14. An Essential Intervention with Robert Glazer

Speakers

Greg McKeown, Robert Glazer 

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Transcript

Greg McKeown    

Okay, so here we go, we’ll be official now, as official as I get. It’s a pleasure to have you on the Essentialism podcast. In my mind, among many other things, you’re like, Mr. Elevate. Book, by that title, Push Beyond Your Limits. The great podcast, the Elevate podcast, people should check out. Let’s just start off with a question. Why does elevate that principle, that word, why does it matter so much to you?  

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, I think look, a lot of these things are personal and I think elevate or the notion of building capacity or making sure that you know, we are doing what we are able to do, the best we can do is something I probably feel like I did not do for a long time. And for some reason, so that’s been part of my journey. And what I’ve enjoyed in building a company and leadership is watching people sort of build their capacity and elevate and rise and I think there’s different things that they need to do that and learning, and stories, and I try to bring those to them so that everyone can do a little bit better. 

Greg McKeown   

Well, being the Essentialism podcast, I should just go down a certain avenue with you, but before I do, are you willing to be a little vulnerable with us today?  

Robert Glazer   

Sure, yeah.  

Greg McKeown   

You’re game for that? 

Robert Glazer   

I’m game.  

Greg McKeown   

So here’s the question, right. The core question is, just tell me something in your life right now, that is highly important. It could be in your business, or personal doesn’t matter, but it’s highly important. Very important. It’s essential. But you if you’re honest underinvesting in it currently. And I just want your first thought to that question. First answer. 

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, and there’s an irony in this, but I think it is, I would call my physical capacity. I think, in trying to do a lot in the last couple months, and I have definitely, you know, tired not eating as well. I’ve let up on some of the routines, and it’s common, but it’s not where I want it to be. And it’s not where I needed to be. I’ve been exhausting myself in the last three to six months. 

Greg McKeown   

You have been so singularly focused on delivering, you know, a product, project, keeping things going, of course. In these unusual times, these unexpected times where everybody has lost something, that one of the things that has given one of the tradeoffs you’ve made not so intentionally, is what you just described physical capacity. And you gave some examples of that. Tell me why does this matter so much? You know, I said something that’s highly important. It’s essential to you, and you chose this area, why does it matter? Let’s just dig on that for a moment. 

Robert Glazer   

Actually, health and vitality is one of my core values. It’s one of my five. Yeah, so it is important to me and because it’s tricky, it’s like we just know it. But we always think that we can put it aside for a couple days and then that turns into weeks and you know, it’s very momentum oriented. So it becomes a very vicarious or a vicious cycle. And I think I’ve gotten into more of the vicious cycle of, I’m going to try go for a long, long run after this call, but 

Greg McKeown   

You’re not looking forward to that run.  

Robert Glazer   

I actually don’t enjoy running but I feel so good after running that I’m very conscious that I need to like, distract myself to run. So I, I’ll be very happy that I ran but I’m never looking forward to running. 

Greg McKeown   

What you’ve told me is a couple of things. One, you’ve said, it matters. I’ve stated that it matters. It’s in my stated values where I have been really thoughtful and identifying what really matters most to me, it’s there.  

Robert Glazer   

Yeah. 

Greg McKeown   

There are times when you live it, there’s the momentum and you’re doing it and you feel in alignment with that. But right now, you’re not, not sufficiently and you’re saying it matters of course because, well, I suppose what you’ve said is that it matters because it’s one of your values and you want to be congruent to that but, but just go a bit deeper. I mean, why does being congruent to your values matter so much to you? 

Robert Glazer   

It doesn’t feel good when you’re out of alignment. So I think that’s what I was gonna say even before that, I think you, you’re in a place that doesn’t it like it’s that electric fence. So I know it when I feel it and it’s not filling my bucket. I know the difference that I feel when I’m in the opposite direction. But this is where you know, they fight each other. So there’s, there’s I you know, I have had a couple opportunities to do some new things that really made things better these days that created a lot more stress and on my health, so sometimes your value In this way, it’s helpful to have hierarchical, but sometimes they fight each other a little bit. And you’ve got to choose in that in the short term. 

Greg McKeown   

I just had BJ Fogg on the podcast. And he talked about the tension that exists between two things that you want. And it’s not just I value this, the end. It’s I value this, but I also value this, and this tension between them and these tradeoffs involved in them. And so, it’s really in that wrestle. That real prioritization happens. It’s not just the stated list, that’s a great exercise, it’s highly important to be able to point to it to come back to it. But in the end, there are tradeoffs involved. And so what you’ve said Is it feels really not good to be out of alignment. It feels great to be in alignment and there’s a positive cycle that follows from it. Let me go one more time. Like why does it matter so much to be this comfort, and uncomfortable is it just that is it is it as simple as that want to feel good versus not feeling good. Give me one more level of why does it matter? 

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, I think I want to feel better. I know how I want to feel. But I also understand that I think in the bigger picture, like how important that is, right? Because I, I can get caught up in the opportunity of this week, but I also don’t want to drop dead of a heart attack, you know, next year and abandon my children.  So, I very much understand the implications of like, ignoring, you know, in that one ignoring that for a long period of time, and I you know, I had a pretty massive panic attack now almost, probably 12 years ago. So that’s also a pretty seared in memory for me. 

Greg McKeown   

Hmm, well, we just got somewhere right, that definitely was a level deeper than just hey, you feel good or you don’t feel good. You’re in alignment, or you’re not in alignment.  Now you’ve tapped a few deeper parts of well, a 12 years ago panic attack. Tell me just a little more about that. 

Robert Glazer   

There are three things that are stressful and probably doing them in the same year is not a great idea. So having a child, starting a business, building a house and then living with your parents while you’re doing that. My grandmother had actually just passed away too and I yeah, I was tired. You know, having an extra cup of coffee in the morning glass of wine at night. Just burning the candle at both ends. And I just one day I started to have sort of shortness of breath and tingling and I was actually talking about this in the book, Elevate. I was in my kitchen and another one of my core values, self-reliance. So I’m the person who drives themselves home from the hospital after surgery. Like I do not want someone doing something for me if I can do it myself, I don’t like to ask and, and so I call my wife I said, you gotta come home, I don’t feel good. And so just like, for her that’s like a big alarm just if you knew me and her normally is fine, and I’ll deal with it.   

Greg McKeown   

Yeah, when she heard that she knew this was a big deal.  

Robert Glazer   

Yeah. And I just I couldn’t catch my breath. I was in my kitchen. My son was there. We had a babysitter at six months old, and I collapsed. And I looked at him and I thought that was the last time I was ever going to see him. 

Greg McKeown   

In that moment did you have the awareness to like, feel something about that moment, or did it happen so quickly that it’s just now looking back you try and    

Robert Glazer   

The thought in my head was, I cannot believe that this is how I’m going to die. 

Greg McKeown   

Why was that the thought? What was it about that moment that was so like, disappointing? 

Robert Glazer   

I think a lot of it was him and he was there and that, I don’t know what I thought through just   he would know that story that would be you know, I just I think it brought the family aspect of it just very, very, very real to me. And yeah, so I mean, I fully thought it was a heart attack and I was an ambulance and turns out I was just very low on magnesium, which would cause my heart to spike and a lot of stress. I feel like I got out of jail free card and a lot of people don’t get one of those. So I shouldn’t assume I’m going to get two.  

Greg McKeown   

You got a full second chance, not just an encore, like a full second chance to do this, a full second act to do it. But in that moment, let me just come back to that, because I’m sort of trying to visualize this. You’ve collapsed, your six-month-old son is there, and there’s this moment as you describe it. I can’t believe this is how it goes.  

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, I think there’s this duality of sort of missing out like letting him and my family now as a father but also that I you know, I just I had a lot more to do and Yes, and , you know, tying it back to elevate and all that stuff. I think there’s a lingering thing there too that that I wasn’t done. 

Greg McKeown   

That’s the phrase, I’m not done. No, please do not want to be done here.  I’ve just barely started with my son with my family. I don’t want to be done here and I haven’t done in the public arena either. There’s work I want to do in both places. There’s more mission left. I do not want this to be the end. That’s the sensation and feeling in that moment. 

Robert Glazer   

Yes. 

Greg McKeown   

So having got down into some of the deeper why of the physicality because that, to me that story, that idea is a complete shift of perspective. Suddenly, it’s not just yeah, we’re going for a run makes you feel good. That’s fine. Motivation to get out and run in a day. But it’s, it’s more serious than that for you. You’re saying, look, if I don’t get the right balance, if I don’t get the right dynamic equilibrium between these different values really, then however much I put into one or two of them, I may lose all of them. 

Robert Glazer    

Yeah, I can’t, you know, I that may stop me from making the contribution that I want to make. 

Greg McKeown   

In that moment, you say, you change water afterwards. So you get this chance back. You weren’t dying. On the surface a pretty easy fix, but you discover underneath, I’ve got to approach this differently because otherwise I could end up being here, you know, more often than I mean to be here and it could lead to something bigger and more serious. So you decide to make a change and elevate sounds like the whole approach of elevate of developing the capacities’ mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, these capacities. In a sense, crystallizes and grows out of this experience that you have got to develop in all these areas, to make sure that I’m actually at my peak performance, that I can elevate my overall contribution to the world. I want to teach other people to do the same. Assuming that I’ve got that about right, help me to understand now, like, what does success look like for you? You know, what would you need to change? And I don’t mean to get it perfect. I don’t mean to suddenly make physical the whole thing because that also would have costs that don’t feel optimal to you. So what does success look like physically, for you from where you are? 

Robert Glazer    

I think it’s a function of energy level feeling, just, you know, stress being down, kind of at a green light across dimensions rather than a, I think I’m good at staying out of the red light, but probably, some of the gauges tend to push, yellow. A lot of these things are fulfilling. So you sleep well, you sleep well. You know, you get into these cycles. I mean, when COVID started it, you know, I mean, I was just waking up at three o’clock every night like it was just like someone had set an alarm and until I could break out of that, I don’t know, my body just got used to that for some reason every night at three o’clock, so my brain slowed down a little bit. It’s easier to meditate. I think all of those things that just a more sustainable level of sort of physical capacity. And there’s some and there’s some unique factors that are just going on right now. Right a lot of our communication is phone or zoom, you know, we’re not getting the sort of some of that in person communication which tends to relieve some of our stress. You know, there’s a lot of external things and other people worrying and so I think there’s some environmental things now that someone on my team said to me last month, my emotional ATM is over withdrawn by other people after the last three months. And I thought it was it was a really good analogy. 

Greg McKeown     

I feel like this is a sort of a twist on the whole idea of elevation, but I feel like sometimes we’re hiking at very high elevation right now. So the air is thin. 

Robert Glazer     

I think the air is thin for everyone.  One of the interesting things about capacity and the way I described that frame a little like a computer processor, right? So if you get a faster processor, it does what it needs to do, the less energy, it’s not just doing more. And so that’s, I think, the magic, if you get a little bit in flow and get these things in balance, where the same things, I mean, generally I try to align around, you know, the whole notion of aligning around these capacity, spiritual capacity and focusing on the things that align to your values is that those are the things that actually tend to feed your energy and stress you less.  

Greg McKeown   

Yeah, you’re saying that that this balance this ecosystem of all these different pieces, if you can get it back in, into the equilibrium that it starts to self-propel, things start working better. And so, you’re saying, even the right, one or two tweaks could make a big difference in feeling just overall in all areas of life suddenly a lot better. That’s what you’re describing. 

Robert Glazer    

Yeah. And I know you talk a lot about sleep in your book. And you know, when you just even have a good night of sleep, you think about it. You’re learning faster, you’re more patient with other people. Yeah, you know, those days, you know, we’re like, everyone really bothered me today. Maybe it wasn’t everyone. Maybe you’re the problem.  

Greg McKeown     

That’s one of the tests of exhaustion is that is that every request becomes irritating. That that no matter who it is, and no matter what it is, you start to feel a little resentful. What is the reasonable, realistic, even easy tweak that could be made in this reality, so not pretending that somehow you can put aside these deadlines and put aside these committees? And that you still align with your values, you’re still committed to them, you still want to do them, but in a way that that adjusts and, and really trying to identify as possible the one most needful thing? 

Robert Glazer    

I’ll tell you what I figured out and I saw this from my neighbor. And the people I talked to zoom fatigue is a real thing, right? And I think we’ve replaced all these in person meeting with zoom calls. Well, we’re a virtual company so we were already doing zoom calls and I think there’s like a natural limit to like three or four hours of these a day before your eyes are tired and so what I what I’ve actually done the opposite. So normally, because we’re virtual, we do everything on video. I’ve said to a lot of internal calls or thing where I know that people or I didn’t think it was important. Hey, I’m gonna switch this to myself the call me on the cell and I go off for an hour I talked to them. And right there, I’ve accomplished like three things, kind of in one. So, I’ve actually been trying to switch some stuff off video and just get outside and go for a walk. And then suddenly I’ve walked 8000 steps, when we have that call, and I don’t I don’t have the same. And I think that is actually a lot of the source of the stresses some of the stuff I’ve been doing recently and just have to just involve needing to be in front of the computer, seven hours a day, and if that is just, it is naturally exhausting. 

Greg McKeown   

It’s absolutely true. And in zoom meetings to me, they fulfilled an important function, but they’re not a total like normal meetings. And, and while we’ve pretended, they are, because that’s one of the best next things we could jump to fast that you know, they’re not what we normally do, you don’t normally sit in a meeting where everyone’s staring into each other’s eyes. If you did that, it would be a very strange meeting, and you would feel exhausted afterwards. 

Robert Glazer    

You can’t daydream, or look around the room, or yeah. 

Greg McKeown  

No, it’s only as people are getting a bit more comfortable that they get more comfortable that I can stand up and walk around, I can go grab a drink, it’s okay. You know, people are getting these new social norms, but certainly at first, you are staring at the screen, you are staring at a camera, you, you feel like you are on it in a way that in a normal meeting you could be a little more relaxed about. And so I agree that this is adding tension to just the mental strain in a variety of ways. Okay, so you’re saying that’s helped. That’s something you can continue to do. What I want to do beyond that is identify one thing that you’re not doing that you think, look, if I was doing this, I think it would reduce my stress, and it would increase my energy to the to a standard that I say, well, it’s not perfect, but it’s good under these circumstances. And I feel really satisfied with that, given what I’m trying to do. 

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, and the answer there is I need to honor that I usually do schedule in breaks and I want that sort of cadence and I need to, you know, honor that when things get tight. You know, I tend to give away the breaks or someone just needed something for 15 minutes. Oh, so call me that I and I guess that is the difference when I’m when I’m religiously protect that time that there’s probably a outcome but during times of a book launch or otherwise or when, you know, do you have the urgent important quadrant is over indexed? I think those can be the first things that I give away, and they’re there for a reason, so I need to use them. 

Greg McKeown   

Yes, and so it’s just the easiest thing in the world to say, well, one more unit of work will be one more unit of productivity. And of course, that’s true to a point, but then we get to the point of diminishing returns where you’re getting a little less for every unit you put in. And then of course, there’s a point where you can get negative returns. Where actually for every additional unit you put in, you get less than overall. So, you’re actually getting hit, like a real fool’s bargain past a certain point of return. So tell me like, really concretely, what would that look like for you that this week? What would an achievable set of brakes look like?  

Robert Glazer  

Yeah there’s something called the, it’s like the Pomodoro. Something there’s a study I’ve seen that that was actually part of, and I do try to work closely around that like an hour or two and then you know, a 20-minute break or something that you get outside and need that. I agree strongly with that. 

Greg McKeown  

So how can we just build this into your routine in the next week, realistically? I mean, first of all, does it feel realistic to do go you know, as soon as we’re done with this conversation, I’m out.   

Robert Glazer  

Yes, look, I just need to I need to go back to one of my essential rules that I’ve that I’ve gotten away from so I’ve broken it, which is what when my schedule gets crowded, working my system, it’s one in one out rule, not a one plus rule. So, you know, if something is that origin that it needs to come in, then it needs to actually displace something else not be added on top. 

Greg McKeown   

So okay, so that that feels like a different kind of tactic. At the end that isn’t about taking breaks. You’re just saying I think probably been just taking on too much.     

Robert Glazer   

Well, I tied it together because I think I have the breaks. But they’ve become the time that gets given for the end. So I need to honor the breaks, they’re actually in my calendar, I need to freeze them. And then and then and then declare that anything new that comes in my you know, can be removed from something during the other time if it’s more important. 

Greg McKeown   

It makes perfect sense what you’re saying. Now you’re saying that you have these buffer schedules built into your routine, they’re actually on your calendar. But what you’re using them for instead is you still stay at the desk. You do the next thing, the next request, whatever the last emails been.  

Robert Glazer   

Yes. 

Greg McKeown   

Yes, and so your commitment is I’m putting words in your mouth, but your commitment is to physically get up from the desk when that break comes on the calendar that you are going to physically get up, walk out, be with the family, go outside, whatever, whatever the activity is that you just think will relax. Go take a nap, a little power nap. 

Robert Glazer   

Actually, I’ve been doing a lot. I’ve been good at the power naps. I sometimes I start to meditate and turns into a power nap, but I get the same value out of that. And I have no shame. no shame in napping. 

Greg McKeown    

I love this. I feel like we got to something. It’s as is often the case. It’s not about something that’s brand new. It’s what we just have identified as a specific behavior change for this week is already on your calendar. It’s not new at all. Certainly not intellectually, but there’s a tendency in our lives and I think COVID has actually tolerated this tendency to allow email activity, particularly work activity to creep. And it starts to take over the tentacle like every aspect of us and just keeps us more and more chained to the desk, more and more chained to the phone, more and more chained to the latest update. And, and what we’re doing in this conversation as we go through this process is taking your life back. 

Robert Glazer  

Yeah, this is great. I’ve asked you a question because it ties to a comment I’ve said before that I’ve thought about with a woman who said you know; my emotional ATM is sort of over withdrawn. How to, you know, in a time where people are struggling, tensions are high, emotional needs are high. I see a lot of people struggling with like kind of deciding between themselves and their emotional bank is over withdrawn, but they feel like they want to help, and that other person needs help. I see people struggling with figuring out that sort of boundary of like, hey look I know these people need help on my team but I’m exhausted and I’m so stressed about this stuff who comes first in that equation?  

Greg McKeown    

I see there being three concentric circles that help us to prioritize. The non-essential list goes from the outside in. So the outside circle is all the stuff out there. That could be very worthy projects, but they could also be just other stuff out there, email is full of stuff from out there. The news feed is out there, the social media is out there tons of stuff that’s going on out there.   The second ring is you come in inwards is your most important relationships, most important relationships at home most important relationships at work. So relationship is the is the middle thing as a non-essential list comes inwards. The problem is you can never drain the ocean of out there. So, drink all day long. If I spend another hour, if I sleep an hour less if, then I’ll get to the end of your to do list, to the end of all the things anyone could expect of you to the this never ends. So what it means is that by the time you get to your most important relationships, there’s not much of you left, so you’re already tired, fatigued or even burned out. And so what’s the quality of that interaction? How’s it going to go work? Go very well, it’s A bit more tense, there’s less time available. When you’re actually with people you’re not very emotionally present, there’s not much energy in you to be able to give to them. And then of course, as you move into the third final inner circle, that’s you that’s protecting the asset, the asset that is you and so, what’s left there is almost nothing at all. So you essentially starts with protecting the asset. That’s why sleep must be protected, and you keep on reinvesting in it. And if you yeah, what you just described, I think lots of people will relate to that that feeling of somewhat panic or some disruption through COVID, and they’re waking up in the middle of the night or early or that somehow their sleep has been disrupted. And so, you’re not going to solve that in one day. But to take steps to prioritize it and protect it not because you’re being selfish, it but because you want to be able to contribute to your relationships and to the projects out there. The difference is huge. When you get enough energy within you protect the asset first, you restore the asset first, then you’re showing up to your most important relationships, differently because you’re not so burned out with them. So therefore, you can have better conversations, prioritize better with them, be more honest, be more open, because you’re, you’re coming in yourself a more energized state. And therefore, in the end, you can end up with a high contribution out there as well. And that’s sort of the value proposition in some ways of essentialism as a whole. So that to me, would be my answer to, to the conundrum you find yourself in but also this person you’re describing, as having said, look at how do I wrestle? Yes, you want to contribute or the order. 

Robert Glazer  

I was gonna say the difference, I think, for COVID, which it makes it harder, but it’s the exact same process is that I think sometimes there are these like squirrely distractions, right. Things that we shouldn’t be doing aren’t important or otherwise, I think, you know, now, for a lot of people, it’s been a lot of fires, right? It’s been a lot of things that are harder to turn down in a way. Because, you know, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of need. And I think that’s probably just made it even harder for people to be in an essentialist. Some things are easy to say no to right. Hey, do you want to speak at this thing or otherwise or, but you know, when someone’s really struggling on their team or hurting on their team and needs their help, that’s a much harder thing to say no to out of hand.  

Greg McKeown    

Yes. I mean, what you’re saying is absolutely right, that that in these uncertain, ambiguous intense times, the it’s harder to discern what to do what not to do, which of course is exactly why it’s in fact, a higher priority now more than ever to get the rest to get that we you know, that selfcare. Something that I’ve just done in our family is we’ve actually started I haven’t done it yet myself, to be honest. Ironically, I’ve been helping everybody else with it. A checklist for every day self-care items, just literally a checklist, okay, go take, take a bath, go for a walk, do exercise. And it’s literally a checklist of things. So for our children, you know, we’re with that before they look at any screens, they have a quite a long list of things to do. But it means that there’s we never slip beyond a certain minimum standard of self-care of health of overall, you know, internal, mental, physical, spiritual capacity. 

Robert Glazer   

I think that’s a great lens of saying, you can help all the people you want today as long as long as you’ve done your own self-help checklist. It’s kind of the same discussion, I would have my 11-year-old like once you’re done with your checklist and I don’t care how you spend your, how you spend your time. So I think that’s a really good framework for people who find that there are a lot of people who really do need their help. 

Greg McKeown   

Well we, I finally we’ve gone through a whole cycle there. And how do you give us the final word on this give us your final thoughts about what we’ve talked about and what you think you can do or people listening can do this to elevate in the times that we’re in? 

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, I think it’s you know the process I’ve found really helpful and obviously, you know, it’s like any coach needs a coach because it’s easier to help other people with it than yourself, but is this constant recalibration, and making sure that you’re, you know, looking at what you have to do thinking about your values when you’re doing those to do lists. And quarterly I, you know, when I’m doing my weekly, it’s like, is this the most important thing I need to do for this week for this quarter for this year? You know, how would I reprioritize that because I think is, as you are showing in that exercise, it’s sometimes we it’s the difference between knowing and doing. I said, I had built some of these systems to solve this process. A problem is just violating my own my own systems. So, I think pulling up and assessing the alignment regularly is a pretty important process.  

Greg McKeown   

What you just said, every coach needs a coach I think is it’s really profound and so true, so true. And it leads me even having said that, you’re gonna have to find a word that leads me thinking, what seems to be maybe a missing piece here is your accountability partner. Not that you never had one. But just right now we’ve had this conversation. I mean, you have accountability partners all over the place, because they’re listening to this. So you’ve, you’ve done it openly. But I wonder who, who is the person that you can now go to post this conversation and say, Okay, look, you know, this is the context. This is why I’ve been out of balance. But here’s what I’m going to do about it. I’m going to take these breaks that I already have scheduled. And I would like you to hold me accountable for that. Who can be that person for you? 

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, what I ended up doing with my assistant because she helps me hold the calendar and takes all the new stuff and tries to figure out if it’s more important than existing stuff. I will say no matter what I tell you don’t, don’t, don’t change this or move that. So it’s funny. We’ve had that discussion before. And I know that I told you I need to get in all those meetings next week. But I want you to come back to me and tell me that it absolutely violated the rules. I told you and you’re not doing it. 

Greg McKeown   

That reminds me of that scene from Harry Potter where Dumbledore has to drink from this vengeful, awful cup, this liquid and he says, look, Harry, I need you to be here. And no matter what I say, no matter how I beg you, you have got to make sure I drink every large drop of this. And I love this sort of. It’s almost like I could imagine a written contract with her, where you say, look, the contract wins over whatever my pleadings are in the moment. 

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, when I tell you to schedule over the break, do not, do not do it. 

Greg McKeown   

Do not do that. 

Robert Glazer   

Do not and spit it back to me that I told you I was too overwhelmed last week. 

Greg McKeown    

Yes, and here’s what I just want to add to that is, is the why. Now it’s not like she doesn’t know the why. 

Robert Glazer  

Yeah. 

Greg McKeown  

But maybe she doesn’t, you know, we assume people know the why. And if I just take a small circle back to the why it’s profound, you say, look, I know that there’s a lot going on I know I asked you to schedule things, but I need you to help me be true to the deeper why, which is that I really do not want to risk getting anywhere close to a line  where I entered my life before. I’ve done what I came here to do. And it’s that important to me, that I build these margins of error, this buffer into my schedule, because I want to be there for my kids, and I want to be there for the work that we’re doing. And so, this is how deep It matters that you help me stay accountable to these breaks that I’ve already identified. Does that sound weird to you to imagine having that conversation? Does it feel like something that could be helpful? 

Robert Glazer   

That sounds like it’s helpful. And yeah, I think when I agree when people understand the why, I think it takes it to a very different level. 

Greg McKeown    

It’s my observation that even where we’ve gone through a process where someone had to identify the why, even though we didn’t do this, this time, I’ve done it before where people write it down. But in fact, even after they’ve written the process out, they’ve written their way down. When they come to talk to their accountability partner, they find that they just skip the why. I think it’s because it’s a little more vulnerable. And so, they just want to get on to business. But the why is what helps people to be able to hold us accountable to a higher authority than even as in that moment. And that’s what we want is we want our accountability partners to hold us to the best and highest of our values, not to the version who’s maybe trying to wiggle their way around their values in this moment. 

Robert Glazer   

Yeah, they’re going to take their job very seriously with that sort of that sort of statement given to them. 

Greg McKeown   

Yeah, they are, aren’t they? And that’s exactly what we want. Because even though nothing you’ve said signals to me that you’re on the edge of some breakdown, whatever, then no, you’re not. That’s nothing you’ve described that way. But nevertheless, for you and for all the people listening to this. I mean, people are many people are closer to an emotional physical breakdown than they realize. The reason we say it’s a wakeup call, it’s because we’re not expecting that thing to happen. So it means at some point we were either in denial or just not awareness. Not really tuned in. And the nature of the cycle I mean that research on sleep is that is that there’s like no benefits to being sleep deprived. First of all, there is no upside. And also, when we’re sleep deprived when we’re exhausted, we’re really bad at noticing. Like that’s what the research shows that the more tired we are, the more burned out we are, the less likely we are to accurately identify it. And so, for all these reasons we need we need not just not just rules that help us once we are in burnout, but things that keep us well away from the edge. Bob Lazar, what a pleasure to have you on the Essentialism podcast it’s been great to, to explore your ideas but also doing it through your life and what’s real right now that’s a benefit for everybody listening to this who are also striving to elevate their lives in these times of great uncertainty and oddity. Thank you for being with me. 

Robert Glazer   

Thank you, Greg. And I’ll be reporting back to you on the on the progress