince you that this is

important like show some initiative man and they're like they were just stuck on like no I'm evaluated based on like how I do against my okrs and there's nothing you can say that will change that I was like I do not know how to talk to you so like that the other that other person had the employee mindset like I do it what I'm told and that's it no initiative whatsoever and that just never sat well with me I'm always like what no but what's the right thing to do how do we make the right thing happen for the company and so to answer your

question I think I already always had a bit of that owner mindset even when I was also being a people pleaser and trying to make my manager happy um and so it wasn't that big of a shift for me um learning how to do sales and marketing that's that's something I'm still struggling with but you know that's that's constant experimentation and honestly learning to copy what works from other people okay that that's fascinating I think that's helpful to understand that you can take that owner mindset without being the owner yet

right for everyone who's listening you you can take that ownership mindset and that'll carry over it sounds like a carried over for you oh absolutely no I I mean this is what it means to to to get to an executive level whether you're at a big company or small company is you start to take ownership of the results like you know it's as an employee it's like my job is do what I'm told if I deliver on my tasks and I check things off the list then I'm successful but the company being a

executive at a company means the company has to succeed the company results are what matter and it doesn't matter if you did all the wrong if you put in all the work and the results aren't there again effort is not the metric of success working hard is not enough you have to work out hard on the right things that have an impact you have to do what's important you have to prioritize and you have to set the direction as we were talking about before so you can practice that as an employee because if you start thinking that way people are going to give you more to do I guarantee it because you're

helping them succeed you're delivering results and to your point about the the person that said like just keep failing like if what you're doing isn't working to get the results try something else keep trying things keep experimenting learning from your mistakes trying different things and when you can deliver results on command that is a skill that will get you promoted or you'll just take off and do your own thing which is also great yeah it seems to be working for you okay I want one I want to pull apart on this thread one more one more time I'm

curious you mentioned earlier how you went almost fell in love with coaching if I'm saying it the right way like your wife noticed yeah that you were happier the days you coached rather than when you were at Google so many people I've met have that love affair with something when they first experiencing it and then five years in They Se they doubt themselves how how's that going for you for you today is it are you as passionate as you were before even more passionate or are

you finding new ways to explore a deeper relationship with coaching I am at least as maybe more passionate that I was five years ago like I had just last Thursday I had like two coaching calls and two intro chats I was just like life is good like I did good work today like there's that um there's a quote from David White who's a poet who also sometimes coach is it's like so

he something like good work done well for the right reasons with an end in mind end in mind and I just I heard that once on a podcast with him and I'm like that that's success I did good work today I did it well I did it for the right reasons I did it for a good purpose like that's it and like coaching still feels that for me I could do it I do it well I do it to help people and and I get paid to do it it's like well okay that's I am very lucky to

have found that intersection for me between things people need and will pay for and things I'm good at and that's that's what makes for a good business and things I love like that so not only am I good at it I love doing it like so valuable I love doing it and I'm good at it like that's the intersection where if you can find that you're gonna you're going to have a pretty good pretty good working life oh yeah that Jacks the position from you working a 100 hours really killing yourself quite literally killing yourself for a high

Prestige job versus now you are helping people directly it seems like you just even mentioning it I could see it on your face how much more passionate you are and how more meaningful it is to you nowadays absolutely and I want to be clear like I make a fraction of the money I used to make at Google like I am not I'm not killing it from a revenue perspective but I make enough and I think that's something that's easy to forget in America it's like there is such a thing is enough you

don't always have to earn more and yeah if IID stayed at Google I'd be making a lot more money now I'd probably be a director I'd probably have yeah make a lot more money but I don't think I'd be happy and that was the choice I made you have a choice and I feel like I would choose control of my time be able to be present with my kids feeling good about the work I do each day that's what I chose over the money and you know I could put it I could put a number on it I I know exactly how much money I gave up

and for me that was the right choice and again like I have a lot of privilege going on here like I had 10 years at Google I had the savings where I could afford to do this I have a wife that works at Apple I got a lot of Tailwinds in my direction to let that let me make that choice pretty easily other people don't have that those Tailwinds and it's a lot harder so like I'm not saying like happily ever after for everybody that tries this route I know a bunch of people who try coaching who love coaching they try it they can't make business the financials work and they have to go find something else to do and

that's okay too like we do the best we can with the cards that we have but again I just ask people to try something different if what you're doing isn't working for you yeah and well I think what's so powerful there is your values driven approach where if there is something more important to you and there and I met enough people in my life where they worked 100 hour week day weeks and they still wanted do more that promotion and that pay is the most important thing to them that's their Center value that's

okay no judgment that's your thing go for it but if you want something more balanced I do feel as a society we put money on a pedestal even when we might have different values personally and that's what I think it takes courage that's a c courageous thing to do not a not a lot of people would look at taking a pay cut and a Prestige cut and uh and all of that like talking to your parents and imagine telling your dad or telling your mom hey

by the way I'm going to quit Google and do coaching it's not it doesn't there's a social stigma I guess I'm saying and so I want to encourage everyone that that's okay that's okay to lean into things that might be social stigmas because maybe society's wrong right maybe there's a better way to live yeah yeah and I guess what I'll say there is like who are the stakeholders that matter to you cuz I think that was a mistake I made in my life up until the time I burned out was I treated everyone's opinion as equally important

I had to keep everybody happy and that's just not sustainable because you're going to be twisted into knots and torn in different directions there's this saying that you're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with and what I take that away from that is like yeah these are the people these are the people that are going to affect your decision so surround yourself with people that align with your values that are the kind of people whose life you want to have and so you know like yeah I was on the track to get promoted to directory

Google and I could see all the directors and they were unhappy and kind of miserable and working too hard and I'm just like I don't want that job like they're like this is what you need to do to get promoted I'm like yeah I don't want that promotion that that that looks miserable and and my my manager was so confused she's like what do you mean you don't want the promotion I'm like yeah no no that's not what I want for my life they're like and it was alien to her CU her whole life had driven by getting the next promotion and for me to say no it's like

you are not operating by The Playbook here and I was like yeah I'm not and that's that's okay because I by that point I had other role models in my life people who were coaches who had gone this independent route and who I was like I want to be more like them that's who I to that's what I want my life to be like so I guess yeah it was courageous but it was also just kind of looking at my options and saying like the these are the role models I want to emulate and

these are the people who's are my anti-roll models these are what I want to avoid and um yeah I think that's something that's really important that's how you that's in some sense how you find your values you find the people that you respect and you follow them and you you you use them as models of what you could do yeah I know iterating ating and making new goals around a structure of a value based decisions um around your connections

that ultimately drive your purpose and calling that seems like that I can't find a better way to articulate how people should approach their lives but you need that reflection first of having that moment that oh crap moment I see the next rung doesn't look better than what I have and that's a big deal because you had to be in a situation where that extra 200k a year what that didn't mean as much to you as your family and that's an important yeah that's a tough reflection

to have because especially for As you move up everyone else starts spending more money too and your friends have those values you know cars get nicer houses get nicer so what would you yeah have you ever I know we got to land the plane I know I want to respect your time one more question and then some fires R questions how do you manage how do you manage this with the executives you're working with between what I might say the softer side the perceptual side of we need to work on some values here it

sounds like you might be chasing something that's not really what you want versus behavioral here I I've been a consultant before and I know you're doing something wrong here like you're not acting like a leader you need to delegate how do you how do you walk that line or what do you focus on as a coach so I guess what I focus on is their own behavior and the reason I do that is because that's the one thing we control

like you can't control other people the one thing you can change is how do you show up in a situation and I mean nobody comes to me because they're like happy and doing great because if they're happy and doing great they wouldn't hire a coach I like so there's something going on that made them think you know what I could use a coach and I guess what I the first thing I do I don't take a I don't like say let's talk about your values I say I basically hold up a mirror to them I'm

like this is your life and this is your and like I see how tired you are how exhausted you are how drained you are and they're like yeah I really don't I don't I don't like it I don't want to live this way anymore great me not great but like great in the sense yeah you need that means you're ready for a change okay here's an experiment you can try this week of something different it's going to be like one small thing

you could do differently in a meeting let's try that see what happens and it could be like we're going to block off 30 minutes in the morning to think about or not even 30 minutes take five minutes as you're drinking your coffee or brushing your teeth in the morning to think about like what's the one thing I want to get done today what's one thing that's important I'm going to move forward what's my priority for the day like that's that's a very simple exercise to give to a lot of people because that focuses them they're like okay if I move one thing for a day that turns into real progress that's like progress every day and they start

to realize they can have impact if they focus if they choose to say yes to something so they can say no to other things because that's the hard part for a lot of these people they don't know how to say no so it's like okay but if you're you're not saying no if you're saying no I have this other thing that's more important um another typical example for a lot of my clients is I say they can't you're not allowed to say yes to any commitment in the moment so they get asked to do something like before you say yeah I can do that you say let me write that down

check my other equipments I'll get back to you later today just have them do that and then when they actually do that they get to the end of day they look at all the things they've been asked to do it's like a list of 12 things that would take 3 days to do if they say yes to all of them like the bath doesn't work you can't do three days of work every day that's why they're so burned out and so exhausted so it's like you know just by forcing them to not say yes in the moment they can actually look at the listed then and go like oh crap I can't say yes to everything what am I going to

say yes to um so those are a couple like very tactical Consulting style things and then from there I will be paying attention to the things that energize them and drain them and just again reflect it back to them pull hold up a mirror saying like this is what I'm seeing does that resonate let's look for opportunities to do more of those things that energize you the things that have impact the things that have meaning and then we kind of iterate our way to a values based approach even

though I wouldn't call it that well like it it's existentialist right you're looking at how the Bea behaviors actually reflect their values rather than what they say about their values and you're mirroring that like a scientist right you're observing them and hey what did you know that you did this this was what you chose did you know that you actually chose to say yes to this other than this other thing that's cool I've never heard of that Eric that's a really cool and unique way to approach it I think that's very valuable I mean I was TR I I I studied physics in school I trained as

experimental physicist so I I do take a scientist approach and you know experiments is my in My DNA in some sense so like yeah that's that's how I fre and I work with a lot of tech people that are very data driven and science driven and Engineering driven I'm like if I say like try this practice they're like I don't to do that like if I say try this experiment they're like okay fine I got to try the experiment to see what happens oh yeah speaking their language that's great I want to respect your time I know you got to log off in a few minutes quick fire round of questions and before I do that thank you

so much for coming on this is a lot of fun and I hope we can do it again I'm going to read your book he just keeps getting delayed but I'm going to read it and I would like to talk about it more in details sometime if you have time it was really fun talking to you so um some fun questions first dessert favorite dessert uh snicker doodles nice cookies nice cookies are good what book are you reading right now what book am I reading right now I

just bought two books by April Dunford a book on product positioning and a book called sales pitch I've tried to study sales marketing so I I just just started reading them last night so I don't have no idea how good they are but I've heard her talk on a podcast and she's great so hoping that I'll learn from her books let me know what's a leadership book that you've read more than two times something that you go back to read oh that's a good question uh

huh I don't know if I have one I've read multiple times because I I typically really good notes I don't have to go back to them and them um I mean I guess the I know I've read man search for meeting a bunch of times like several times and that's not a leadership book but that is a book about purpose and meaning and how we create our own reality by choosing what we pay attention to um for those that don't know it's a story not a story it's the account of Holocaust Survivor and his time in the

concentration camps and even in those conditions he had a choice of how to interpret what was happening to him and what he was going to live for and so I find it I find it very inspiring even if it's a bit dark in terms of uh topics covered I'm reading that right now it's Victor Frankle right yeah yeah yeah yeah excellent book what is one piece of advice that you hear it and you wish people would stop giving it as advice just bad generic

advice o uh let me think about that one oh man I'm totally blinking it's okay we can skip it if you want man just give me give me a second um Prett I guess it's

it's it's something uh I don't know it's not it's not necessarily generic advice but it's it's something like stop I guess my my inversion of it is like stop searching for the right thing to do you're like when you're before saying like yeah but how do I know if it's a right thing like this whole concept of there is a right answer that is terrible advice that's my like that's I guess what I would say it's like life is more complex than that there's no one right answer there's no one right way to do

things you asked me before if I have a a single framework that I use for everybody I'm like no cuz there's not one right framework there's just a bunch of Frameworks there's a bunch of answers we get to choose what's right for us so I guess maybe that's that's the idea the the the generic advice is like climb the ladder do the right thing figure out it's like there is no ladder choose what's right for you that it's awesome that's something I'm taking away from our conversation by the way is the value of action over

thinking like there's so many tools to overthink things but you can't really understand yourself and properly reflect until you act and make a decision that is powerful so with that in mind last piece wait okay sorry sorry you go ahead go you can't let it hang huh no like because I was fortunate that like so back in the day like I said I was a physics major I was in a PhD program and I wasn't happy I was not doing well and I but I didn't know what else to do with my life cuz I my whole

life to that point like I was going to be a get a physics PhD go be a college professor try to win a Nobel Prize like that was the whole plan for my life from the time I was like 10 years old and so you know now like in my 20s I'm like crap I don't know what to do with myself because like that's all I've ever thought I was going to do and I was talking to a friend and saying like well maybe I should like spend three months thinking about what I should do with my life and really analyze and figure out a plan he looked at me it's like that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard the only figure only way to figure out what you want to do is to do things so just

go try some stuff and that's how you'll figure out what you want to do and thank I was thankful to have gotten that advice because that has formed the basis of everything I've done since that he was basically saying experiment try things see what works for you and keep navigating to do more of the things that work for you and less of the things that don't and that's kind of what my career has been so yeah action over thinking absolutely 100% agree um that's that's a great message I would I want people to stay keep keep take away from this well you took the air out

of my sales again my last question was going to be give me your top advice in 30 seconds and I think you did it for me before so unless you got another nugget of wisdom in there uh I guess the other thing I I'll add just because I can't resist adding things is you can't do it all and this is something that people just really don't want to believe they're like no I can be great at work and I can be a great partner and I can be a great parent and I can run triathlons in my free time I'm going to do it all I'm going to have

a side business too and it's like no like I'm sorry you can't do it all and do it well because if somebody picks one of those says I'm just going to focus on work I'm sorry they're going to do better than you like this like it's their attention is not split their energy is not split and that's okay but don't delude yourself the thinking that 50% of your attention is better than somebody else's 100% attention choose what you want to spend your time and energy and attention on and live with a

choice own that choice that's what I choose right now right now am I am I as successful a coach as I would be if I didn't have kids no of course not I'm distracted constantly and that's okay that's what I choose to do with myself that was a choice like I'm going to own that choice but yeah like I sometimes I look at other coaches and all they do is coaching I'm like I'm jealous of that that's the way it is like I can't do it all so that's kind of it yeah I mean that kind of ties

together all these things like if you can't do it all then you have to make a choice then you have to choose what action am I going to take versus like trying to think through well how do I do it all no just let that go and pick something and start doing it try an experiment move forward and learn that's what I ask you to do that's awesome that's a great place to close I I'll stop recording there thank you so much Eric