How to Perform at Your Highest Level without Burnout with Byron Morrison
Learn how to break free of a reactive state and focus on what matters most, prioritize, plan, and structure your days to perform at the highest level.
Instead of feeling constantly rushed, overworked, and like you are never accomplishing enough in your day-to-day life, unlock an improved sense of focus and control.
In This Episode, You Will Learn About:
Break free from a reactive state
Set priorities based on your values
Plan your days to perform at the highest level
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About our guest:
For the last decade, Byron Morrison has helped CEOs and business leaders to become more effective in their roles so that they can maximize their time, lead with confidence and grow a business without losing their sanity. Byron is a 3x Author including his newest book due to release in June 2023 "Maybe You Should Give Up: 7 Ways to Get Out Of Your Own Way and Take Control of Your Life" and "The Effective CEO" and CEO In Control."
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Reconnecting with Your Goals
So for the last decade, I've had the opportunity to work with people in 15 different countries, ranging from CEOs to executives and business leaders. And we've really been focusing on getting them to perform at the highest level.
And I find a lot of the time people get pushed into a cycle where the long days, the stress, the overwhelm starts to deplete their energy, their bandwidth and their focus. And what really took me down this path is when I was first growing my business, I had released my first bestselling book. I was working with people from around the world. I had all these exciting things going on. Because I was working endless hours, I was pushing myself to the limit to get everything done, I reached a point where I was absolutely exhausted. I remember some days just getting out of bed was a battle. And I found that the more burnt out I became, the more I struggled dealing with stress, managing the pressures of growing a business and it just took its toll. Everything suffered from my mental health to my gym performance, my relationships, and I got to a point that it was so bad that I realized I can't carry on this way. Either I'm gonna have to quit the business and go do something else, or I'm gonna have to figure out how to get this under control.
I spent the next few years studying psychology mindset, high performance, changing behaviors, really trying to figure out how you can sustain success. Because for me, that's all. How do you do it long term? Because anyone can push for a short period. But once I figure that out, then I really shift my focus to help other people.
And when you have the tools to be able to manage stress and have the tools to be able to create better balance, it's interesting how much more, I would say add on to our plate or take what we currently have and achieve it in such a high performance. I can relate a lot to what you're saying. This past year I was writing a book, going to school, running a business and then being a mom to five-year-old twins and a lot has been piled on over this past year. Without the right tools, I probably would've experienced burnout multiple times. But because of having the tools, I was able to still perform at a very high level, which it's probably also what you are doing because I know your business is growing and you've written multiple books and, yet you're still thriving and not burning out anymore.
I think it really comes down to having the awareness of what's going on. And I also wanna clarify, in my opinion, what burnout actually is, it's become such a mainstream topic, and I find that most people confuse it. Everyone thinks of burnout as you've been working really long hours and you're tired. So the advice that they give is go on holiday, take a break, and everything will be fine. And for someone who's just been burning the candle at both ends and pushing a bit too hard, that's why they can come back refreshed and feeling great. But if you're extensively burnt out, that little bit of time off isn't gonna help, because as soon as you come back, you're in the same situation.
I find a lot of time, the real root cause of burnout is when someone's lost sight of what they’re doing. Because this is one of the big problems I had in my business, and I've seen with so many different clients. They start their venture or their career or whatever they wanna do with this big vision. They wanna change the world, they wanna help people, whatever that impact looks like. But then they get so stuck in the trenches that every single day is firefighting, dealing with problems, trying to overcome challenges. That's a battle just to get through. So they lose sight of what they're doing and why, and then when you combine that and compound it with long hours, endless deadlines, everything else you need to do, your body gets pushed to the limit. And that's why time off alone doesn't fix the problem.
On a deeper level you have to really reconnect and realign yourself with what is a greater purpose? What is it that excites you and makes you wanna get outta bed in the morning? Because if you don't have that driving you, everything's gonna be a fight to get through. That's right for me, it's such a holistic approach. Fixing burnout, looking at your routines, how you manage your energy, really understanding what are your goals and your focus. You need all of those in harmony. Otherwise, it's just gonna keep reoccurring and coming back.
Distinguishing the “Why”
I can see that applying in multiple areas if you're in a leadership position, often one of the biggest challenges in leadership is you're getting, uh, you go in your day with the intentions of I'm gonna accomplish X, Y, Z. But often what happens is people are coming at you and asking for advice and fires, and all of a sudden the day gets away from you and then you're ending up working late at night. And that consistency of burning the candle at both ends can really cause that burnout. The same applies when you are, I know when I was in sales, and when you lose focus on why you are doing, what you're doing, whether you're owning a business, you're in leadership or you're in sales and, and you're in the role that you're in. If you lose sight of the why behind it, then you just get caught up in the cycle and then you start to just work to achieve your goals. But then that just becomes an endless cycle, is what I'm hearing from you. So what advice would you give to those out there that are going, I'm feeling burnt out. I just feel like I'm burning the candle at both ends. I feel exhausted and overwhelmed and tired. What can I do?
I always start on a foundational level of breaking down, looking at, “Okay, what are your current routines? How are you spending your days? Where's your time allocated?” And on a basic level, how are you looking after yourself? Because I find when you're really busy, the first thing that gets sacrificed is your self-care. Prioritizing sleep, eating the right foods, getting time to exercise. You'd be amazed at how just getting those in check can have such a big impact on the way that you think and feel.
From there, the next level up is then looking at, “Okay, what is draining your energy and triggering this? Is it constantly being pulled in multiple directions? Is it you've just been pushed every single day into fires and challenges?” I find for a lot of people really getting under control, they have to set the right boundaries. You need to look at, okay, what is overstepping that really having a negative impact is if you allow people to just dump stuff on your plate to just come in and get you to drop everything. You have to set the right expectations, otherwise you're never gonna get that in place.
And then the final thing is going back to what I said of reconnecting with your goals. I'll give you a perfect example. With one of the clients I was working with for about 18 months. Every three months or so we have a conversation where he would just be feeling burnt out and he'd just be like, “I dunno why I'm doing this anymore.” And the task I'd always send away to do is to figure out why he is actually doing it. Because in that period, he just gets so stuck in everything going on every single day, is just trying to push and get through it. And by taking that moment to step back and be like, okay, why do I actually need to do this? It becomes so much easier to face, because when you just have a battle and you don't know why you're facing it, it's just a slog to get through. And that's why for him and all my other clients, one thing I push them to do is every single morning start their day by getting a clear vision of what they are doing and why? What are their goals, their objectives, where are they trying to get to? Because when you start your day with that top of mind in the mornings, you don't feel motivated, you're a little bit tired, you don't really wanna push through, that can be exactly what you need to reignite that fire. It's about having something bigger than yourself or bigger than the challenge in front of you to actually get you to step into it.
That's excellent advice. So what I'm hearing from you is getting back to that “why” of your purpose, that's when you understand your why and your purpose. That's what motivates you to keep going and moving forward. There’s an exercise that I will often do in some of the very similar in the leadership trainings is we go through and it's very common exercise at seven levels of why and getting down to what, when you're looking at certain goals that you wanna achieve, well, what happens when you achieve those goals? What type of person do you get to be? What type of legacy do you get to leave behind? What kind of an impact do you get to make? And when you truly understand what that “why” is, that becomes the motivator to keep you going because it's a very fulfilling experience.
You're less focused on the task and more focused on what the overall outcome that it's gonna bring in the long run. And it also comes from one of the books. One of my favorite books actually kind of sparked me into where I'm at today, which is Simon Cenek, “Start With Your Why.”
And the thing I would add into what you just said is one of the big reasons why people also get burnt out is they figure out that big why and vision, but they spent all of their focus in the future. They keep visualizing or getting clear, I need to achieve this and this and this, and we've all been guilty of it. Where we say, once I reach that goal or that milestone or that threshold, then I'll take some time off. I'll spend more time with my family, whatever it is. But the issue is you're never gonna get to where you wanna be because as soon as you get close, that goal line's gonna move. And that's why you have to learn and learn to balance your big goals and ambitions with pulling into the moment and allowing yourself to slow down.
The amount of conversations I have with clients where the guidance I have to give them is you have to take the foot off the accelerator. Look, it's great, I'm not telling you to lower your ambitions or your expectations for yourself, but you have to give, cut yourself a little bit of slack and be like, when you slow down, that's when you can really figure out what's going on. You can get clarity and awareness, and that's gonna propel you forward. If you're just in that, go, go, go mental. that's when you reactive, you make bad decisions. You really don't perform at your best, so you have to have that awareness of what you're doing and how it's impacting you on a deeper level.
Taking a Moment to Pause
The best ideas come from those moments when we take pauses and you think about the majority of our days, we are either attached to a computer, we're on our phone, we are engaging with people in conversations. Very rarely do we take the time to just sit in silence. Now, I've never been one to meditate. That's not necessarily like the personality, I kind of struggle with it, but even just the moment of silence for 10 minutes and giving yourself that time to pause, that's when the ideas come flowing. I always laugh because my best ideas come when I'm taking a shower because there's no distraction from the phone. No distraction of anybody else besides my kids knocking on the door saying, you know, let us in. They're five, so they're young. It's like if we constantly are going, go, go, go, and we don't take the moment to just be in the moment, we're gonna be reactive versus proactive. When we take the time to be in those moments of pause, that's when the creativity and the innovation comes forward.
I couldn't agree with you more. And it's the same as when you see big corporations, they set up meetings and stuff where they wanna focus on innovation. And when you put people in a room and you try to force out ideas, it very rarely happens. If you look at some of the greatest leaders of our time, and you look at their habits and behaviors, they all schedule time to go get fresh air, to go for a walk. If I use myself as an example, as an author for years after my first book, I really wanna try the next legacy book. Because my two books after that were focused on business and lead generation, and I wanted to do a book that was really pushing myself, my business to the next level, and I just couldn't think of it.
I had so many ideas, none of them I was really happy with and I kept trying to force it out. And eventually I got to the point where I was like, we're just gonna go on holiday. I'm gonna turn my phone off and take a break. Three days into it, I was lying at the pool, just relaxing and it just came into my head. I was like, that is it. Like I couldn't write it down fast enough. I had no power with me. I was just scribbling it. I came home a few days later, reached out to some people I knew. They put me in touch with the publisher. I pitched it to them, and a few weeks later I had a publishing deal for the book. I was just like, for years I've been trying to force myself to come to that idea, and it was only when I stepped back and walked away there came to me. And that's why for me, it's a non-negotiable every single day. At lunchtime, I take a 20-minute walk. I'm really fortunate where we live, there's a nice river, it's really quiet. I leave my phone behind and it's just a little bit of a break to disconnect.
I can relate to what you just said, I've been in the mix of writing a book, and I've been on the very tail end of it. And I was meeting with my developmental editor and she could tell I was frustrated, I was exhausted. I'm like, I have been working on this thing for six months and I'm right at the end, but I've just got some more edits to make. And so we took a step back. I enjoy the holidays. I took two weeks off of work. I stepped away from the book and got some just time to enjoy the moments with family and friends and eat a lot of delicious holiday food. And then when I came back, all of a sudden I said, “Oh my gosh, I have another chapter, and here's the idea,” and it kept flowing. It’s actually gonna be one of the core chapters in the book, but it's because I took that moment to step back, and Stephen King does the same thing he says when he was writing his book, he will always, before he goes to the final stages, he'll step away for 30 days and then revisit it with a fresh perspective, fresh mindset, and a more relaxed approach.
Like I love that. Your biggest breakthroughs come when you allow yourself to slow down. When you're stressed and you're in the moment, you're just not gonna be able to think of it properly.
I know that you absolutely love this. I'll share this. An example, truth be told, coming to the end of 2022, I was feeling a little bit burnt out. We'd been pushing with this book, everything else going on, it was absolutely hectic. And I knew coming into 2023, I had to be at my best. So I did something that I've never done before. I booked a trip to Cancun and I committed to leaving my phone at home. So I went 17 days without email, social media or any access to technology. My partner was with me, so we stored her phone if there were emergencies and needed to contact home or anything. But yeah, I just took a complete digital detox and I spoke to a lot of people about it. They're like, “Oh, it's amazing. I'd love to do it.” And they, “But like, how did you do it? Was it not uncomfortable?” And it, yes, it was for the first 12 hours and then it all settled in, it was amazing. For me, my headspace is always going up all over the place with work related issues and for the first time in eight years, I actually switched off and I just throughout the day think, oh, I haven't thought about work for a few hours, and I stopped worrying about problems and I was actually present in the moment. I was there with my partner. I was engaged in conversations. I was just feeling more of life. And that's become my new non-negotiable now. The phone is off anytime we go somewhere even if it's just for dinner or if we go on a weekend break or a night away, not just extended holidays and like something I really advise everyone to do.
Because we were talking about this before we started recording it, the social media world. And you always switched on and you always pulled into it. I think we really need to take that step back because you don't realize the impact it's having on your body on a physiological level. Like whenever you're going in there and you're scrolling and you're thinking at work and email, all of that impacts your cortisol levels, your stress levels, and everything else, which has a long-term impact on your mental health, your head space, and how you feel on a day-to-day basis.
There's actually a lot of research, and you've mentioned to it, the research that goes into stress. The stress levels increase when we are burnt out, but there's research that also shows the addictive behaviors around cell phones and devices and social media. And there are a lot of benefits of social media.
Obviously, you know, I'm on social media all the time, because of my business, but it's during specific times during the day and people will often ask, “Well, I feel like you never answer your phone in the evenings.” And I said, and you're right, most of the time don't because between the hours of 4:30 and 7:30, my attention is focused on my kids, and I find that just like you, what you were saying when you went to Cancun is leaving the phone behind. I leave my phone in the other room. So I'm not tempted to grab it when a text message goes off or anything along those lines. I am focused in the moment with my family. And when I was working in corporate, people would say, “Well, isn't it annoying carrying two phones?” No, because my work phone stayed in my office, after hours and on the weekends. It didn't need to be with me all the time. I mean I wasn't an ER surgeon, so I wanna be mindful since there are some jobs where you have to, but taking the time to disconnect can really have lasting effects on our emotional, mental wellbeing and preventing burnout.
I absolutely love that. I do the same thing. I put two phones and on my personal phone, I don't have any email or social media. Because I find one of the biggest pitfalls that people really fall into, it's the first thing they do in the morning is they pick up their phone and they check their email or social media and there's never anything good there.
When you go into email, it's always problems, it's challenges, it's tasks that need your attention. And when you start your day already reacting and firefighting mentally, you're just setting yourself up for a day of overwhelm. Because if you're already in that high stress state, it compounds, and the way I always describe it in my own content is you manage it as like a gas canister. You start your days, look at email being reactive. Then you have that difficult meeting, that challenging conversation you have. All of these things get done and it just builds up inside until there's no space left, the pressure's too much and it explodes. And this is often why you might be going about your day and something happens and you just get completely triggered. You get emotional, you lose your temper, you get angry, and then later on you're like, I don't even know why that got.
The reason why it happened is everything else compounded and it pushed you to a point where you were thrown over the edge. And this is why I'm such a big believer, you need to start your day focusing on you, and then you need to take regular periods throughout the day to recalibrate. Where you allow yourself to slow down, you stop, you breathe, you go for a walk, you reset your intention. That's how you really keep under control because I know for a lot of people in corporate, they can't just go for a walk every time they get stressed. But you can take 60 seconds between tasks just to slow down and breathe, just to allow yourself just to calm down, ease, and then figure out, okay, what's next? Stop just rushing everywhere and you'll feel a lot more in control.
Be Intentional to Yourself
What I'm hearing from you is being intentional, and being intentional not only about the, the first part of your morning, being intentional about recalibrating throughout the day, and I also wanna add to the end of the day as well, so, I often say protect your first and last hour of your day.
The first hour of your day is setting the intention of the day. So as you're saying, if you're waking up in the morning and you're looking at your phone and you're looking at all the must-dos, the challenges that are going on that you need to address, it can be very, oh, you're starting your day with overwhelm. You're starting your day of thinking of all the different tasks that you need to do, instead of giving that first hour to wake up, to enjoy your morning cup of coffee, to go for a brisk 15-minute walk, to say good morning to your significant other and your kids and your family or friends, whatever that is.
The same applies for the evening. Often people will lay in bed and they'll be on their phone, and then all of a sudden an hour goes by and they're going, “Well, why am I not tired?” Or “Why do I feel more anxious in the evening?” Well, it's because you're reading news articles that are talking about all the problems that are going on in the world or you're getting on social media, all of this stuff that's coming up on social media, and then you're restless that night because you fall asleep with anxiety or fear of uncertainty because of what we're seeing on our phones, and that's not creating healthy sleep cycles as well.
Ultimately, everything you just described comes down to setting the right boundaries, not just with other people but with yourself. Because we're our own worst enemies here through all habits. We just pick up our phone and start scrolling without even thinking about it.
And that's why I love what you described before where people can't contact you between half four and half seven, but you with the kids, like that's the case of you need to figure out, okay, what is draining my mental bandwidth and energy, and how do I put a boundary in place to stop it from happening? Which in your situation is leave the phone in the other room, you have to remove the triggers. And this is why it's so important to just do a life audit. Really figure out, “Okay, what is draining my energy? Where am I stressed and getting triggered?” And just break it down. And then look at, okay, what healthy habits and behaviors do I need to implement? And then you have to push yourself to follow through with it. And this is where, going back to my example of me leave not accessing my phone for 17 days, I left it behind because I knew if I took it, even though I've like, this is how I do for a living, it's like that high performance focus, I know there's gonna be that temptation just to check it. Like, “Ah, let me just look at nothing's wrong and needs my attention.” So it's like, I'm just gonna make sure I can't do it. And when you put that barrier up, it makes life so much simpler. So if people take one thing away from this, it's just really figuring out how do you not be your own worst enemy here? Because it's often the expectations and standards we're trying to hold ourselves to that are setting us up for failure.
We can relate to entrepreneurs. Being entrepreneurs, it's a lot of your business is related to you being there in the moment. But when I was leading my team, I would encourage them, do not bring your computer with you when you go on vacation. There are so many resources, either your manager or people on your team that can support your customers and your clients while you're gone so that you can truly disconnect. I often would receive emails from people on my team while they're on vacation and I respond back saying, stop emailing. Go enjoy the beach. You know, and we got it covered. But if you put those resources in place before you go, then you can truly disconnect. And it's so important that we do.
That goes back to being intentional though, and I did a post on this after my trip where I took the time off sharing the way that I was able to do it. I knew, “Okay, I'm gonna take this period off where I'm gonna be unavailable, what needs to happen for me to be able to do that?” So three to four weeks out, I communicate to clients saying, “I'm gonna be away. So anything you need in this period, let's make sure you're set up so you can do whatever you need to without me there.” I also then looked at, okay, what tasks do I need up and running? So I don't need to handle it. So I scheduled all my content from the 9th of December until the 2nd of January. All of my emails, I made sure everything that needed my intention was set up. And then the final thing that I did going into the final two weeks was I was planning my days with the objective of what do I need to get done by next Friday to be able to switch off and step away?
Because a lot of people, they just try and ram things in and they're rushing around. Whereas you, if you guide your focus by really thinking out, okay, what do I need to get done? That's gonna make sure that you're prioritizing the right things. And this advice I give to clients as well, if they're struggling with work-life balance or they want time off with their family, go into your day ready, prioritizing, okay, what do I need to be able to get done by the end of the day? So you're not looking at the clock at 10 to five and just having this endless to-do list and feeling, I still need to work more hours tonight to catch up. Because it's often a lack of prioritization and focus in the right place that's causing those issues.
This is something that I can hundred percent contest to when you're talking about intention. Every single morning, I look up, I've actually got my count, and every single morning I say, “Okay, what are the top three priority tasks that I've got to take care of?” Gotta be done by the end of the day. And then at the end of the day, I think of what are the top three things that I get to complete the next day? And if there's things that come up in the interim, I can maybe go, okay, well maybe I don't need to get that done today. I'm gonna prioritize that for a different day. But as I think of anything that's coming out of this discussion today, be intentional. Be intentional in putting systems in place, pet setting boundaries in place so that you are able to prevent burnout.
The one thing that I'm hearing from you, and this is what I pretty much know that you're doing is the reason why you're able to do that is you're slowing down. Because when you get derailed, cause we all do, you can have the best plan in the world when something can come up. The reason why you can move it to the next day or another period is because you allow yourself to stop and think, okay, this has happened, this is what's going on. How do I then readjust or prioritize elsewhere?
Whereas most people don't do that. They just get overwhelmed. And one thing I talk about a lot with clients is 99% of the time when someone tells me they're overwhelmed, it's because they're under planned. And the amount of conversations I've had with someone coming in and I've got so many things to do. I've got all of these things going on, and the advice I give people is the simplest: get a pen and paper and write down everything you need to do by actually putting it down in front of you, you can consciously disconnect it. And then you can look and be like, okay, these are the seven things I need to get done. Work through it one by one, what do I need? What action do I need to take? What support do I need? How do I need to fix this? And you'll just have a game plan there. That seems manageable, but when you have seven different ideas racing through your head, you can't make sense of it. And you're, that's why your scattered all over the place. And people think when they're really busy and overwhelmed, they can't slow down and plan. But that's when you need to do it the most. And this is something I've seen from corporate level to CEOs and business executives across the board. This is not a challenge just for one group. We all have this tendency, and that's why it goes back to that awareness and intention and just allowing yourself to figure out what's going on.
Set that time aside to write down specifically what are the tasks to do and drag them into your calendar as well. Because a lot of times I will see people that will write down, this is the list of things that I need to do, or I will say, get to do, cause need puts pressure on us, get to is something to look forward to.
These are all the tasks that I get to do. If we're not carving out the time on our calendar to complete the task, then those to-dos are just piling up and piling up and piling up, piling up, and all of a sudden we have a list of 50 things that we get to do, but not enough time to do it. And so as you're saying, it's looking at prioritizing it, really focusing on what's most important. And to add to that is scheduling the time on your calendar to, to complete that task.
The one thing I would throw into that as well, and very few people think about this and what, what really gives people an edge when it comes to high performance is also factoring what your energy needs to be. Because a lot of people just look at their day and they're like, oh, I've got time now, work on that report then. But let's say you have a big intense meeting, you know it's gonna be a big, deep conversation. And then directly afterwards you've blocked into your calendar that you need to do some deep work.
Looking at facts and numbers and figures. You're not gonna do. You're gonna get, then you're gonna be unfocused and all over the place or something that could take you 20 minutes is gonna take two hours. And this is why I always encourage people when you're planning and scheduling, you need to know when you're in a state of flow, when do you perform at your best and when do you feel most energized? And you need to structure your days around that. That's how you get more out of your time. And it's also how you prevent yourself burning out. You just keep trying to push through tasks that are really high in bandwidth. When you're exhausted, it's just gonna make things worse. And this is why you really have to take that step back and be like, when am I likely to be able to perform this at my best? And how do I structure things based on my energy. That's how you really actually get this under control as well.
