Ten years.
It had been ten years since I played my instrument. My guitar. The first passage was simple, easy. I was rusty.
As the sounds enveloped me, a wave of electric excitement washed through my body, leaving goosebumps in its wake. I had forgotten the magic in music, how much it energized me. I had forgotten myself for ten years while chasing the almighty dollar, working myself nearly to death. I lost my songs to profit and loss statements.
I became obsessed with success and forgot what strengthened me. I lost what brought excitement to my life. No wonder I burnt out. This ability to obsess over one thing at a time is both my superpower and my kryptonite. It led to making a pile of money. Too bad that money had to pay for hospital bills and a functional medicine doctor. It also paid for coaching, which eventually turned everything around for me.
In high school, I would carry that guitar with me to all my classes. I was obsessed with it then, as I later obsessed over the business. I fixate on one thing at a time at the expense of everything else. I listened to Metallica’s ‘Black’ album so often I had to put it away for two decades before I could enjoy it again. Later I read dozens of books on woodworking, built dozens of furniture pieces, and stopped as suddenly as I started.
Many successful people display traits of all-or-nothing thinking. Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart, and Michael Jordan – show characteristics of single-minded, intense focus with extreme determination and persistence. This type of thinking leads to having very rigid boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not.
One day I received a call from my wife. My toddler tripped and fell, biting a hole through her tongue. I was so trapped by my self-imposed need to ‘get the work done,’ I didn’t go to the hospital to meet them. I felt so strongly the business would fall apart if I left, that leaving for a few hours did not feel like an option.
I have other regrets, too. Small interruptions to my narrow field of focus also affected my well-being. I would become angry with my wife for calling me during a workday.
Sorry darlin’. I know better now.
Because I let interruptions upset me, I lived with extremely high levels of stress. Increased stress was a major contributor to losing forty pounds of healthy weight in three months. I had bloody stools. I developed pain in my chest that felt like a vice squeezing me and an icepick in my heart. I went to the hospital multiple times with massive chest pain. I was never diagnosed with anything.
Before my complete health collapse, my burnout manifested in smaller ways. The summer months were always brutally busy. By September, I would read and reread paragraphs from manuals multiple times and not comprehend them because I was so exhausted. I could not function well enough to compile our finance reports and struggled to complete payroll. Since our sales hung on my performance, September and October sales would drop to one-quarter of what the summer months produced. Had I stayed consistent, our sales would have stayed the same without the exhaustion.
Deep down I knew something needed to change. I found myself repeating the same behaviors, even after I went to the hospital and started healing myself. I searched books, podcasts, and YouTube videos for the answer that would solve my problem. After months of research, it was coaching that finally helped me break the cycle.
Coaching helped me change my underlying belief system. Working with a coach changed the belief that I had to kill myself to death, working with unrelenting intensity, to be successful. This work helped me separate my nose from the grindstone.
The scope of this article is not enough to cover the depth of coaching work, but I now believe through seeing the results in action, that working with a light heart - having fun even - leads to better results. I still work hard when necessary. I work hard when I want to, when I choose to. I do not work hard from a sense of survival or a fear that I will miss my opportunity to succeed. Thanks to being relaxed and energized, I get more done in an hour than I used to in four hours. My energy levels remain higher overall, therefore I can chase my goals with persistence and consistency.
My life improved so much it inspired me to become a coach. My joy comes from helping others break their self-defeating cycles and enjoy life on their own terms.
I see the same results I created for myself in my clients' lives too. Everybody’s journey is a little different, but here are a few examples.
One client gained the confidence to ask out the girl of his dreams and increased his income significantly. Another lost nearly 60 pounds, removed multiple medications, and has the energy to meet significant work challenges. Another dropped caffeine from her life, stopped snapping at her husband and children so often, and shows up with an “I got this” attitude at work.
Playing guitar between client meetings helps me to show up more powerfully for my clients. Making time to walk through the woods with my kids is more important than making money. I prioritize time to love my wonderfully patient wife, who supported me the whole way through my business and meltdown. All this co-exists with my dogged determination to build a business that gives my family the life we crave while helping others transform their lives too.
I love to leave you, my dear readers, with a question. What are you accepting in your life as normal that doesn’t serve you?
Thanks so much for reading,
Lee Aaron Smart
Professional Coach
Let’s chat! Email: Lee@leeasmart.com