Slowing Down to Speed Up: The Leader's Paradox with Michael Levitt

Ever notice how every sport includes timeouts? Those crucial moments when teams pause, regroup, and strategize are essential for victory—yet in leadership, we often believe constant motion equals success. Michael Levitt, global thought leader on burnout and workplace culture, challenges this dangerous misconception.

This conversation explores burnout not as a sudden collapse but as the culmination of accumulated choices and mindset patterns. The World Health Organization classified burnout as a "workplace phenomenon" that manifests when we're physically and mentally overwhelmed—but what's fascinating is how two people in identical positions can have drastically different experiences.

Michael shares his personal burnout journey, revealing how the path to recovery begins with childlike curiosity rather than self-judgment. "Approach everything with curiosity," he advises. "Ask why was that important to me? Why did I want to be a pillar in that community? To what end goal?"

For leaders experiencing isolation at the top, practical strategies emerge throughout our discussion. Quality sleep serves as the foundation for everything else. Writing thoughts down physically (not typing) helps transfer mental burdens to paper. Having trusted mentors who provide both cheerleading and honest critique creates crucial balance.

Perhaps most counterintuitive yet essential is the practice of strategic pausing. As Michael notes, "If you're constantly going, you're going to miss the exit ramp or opportunity because you're just going right past it." The wisdom in "The Tortoise and the Hare" contains profound leadership lessons—slow, steady progress ultimately outperforms frantic activity.

Ready to transform your leadership approach? Join us for this enlightening conversation that might just save you from burnout while enhancing your effectiveness. Remember: sometimes slowing down is exactly what you need to speed up results.

https://www.breakfastleadership.com/

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 The Value of Taking Timeout in Leadership
• 7:22 Understanding Burnout as a Workplace Phenomenon
• 14:30 The Mindset Behind Burnout Prevention
• 22:54 Meditation and Self-Awareness Practices
• 31:00 Prevention Strategies for Leaders at the Top
• 36:54 The Power of Slowing Down

Transcript

Michael: 0:00

Every sport has timeouts, there's pauses in the action. Why To retool, to regroup, to go? Okay, what's going on? Where are we at right now and what do we need to do? Because if you're just constantly going, you're going to miss things and unfortunately, a lot of leaders bought into this pedal to the floor don't stop. Well, you're going to miss the exit ramp that you need to exit, or you're going to miss an opportunity because that you need to exit, or you're going to miss an opportunity because you're just going right past it. So slow down, I guess, is a good way to phrase it. Just slow down a little bit.

Nico: 0:46

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs who strive to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Before we dive into today's episode, I have a small request. If you find value in our podcast, please take a moment to subscribe and leave us a five-star review. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue bringing you this amazing content. Share this episode with at least one person that you know that might be interested in it, or if you think they might be interested in it, and that makes them join this community of like-minded individuals on this journey to everlasting fulfillment. Thank you for your support in advance and let's get started Now.

Nico: 1:53

First let me introduce our next guest, mike Levitt. Michael is a global thought leader on HR burnout and workplace culture. A CBT and NLP therapist. A top 50 global thought leader and influencer on health and wellness 2023. A sought-after keynote speaker and executive coach, published author of several books and the host of the Breakfast Leadership Show, a top 20 global podcast for thought leadership by Thinkers360. Well, sir, welcome to the podcast. Tell us a little bit more than what I just said.

Michael: 2:32

Great to be with you, nico. Yeah, whenever I hear my bio read off, I'm like, okay, no wonder I don't have any hair anymore. My goodness, that's a lot, but it wasn't all done at once. It's been ongoing for years and it's fun and I enjoy it.

Michael: 2:52

It's one of those things where, especially when the focus on burnout prevention and burnout recovery which unfortunately way too many executives and leaders and every walk of life deals with, nothing would make me happier than burnout to go away and make me unemployed. I'll go find something else to do, but unfortunately it continues to be a challenge for a lot of people. So for me, it's like just looking at it and like, ok, what's causing it? How is it impacting individuals, how is it impacting teams? And, of course, there's always other ingredients as well. So I'm just this constantly curious individual, you know, looking for new and different ways to approach, how to make leaders better, how to make their organizations better, how to make their people better, because you and I benefit from that. Society benefits from healthy organizations and healthy leaders. So my mandate to myself is okay, figure out ways to help people accomplish those goals nice, nice.

Nico: 3:55

So you're talking about burnout now? This is like a five word.

Nico: 3:59

These days it's really hype everybody talks about it right, but there's so many different opinions about what this really is. Now I must say, personally I've gone through two of them, one physical and one mental, which followed up by a depression. So I know kind of what you're talking about. But was it a burnout question mark? Because it was my point of view of being a burnout. So what is what is, to your mind, what is burnout and what's the next step that happens when you have this.

Michael: 4:29

I'll borrow from the World Health Organization, who we've heard from quite a bit over the last few years. But prior to the pandemic, they had actually issued an ICD code, which is a disease code for burnout. Now they didn't classify burnout as a disease, they classified it as a workplace phenomenon. And, to paraphrase, it's when you're physically and mentally overwhelmed by all that you have to do in life, you're fatigued, you're not sleeping well, you're not eating well, everything's just a mess. And to drill down into it, it's like you know when people say well, what causes it? And there's a lot of different things that create it. But what I find time and time again is mindset, because you can go into an organization, you can have a couple of people that are doing the similar or the same job, and one of them could be burned out like no tomorrow, and the other person is humming along and doing their job well and life is good, and you go, okay, well, what's the difference? And of course, there's obviously different causes and ingredients there, but mindset tends to be a big challenge, because what happens is we and this is something that I see a lot is we delegate, and delegation is good to avoid burnout. Leaders, by the way, make sure you know how to delegate. That's a key, key gift and skill. Once you acquire that, it'll help you accomplish a whole lot more.

Michael: 5:58

But unfortunately, a lot of times we delegate our self-care and our boundaries, or lack thereof, and what happens is we start taking on external things and trying to solve them when we have no say in what those things are. Whether it's wars, pandemics, elections, anything, we don't necessarily have a say. I think so we. We spend all over time worrying about things that, quite frankly, may never happen, or we manifest them in our heads that this is going to happen. I'll give a real life example. My spouse works for a transportation company and the parent company announced last august you know that they were going to be spinning off several divisions, including hers. Now her co-workers are running around like the sky is falling and the sale hasn't happened yet. There hasn't been a buyer that we're aware of yet. So it's like go in and do your job, because if you're sitting there spinning and worrying about things, you're not doing any work and you're not seeing anything. So mindset is a really critical component of either preventing burnout or recovering from it.

Nico: 7:20

And when you come down to mindset, from my point of view, what I remember and this is really personal I can tell you exactly what I did. But it's going to be personal for me and for anybody else it's going to be a different approach, but for me it started off with learning about meditation, on going inside and learning to have not to stop your mind running around, have not to stop minds. You know your mind running around because that's one of the things that I've absolutely learned from that was it's not possible to stop your mind from thinking. A complete silence is just. You know, it's utopia. But what I learned was to understand and let those thoughts that happen.

Nico: 8:00

Like you said, when, if somebody gives you an announcement of you know in X amount of time this company is going to be bought, you can go and your mind goes in all directions. But if you just leave that running and not react on it, it's usually the way you react on the emotions or the physical sensations or how you react to them is caused by you know that causes the next step to go towards, because, of course, burnout from my point of view, it was a long-term thing. That wasn't. It came from from one day to next, but it was building up for many years. Basically, is that something that you've also understood?

Michael: 8:42

Yeah, definitely, burnout was something that doesn't happen overnight and, depending on the individual, it can take a few months or it could be a few years. And my personal story, with my own personal burnout yeah, it took several years and I can trace back the steps to okay, yeah, this is when this went this way, this went this way. Back the steps to okay, yeah, this is when this went this way. This went this way, and a lot of it was decisions, actions, but a lot of it was beliefs and thoughts and this thing that I had grown up with, that had been instilled in me of, you know, wanting to do all of these things. So I was doing those things and going down that path, even though I should have known better and I don't like saying should, but in my particular case, I'll use it. I, you know, looking back and go okay, that's where, that's where a big misstep was. And he just end up doing it. And I have a phrase that I use from time to time which tends to irritate some people when I say it. It's not profanity or anything like that, so you don't have to hit the mute button or anything, but you know, I, I, I, yeah, I I make the comment that burnout is a choice and of course everybody goes. I didn't choose to burn out out. No, I don't think anybody had that on their New Year's resolution. I'm going to burn out in 2025.

Michael: 10:05

I don't think people. If they are, then I am going to suggest that you might want to talk to somebody about that, because that seems to be self-harming, maybe unless it's part of something else you're going to do. I don't know, maybe you're doing an experiment, but there's other ways to do that. But our choices do lead us to where we end up. You know, from where am I going to go to school, or the relationships I have, or the money I spend. These are all choices and they create situations that can create opportunities for you to burn out.

Michael: 10:40

But again, it's going back to the mindset thing and it kind of ties into this as well is I am still amazed in a way but not because I know better how few people are truly self-aware. They don't connect the dots where they say you know, I had a bad night's sleep last night and I'll say, okay, well, what happened yesterday? And they'll kind of basically try to come up with some things. And sometimes it's OK, well, what did you eat? And like I don't remember. It's like, ok, you're going through life on autopilot, then you're not, you're not driving the bus, you are just kind of delegating to hoping you don't run off the road type of situation, and it's like that's not a good way to exist. In my opinion, anyway, you should be a little bit more aware of what's going on, and a lot of that boils down to self-confidence. A lot of it goes to maybe some past traumas, especially when I'm working with organizations or individuals on recovering from burnout.

Michael: 11:45

There is a let's look within and a lot of people like doing that they do not like that because they're self-judging themselves, they're upset with themselves and all of that. And when I was recovering from my own personal burnout journey and I didn't have any guidance on this, I'm just thankful it came to me is I approached everything with a childlike curiosity Okay, why was that important to me? But I didn't beat myself up. The burnout did that enough. I didn't have to beat myself up anymore. I was just approaching a little three or four-year-old Mike, asking questions all the time and going, ok, why, why was that important? Why did I want to be a pillar in that community? To what end goal did I have? Why was that important? And, you know, came down to the want to be acknowledged. Everybody wants to be acknowledged and heard and viewed and seen. To be acknowledged. Everybody wants to be acknowledged and heard and viewed and seen, um, and it's like, oh, why did I feel that I wasn't being seen when the evidence was there that, yeah, I was, um, but again it's. It can be a very deep rabbit hole for some people because I find, uh, with people that are burned out, sometimes it goes back to past traumas from their childhood and you know they're, you know, have been an adult for years. So it's like you said, everyone's a little bit different, but there's some common techniques you can look at, at least to start getting to. You know, see if we can figure out what caused this, because ultimately, when you burn out my hope is that you don't want to do that again, and you mentioned that you'd, you know, burn out a couple of times tonight. You know, your story is like that all the time, where people have a physical burnout, where they're just physically drained from things, and then the mental aspect of things, which takes a physical toll as well. You know, majority of the chronic diseases have stress as a common element to that. So if you are under chronic stress, you're setting yourself up for chronic disease and then you get to take medications and go to the doctor all the time, which is not a whole lot of fun.

Michael: 13:58

Having worked in primary care for a decade and a half, I get it. I saw the faces of the people in the waiting room. The reason why they call it the waiting room, by the way, is you kind of wait, it's just that it's an appropriate name for a room, for sure, but ultimately there's so there's so many different things that go on and kind of jumping back to what you said before about meditation. I am a firm believer in that because it helps you slow down kind of tabula rasa the room and just get back to you know, just you, nothing else, no, no arguments with partners or work issues or money issues or anything like that. You just get back to the existence of the energy force that you are and then from there you can feel your heartbeat, you can hear your breathing, you can feel the sensations in your body and you get a little bit more self-aware.

Michael: 14:56

Because when you can do that, over time you can learn how to regulate things. So when something is said to you or an experience happens and you can feel, you start feeling the tightness of your chest or aches and shoulders or wherever you tend to feel, things you can recognize. Oh, I feel tense in my shoulders. Okay, this is obviously irritating me. Okay, what do I need to do to stop this? And it takes practice, a lot of practice. But once you are able to, you can self-regulate yourself in a situation and all of a sudden you get back to a more even keel or even state. And then, as a leader, that's really important Because when you're in those really high volatile moments, you'll have the clarity to make the best choice you can.

Nico: 15:51

Yeah, yeah, indeed. I remember my first time meditating. It was like being reborn. It's a bit extreme to explain it that way, but it was in essence that my, my senses were being reborn. It's the first time that I actually um, what would I say? With a, with a, with a clear awareness. I listened to birds singing. I remembered exactly what was happening. I was sitting on a, on a, on a small mat with a little pillow. It was, it was actually a psychologist who guided me in my first meditation, and and her window was open and I could hear, you know, the, the, the truck passing by, taking out the trash, and and, and birds in the distance. And then suddenly I heard a school bell, kids, kids were running outside for the mission and it was. It was so strange to me because I had, for all those years, never realized that all these things were happening around me and I didn't even hear them happening.

Nico: 16:51

It's like you said, it's like you're running on an automatic railroad, with, with. Sometimes it's like not only automatic, but it's actually you're running on the rails themselves. It's nothing, nothing is there to guide you or switch lanes or anything like that, and you're just going, going, going and at some point. There's, you know, the classic block that's there, like for any train, at the end of the track, and well, your train flies over it and it doesn't stop on time. But I've heard two great big opinions about burnout. Some people say on one side that it's individual, it happens to a person, it's something that you know can happen at random, by situation and so on, and others say it's contagious, it's something that other people can pick up. Once there's somebody in the team that had a burnout, it can be contagious. What's your point if you? I have an idea of how that illness that started, but what's your point of view on that?

Michael: 17:49

while I think it can be contagious to an extent, it could be the environment, or it could be the I don't want to use the phrase that just came to mind is herd mentality, and maybe that's not the right one, but let's flush that out for a minute.

Michael: 18:10

When and I've seen this you know where you have a situation where an employee, for example, is missing a lot of work and then the other workers are having to pick up the slack all the time, and then they get tired of it, and then all of a sudden they start getting sick, and then the other workers are having to pick up the slack all the time, and then they get tired of it, and then all of a sudden they start getting sick, and then everybody else is getting sick, and it should.

Michael: 18:28

It just starts you know, becoming this volatile situation where everybody's calling in absenteeism, you know engagement drops, all of that kind of stuff. So as a leader, you have to be aware of those things and correct it before it happens if possible. But correct it swiftly and quickly because otherwise you could have a high performing team become a low performing team in short order. Really fast, really fast. Uh, when, and again, sometimes you know we, because of empathy and things, they go.

Michael: 19:07

You know what you know when someone's going through, let's say someone's burned out and a colleague of yours and you see that they start, you know, talking about it, which is good, because usually people that are burned out we don't talk, we kind of get really sunk in. You know, the extroverts become introverted and the introverts really become introverted. So they're not usually vocal about what's going on. But sometimes people will share what's going on and, like you know what, that's happening to me too. And then all of a sudden they kind of manifest it within themselves and or they say you know, this boss doesn't care for us working all these hours, they're never going to replace anybody. Or the example I gave earlier oh, you know, they're never going to replace anybody.

Michael: 19:41

Or the example I gave earlier. Oh, you know, they're going to sell the company, I'm going to be out of a job and I don't, I'll never be able to find a job again. You know they go down that you know negative rabbit hole because the information they consume, like in the news or anything like that, tends to be negative, unfortunately, and people buy into it and they say, well, that's what's happening to me. Or, okay, the job report is out and okay, it's taking four months longer to find a new job. Oh, I'm going to lose my job and it'll take me a year to find a new job.

Michael: 20:11

You don't know that unless you don't look for a job for a year, then, yeah, you're not going to find a job. But it's like yeah, it's you know. Is that what you want? No, what do you want? I want to find a job right away.

Michael: 20:24

Okay well tell yourself you're going to find a job right away, because what that does is it programs yourself to and you're thinking you go, I'm going to be able to do this. Will you? If you do the right things and you apply to the right places, that are a match and things line up. Sure will it take longer, I don't know, depends on what you're looking for. But to answer your point, I I do see it being mimic behavior necessarily, and not necessarily contagious. But I have seen, you know, teams completely self-implode because there's a couple people that are kind of anchoring things down and again you have to address it.

Michael: 21:07

You know, when I was running health care clinics, I would recognize some of those things and if there were some people that were quite frankly no longer the right fit for the organization, using an old Jack Welch term, I would hire them quickly.

Michael: 21:22

Organization, you know, using an old Jack Welch term, I would de-hire them quickly, pay out the severance. I don't want them to suffer and it doesn't mean they're not good people doing work, they're just not good for that environment. So set them up, give them, you know, a little bit of assistance, send them on their way, and because it would tell you know the other people, it's like no, this is the environment that we're running, this is our mission. This is that everyone participates in and buys into, and even mission statements. Have your teams help you deliver it. As the leader said, this is the mission of our company and great, awesome. If no one believes it, they're not going to walk it. If no one believes it, they're not going to walk it. So if you have your people help you develop the mission and it comes from them and it wasn't just lip service, where they actually truly believe in it because they have skin in the game on it, then they're going to walk the walk.

Michael: 22:14

Now we all have our days where motivation is non-existent, I get it, but that's where discipline kicks in. Existent, I get it, uh, but that's where discipline kicks in. And if you have a team that's disciplined and you're disciplined as a leader, no matter how you're feeling, uh, things are going to be better and you can prevent having burnout. Become this, you know, widespread issue, uh, where you're constantly fighting um to try to get it under control yeah, yeah, you got a couple of very good points there.

Nico: 22:44

One thing that I would like to discuss with you as well. So there's a lot of people listening right now who are in a leadership position, but they're not middle management, they're higher management. So usually there's a lot of isolation or being alone. Being alone at the top is indeed, it's just reality that exists out there. Now, how could they for themselves recognize what's happening with them and if it would become burnout, and how could they actually tackle or prevent it? I would not say tackle it, because that's a little late, but prevent burnout and recognize the symptoms with pale eight, but prevent burnout and recognize the symptoms.

Michael: 23:30

Yeah, for me, the tips that I tell people are pretty consistent and, of course, depending on what they're struggling with, if any of them will dictate what's going on. Because, as a leader, we know, you know we're always looking for that. You know 32 hour clock because we need more time than we're allocated. Uh, but we all get 24, doesn't matter who we are, we all get 24. So understanding what to do with those 24 hours is critical one, and I always tell people that sleep is the one super pill or, you know, superhero or special power that will really pave the way for you as far as everything else, because when you get good, restful sleep, your digestive system works better, you're rested, you have more clarity, which is desperately needed. As a leader, you need to have clear ideas to be able to navigate arenas or challenges that you don't have the rulebook for. I don't know. We've seen that In the last five years there's been a lot of things thrown at leadership that there was no playbook.

Michael: 24:42

I don't know how do we get remote work here. We've never worked remote in our life and now everybody has to go home, whoops, okay. Now what do we do? So you have to do all of those things. So sleep is critical.

Michael: 24:53

But when you are sensing that you're not and I guess this goes back to self-awareness when you're sensing that you're not quote, unquote, right you're not feeling well, could be just a couple days, or it might be. Okay, this is starting to wear on me. Okay, what is it? A big thing I have people do is just write down what you're thinking, get it out of your head and out on the paper. Now, typing it, I guess, is fine, but I'm a big fan of don't write it out, because there's something scientific about transferring something from thought to paper using the hand and all of that. You can look at it and go okay, these are all the things that are bothering me or bugging me. Okay, what can I do about it? And again, this is where the curiosity thing comes in.

Michael: 25:40

And if you have mentors and I think every leader should have a mentor or at least a peer group that they can work with to bounce ideas off, because leadership can be a lonely island. So you have some trusted people in your life that will support you, kick you in the butt if you need it. You need that part too. Don't just get a bunch of cheerleaders. That's not going to help you grow. I mean, it's good to get the rah-rahs, but you need somebody to like, hey, no, that doesn't sound right. You should go about it this way, or I suggest you do this. That's, it's really helpful.

Michael: 26:15

So get it to paper to see, okay, what's going on, and then, just, you know, reverse engineer it. Go, okay, how's my sleep? Okay, what have I eaten? Am I eating anything out of the ordinary that I normally don't eat? Is there challenges at home going on? Okay, what's going on?

Michael: 26:33

You know parents, marriages. You know all those things can be challenging and taxing. And, of course, you know many, many people in leadership roles, especially based on the age, demographic of leaders. There's a distinct possibility that you are either going to be or currently a caregiver for a parent or both your parents, and that can be extremely draining, because it's one of those things as a caregiver and you know both of my parents have passed, but you know my brother was a caregiver for my mom, uh, for the last uh, four years. She passed away last year, um, but that was, you know, taxing, uh for sure. And on top of you, you have a job to do and you have you, you're leading a division or you're doing this. So there's always those other things that are going to happen.

Michael: 27:27

As much as we'd love to silo things, we're not. We're one person that has a variety of different roles and responsibilities in this so-called thing of life. Then that's when you say, okay, I need to take a brief timeout. Does it mean, if you want to take a couple of weeks off, great, if you can do that, awesome. But most of us, especially in leadership roles, that may not be easily done, at least in short term. Maybe you plan something long term, but short term maybe not. But at least pull off to the side for a moment and go okay, what do I need to do? What's going on? And map it out and go all right.

Michael: 28:11

And again, going back to what you said before, you know, using mindfulness techniques and meditation there's no shortage of those things go to youtube. There's a bazillion videos on it. You can meditate and have, um, all kinds of different things. I stumbled across one the other day of obi-wan kenobi going through a meditation and it was probably ai generated. Ewan mcgregor's voice sounded exactly like him walking through. You know, a kind of a jedi-like meditation. Now, of course, you can also go and get one from darth vader on the other side and do that too. Um, dark side has cookies. Just let you know. Um, but just you pick, pick whatever flavor you like.

Michael: 29:00

But ultimately it's like there's an old saying I always forget who did it. I don't know if it was god you said it, or buddha or whomever, but it's like you know, take, you know, five to ten minutes to meditate. Well, I don't have that much time. Okay, then take an hour. And there's a it's funny of that phrase because, like, okay, if you can't allocate five minutes to pause, you're going at it too fast. Every sport has timeouts, every sport in the vet has a break. There's pauses in the action.

Michael: 29:33

Why To retool, to regroup, to go? Okay, what's going on? Where are we at right now? Okay, what do we need to do? Because if you're just constantly going, you're going to miss things and unfortunately, a lot of leaders bought into this. Pedal to the floor. Don't stop. Well, you're going to miss the exit ramp that you need to exit or you're going to miss an opportunity because you're just going right past it.

Michael: 29:59

So slow down, I guess, is a good way to rephrase it. Just slow down a little bit. And because and I've said this a lot one of my favorite leadership books is the Tortoise and the Hare. No, who wins the race? Slow and steady, go through it. Do this. Rabbits bouncing around looking at every shiny object and every problem in the world, and all of this. And the slow-ass turtle wins the race.

Michael: 30:30

There's a lot to be said about that. There's, and there's going to be, situations where you need to go fast. By all means go fast, but guess what? You'll be prepared for it and you can sprint. And so very long-winded answer to just get self-aware, figure out who, who you are, what motivates you, figure out how to implement meditation or mindfulness or something in your life where you can pause. It doesn't mean you need moments of Zen and you're sitting on a rug and closing. You don't have to. You're standing in line at the grocery store and meditate. So just do it, so you can get reconnected with self. And once you do that, you'll be able to self-regulate yourself and course correct, quite frankly, on the fly in many cases.

Nico: 31:20

Yeah, that's true, that's true.

Nico: 31:22

That's one thing that I've learned in all these years even in the most busiest environments, I'm able to close off and enjoy a few moments of complete inner peace, by just letting that mind rattle around in your brain but just saying you know, I'm right here, I'm here, I feel this breathing, I feel my heart, I feel my body, I even feel the environment or somebody you know, in classic situations where your partner's not right next to you and you feel them or you're holding their hands, just really, you know, going into those touches and feelings of your senses and switching over to that changes the, the idea as well, with a rush, uh, kind of ebbs away. Okay, let's you just go down it's. And it has a way of. Okay, let's you just go down it's. You know, be mellow. You don't need any products for that. You can just do that on your own. It's very cheap, by the way.

Michael: 32:16

It is yeah, there's no cost. You don't have to use any additives or anything to kind of zen you out or calm you out. No-transcript. You know different opportunities and what nice is. You're gonna figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I'm like don't grow up, that's a trap, don't, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Perpetually 12 over here, man, uh-uh, no, you know, but yeah, you know, it's like growing up. If, nah, I've seen that I don't one star do not recommend. Yeah, don't, don't don't go there.

Nico: 33:18

Yeah, you have to plan your own meals.

Michael: 33:21

That's the most horrible part about it yeah, well, actually, ironically, this morning, I, you know, I asked, uh, you know my wife, before she left us, you know I tend to work remotely, so it's like all right, I'll cook dinner and all that stuff. And just because I'm here, it's like why not? And I enjoy cooking, so OK, let's do it. So I said, does this sound good for dinner tonight? And she, you know, of course she was half awake, but she, you know, I knew she was going to say yes to it because it's food she loves. So I was like yes, and like I was kind of it was one of those things. Why am I asking this? Just do it. You know you're she's going to like it, but it's one of those, you know, showing courtesy to her. See, if she's okay with that. Also, getting the, you know it's an ego thing, you know the, the ego, you know, tends to like I need to be fed.

Nico: 34:15

So, you know, sometimes feed it, but don't feed it all the time, because then your head's too big to walk into the room. Cool, well, michael, I think? Uh, there's a lot of interesting tips that you brought to us today and I think there might be some people who might want to you know, get in touch with you. Where can they find you and do you have anything specific that you want to you know? End the podcast with.

Michael: 34:34

Oh yeah, you know breakfastleadershipcom is probably the best place to find me. There's links on there to all the social media channels that I'm on and there's, you know, links to a variety of different things my podcast, books, blog articles, music. I write music, so there's some published stuff that's there. If you're bored and you want to listen to some variety of different genres, there's there. I help out a lot of people with stress, and burnout prevention and financial stress is a big thing. We're seeing huge, huge debt problem in the U? S and you know we've partnered with a company that's doing some stuff to help with that. So if that's an issue, you can obviously do some research there. But if your audience wants a free copy of my book burnout proof, just go to breakfastleadershipcom, slash burnout book and name and email. I don't need anything else. I don't need your blood type or your favorite sports team or anything. If you want to put that in the comments, go for it. That's fine. I promise, if you put Dallas Cowboys, that I won't delete the email. I'm just kidding, but I don't have any problem with Dallas.

Michael: 35:43

I go for a morning walk every morning and there's a guy in the neighborhood that is a huge Dallas Cowboys fan and Dallas has not been good for a while and but he's out there, man, he's proudly wearing that. You know, cowboys pull over time after time and I think he owns other clothes. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure he does. But I see him like you know what? You're standing proud by your team. That's cool, because when they do win again because they likely will then you can proudly wear it and look, see, I was a fan before. It was cool. But yeah, breakfastleadershipcom, and reach out, happy to have a chat with you about anything. I'm here to help.

Nico: 36:24

Okay, great, okay, well, thank you for your time and thank you for your time and um. Thank you for your tips for for my audience and I hope and. I wish you a lot of success in this new year that we've just launched as well.

Michael: 36:37

Thank you. Nico.

Nico: 36:39

Have a good one. And to the listeners, thank you very much again for listening to the podcast. Like I mentioned before, leave, like I mentioned before, leave a review. Give us just a five star. You know the podcast is worth it. Um, and just share it with one person that you think that might be interested or might even, in this case, might be heading somewhere that they don't want to end and they need to talk with mike, so just send it off to somebody. Have a great one everybody. Bye-bye.