Eric Partaker - 3 Alarms To Transform Your Health, Wealth, And Relationships

Three alarms.

Three alarms to transform your health, your wealth, your relationship. We're going to talk to you about. You could call it some simple hacks that have a big impact, not simple results, big impacts, but from some pretty simple core ideas. Our guest today is Eric Partica. Listen in. Hi again, everyone. My name is Bill Gallagher, scaling coach, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. I'm excited to bring back another episode. We bring multiple episodes to you every week, approaching 300 this quarter that we've done with all sorts of Authors, experts, gurus, CEOs on scaling their businesses and what it takes to scale and grow successfully using the ideas of the Scaling Up Framework. So all that and more scalingcoach.com I want to welcome now Eric Partaker. Eric, you are. Where are you today?

I'm in London. I'm on the other side of the pond. Well, I'm in London for a little bit longer. In two and a half months, after living here for 17 years, we're moving to Lisbon, Portugal, so.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. I'm gonna trade the clouds for some sun.

It is a little sunnier and nice there. It's a definitely different vibe. I like both places. The last city I visited before things went screwy was. Was Lisbon, so.

Oh, really? Okay.

Yeah, I was there in March last year.

Oh, wow. Okay, cool.

On the tail end of things shutting down.

Well, you're ahead of me because I'm moving there and I've never been there in my life.

You're moving there and you haven't been there?

Never been. Never been to Lisbon. I've seen the pictures. It looks nice.

And are you moving actually to Lisbon proper or to somewhere outside the city?

Yeah, Greater Lisbon. So 20 minute drive from the city, we're going to be very close to the international school, an American international school that the littlest one is going to be going to. But I feel I'm in safe hands because my wife is Brazilian and she's Latin through and through, and we all speak Portuguese in the house, so I'm feeling all right. Yeah, yeah.

Nice. All right. Well, that's. That's half the battle right there. Portuguese is a beautiful, beautiful language.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah. So we're looking forward to it. June 20th, we head out.

Well, I'm excited. So for our listeners who don't, Eric's a past guest of the show. He's talked about performance with us before. He's a performance expert. He's a former CEO. I don't know, maybe once you're CEO, you're always a CEO. It's funny, like you could be CEO today of any size, but really like to have grown and scaled and exited companies. Part of Fortune 50 CEOs or working with Fortune 50 CEOs at McKinsey, helping to scale Skype and time at Stanford University, named CEO of the Year. Lots of other like top 30 entrepreneurs in the UK, disruptive entrepreneurs, et cetera, et cetera. He's been on TV in the Journal and the Economist, like that kind of thing. So he knows his way around the whole range, right? The boardroom to the startup garage. So he's got a new book out, Three alarms, simple system to transform your health, wealth and relationships forever. We had a great conversation last time at one of our summits and I'm glad to have you back to talk about the new book. Just a reminder folks, talk a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey and I think, you know, kind of how you got started and some of that background, a little color beyond the bullet points that I gave and then maybe we'll talk about. Well, we'll get into the life changing event for you. But let's save that for.

Yeah, okay, cool. Let's do it. So. So my entrepreneurial journey didn't start as an adult. It started, I was probably, probably the first instance was when I was, I was at school and they were doing this world's finest chocolate, you know, chocolate fundraising thing for charity. And it's one of those things where you sell, you know, a bar for like a buck fifty, I think it was. And, and we got this little manual in our classroom. I was in fifth grade, so it's like 10 years old. And I flipped to the back of it and they had a BMX bicycle if you sold like 20 boxes of chocolate and well, we weren't going to buy 20 boxes of chocolate, me and my family. So my kind of first entrepreneurial thing was standing outside. It was Dominic's, the grocery store at the time. And basically just saying, world's finest chocolate. A buck fifty to every person that came out. I think they started to feel sorry for me after, after a certain point. I did that for about a month straight and you know, a few hours a day after school, eight hours a day, Saturday, Sunday, and I managed to sell 20 boxes of chocolate and got this bicycle which, you know, was, was a real eye opener for me because I didn't realize I had never really tried to sell anything or do anything before that point. And yeah, it was exciting. And I think a few years after that I noticed some landscaping crews going around the neighborhood, they seemed to be making some good money. So I asked my parents if I could take the lawnmower around. And I was 13 then. And within short, short period of time, I was, I had what was. It was 10 notes. 13, 13 houses paying, you know, 10 bucks a week, so 130 bucks a week cash. As, as a kid just cutting grass. And so those are the first kind of seeds that were planted in my head to do things, you know, a little bit more entrepreneurially.

I think it's useful. We've had quite a few guests who can source back a childhood thing, realizing that they could, they could sell something or they could put something together or find some value, exchange opportunity. I don't just have to have a job. There's a little, there's. There's a little something that's a little more creative here for us. And then, and then that's the, that's the. What's the starter drug or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. And. And then you get hooked.

And.

And then thereafter, I got a degree in finance from University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. My first job was actually at McKinsey and Company, and that was competitively driven simply because there was a professor that was visiting University of Illinois at the time who is a visiting professor from Stanford. And I took the class simply because he was a visiting professor from Stanford. And he, during one of his presentations, organizational behavior class, and during one of his presentations, he said, now if anybody in this room gets a job at the company I'm about to profile next, I'll fall out of my chair. And that company was McKinsey and Company. And that sparked the whole competitive thing that was like chocolate bars all over again. And so I went up to him afterwards and I said, you know, I'm going to get a job at that company. I had no idea what the company was even about. And that was, you know, my, my, my first job. So ended up working in the Chicago office of McKinsey as a strategy consultant. And, and that was a real, that was a real boost for me because, you know, most of, most of the kids, you know, kids. Well, I'm 45 now, and I think back to when I was like 20, 20, 22 or whatever. It feels like I was a kid then. But, you know, most, most of the, you know, the people that landed, you know, jobs like that went to a certain type of school essentially, they didn't go to, you know, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. So for me, it was like a great equalizer to get my foot in the door There. And then, you know, shortly after that, a few years after that, I had been using Skype in its very early days given its Scandinavian roots. I'm half Norwegian, half American, so I was in the Chicago office of McKinsey and then in the Oslo, Norway office and I just kind of barged my way into Skype. You know, they weren't hiring any business people at the time and I think the first time I applied for a job, they rejected me. Three months later I applied again on Christmas day. The recruiter pointed out that I had applied on Christmas day. She thought that was a bit odd, but persistent. And at that point they were looking for somebody with business acumen and so joined Skype. And it's very early days, we were about 30 or so people helped scale that to 500 and we had that big exit to eBay for $2.6 billion.

Did we make the connection before that? Jan Talon from there was a backer of my son's project.

Yeah, yeah, no, I, we talked about Jan before and yeah, I know the Toivo and Jan and ATI and Preet and Nicholas and Giannis. Of course I worked, you know, with the founders. And then after that, after the ebay transaction, I was trying to think of what to do next and I was missing Mexican food, having grown up on it in Chicago. And so then I started what became an award winning chain of quick service Mexican restaurants restaurants in the uk and these days, you know, I work, at the moment, I work with 26 founders CEOs but taking a very holistic approach to the coaching and mentoring whereby, you know, it's not just helping them scale their business, but also scale themselves as a person and scale their leadership as well. So. And that's, that's where I am today now. Sat here in front of you in London on my way to Portugal.

That's so awesome. We may go to Portugal later this summer as the tourism stuff opens up and we can wave our vaccine cards around wildly and get reentry be mobilized.

What did you like about Lisbon? What was your number? What was your.

Well, so we were only there for a couple days. I wasn't there for very long and I think the last time I was there I was probably six or seven. So I haven't spent enough time there. But, but you know, it was just nice to be around. We, we went to an amazing Michelin starred restaurant. We stayed at a place a little bit out of the center of town on, on the water. I just like, oh, I love hanging out here and I want to go more to some of the little towns further out. So I don't know, we'll. We may go to Greece and Lisbon and maybe. I don't know if I'll go to that. Maybe two places for a little bit longer trip in. In. I think August is probably by the time I have a schedule opening to go.

Nice. That sounds exciting. It'll be nice. Nice and warm in August, that's for sure. Yeah.

And I think they're like, it's a, it's a great place to work and it's been great. We've had some client companies work there and some vendors that we've done work with there. And so it's been. There's something cool going on there. So. Yeah, cool. More time. So talk. So you're on an airplane and you have an event and it changes your life. You start to reassess a lot of things. Let's talk about the shit that didn't go well. The things that gave you the wake up call. Tell. Talk to us about that a little bit.

Well, so that competitive spirit that I was referencing, you know, that started with the chocolate bars and continued on getting the job at McKinsey. And it was. Looking back, what I could see is that the whole first half of my professional career was just driven by massive insecurity. It's just trying to constantly prove you're the first one.

The rest of us just were super confident right from the get go.

Nothing in the way.

We weren't faking it for one minute.

I know, and I feel awful that I'm the oddball out. It's like, I don't know why everyone else is so darn confident.

They went to better schools and their parents had more money.

Exactly. You know, I know, yeah. It's like so frustrating. But so that, so, so the way that translated was, well, let me start with the plane. So I, you know, get on and we'll go backwards and then forwards. So we're going to start in the middle. So.

Yeah, where a story is concerned.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, so, you know, get, get on return flight to London and shortly after the, the cabin doors close, I could sense something's not right. And I have a lot of pressure, you know, building up in, in my chest. And I had been having, you know, complications and problems for the, the whole year actually, you know, prior to this. And, and the plane starts its ascent and gets to cruising altitude. And now that pressure has become, you know, pain, nausea, I'm sweating. I say to my buddy Lewis, who sat next to me, Lewis, can you please feel my arm? Lewis looks at me with look of death in his eyes saying, geez, you know, your arm feels like it's been hanging in a meat locker. And that's what I had felt too. It was just, it was so, just, yeah, just surreal. It's just, you know, I still remember to this day just like it just didn't feel like it was part of my body and that together with the pain and everything. So Lewis jumps over, runs to get the attention of a stewardess who asks if there's a doctor on board. So you know, sometimes you hear, hey, is there a doctor on board? Well, yeah, there was one for me and luckily enough he came rushing up from the back of the plane and you know, took my vital signs and said, we need to land the plane immediately. I think he's having a heart attack. And you know, thank God for him because as the plane descended I was just terrified my heart would stop completely before we got to safety. And obviously I'm not doing some kind of amazing trick where I've returned from the dead. We were safe and the airport had shut down the Runway for an emergency landing. I couldn't resist. I had a Google, you know, a couple of months afterwards, you know, how much does it cost an airline when you emergency land a plane? Yeah, apparently it's about 150k. And I think they, I must have paid them probably $150 for the tickets. They didn't do too well off me and took me into a waiting ambulance where they administered nitrates there on the Runway and opened up, increased the blood flow to the heart. And as the ambulance sped off to the local hospital, I looked up into the eyes of the paramedic looking down at me and I said, please don't let me die. I have a five year old son. And, and it just, that really hit me, you know, the next day I thought about that a lot because I didn't say, please don't let me die. I had to clear out my inbox. And, and that was the, the big realization that, you know, there's, there's three critical pillars that we got to keep in balance at all times. Our work, obviously, because it is important to us and it, it provides the means for us to do what we, what we want in life. But our health, because without our health we're nothing. But then the interesting thing was that when I thought it was lights out, game over, you know, that's all she wrote. The first words out of my mouth related to relationships yeah, and family. Yeah, exactly. So, so I, you know, what was clear for me, looking back, but not clear, you know, up to that moment was that I, I, I, I wasn't prioritizing my health and relationships. Everything was on the altar of success. Everything was on, you know, prove to others that you are successful. You know, work the 100 hour weeks at McKinsey, you know, kill yourself during the startup phases of Skype in my own business. And, and yeah. And then thereafter I just decided to, you know, go a lot deeper on understanding peak performance. But in a real way, like how do you perform at a peak level without sacrificing the things that matter most? So, yeah, it was, I got there in the end, but it took a lot of pain and hardship to realize that I was focusing on the wrong things.

So that we're going to talk about the alarms before too long, but I'm going to keep holding back on that for a minute because I think that that was like a life alarm. Right? That was not the optimal kind of alarm. That's the kind of alarm that you can't ignore that might even take you out if you don't respond to it well.

Yeah, definitely. Definite, definite wake up call. And you know, somebody listening right now, you know, they might think, well, I haven't had a catastrophic, you know, health event like that. This doesn't really apply. It's like, well, hang on, I mean, does it not really apply? It's, I'm sure if you're listening, you know, watching right now, you have looked in the mirror at times and thought, you know, I could be doing a better job on the health front, I could be doing a better job on the home front, I could be working more productively, working less, working more efficiently. So I think it really does relate to the vast majority of people and it's just, be thankful you haven't had a catastrophic health event, but don't push it so far that, you.

Know, I had something far, far less dramatic. But I, years ago I weighed quite a bit more than I do now and I was trying to keep a couple businesses going and skipping lunch and eating fast food at my desk and working really hard and not doing well as a dad or as anything else. And in examining that whole situation, I can't remember what the trigger was, but there was a kind of a thing like the pants didn't fit right or I was embarrassed by a photo or something like that. And I looked at it because I was applying rigor and like in performance coaching, that kind of thing. To my life at the time. And I said, wow, this is one of the areas of my life that doesn't work. And, and as I kind of spent in matter of a few minutes, I realized that I was resigned that I would one day have a heart attack. Like unconsciously resigned that, that just, you know, people, we get fat, we get old, we have a heart attack, we die. And really all I wanted to do was to live long enough to see my kids grow up.

Wow. Yeah, so that's, yeah, so that's.

And, and that was so depressing to me to realize. So sad that I decided actually what I really wanted was to set an example for them. And in the like the next day I registered to run my first triathlon. And sitting at £200 at the time, that was a really. And not being able to run around the block, that was a pretty dramatic thing. I didn't really even know what was involved. And you know, I went on to do 45 triathlons and marathons, things like that endurance event. Um, I haven't done enough recently. But the, but that idea of, of like stepping up something like being something I think was one of those alarms. And there were a lot of alarms that I used along the way. We're going to get into your critical three that make a huge difference. Why don't you talk to us about, I don't know, either one of the people you've coached or, or what you've been doing this last year.

Yeah, sure. In terms of for example, how, how they are using the alarms as an example or.

Sure, yeah, whatever.

Okay.

Really Rich.

So yeah. Okay, cool. So there is a CEO who wrote in not that long ago who's actually a subscriber to my blog, to the newsletter and I hadn't actually coached him. We just had a, you know, conversation here and there and he really took the whole three alarms concept to heart. And what he did was he set up three alarms on his phone where he segmented his day into three parts where each part would be for the most part powered by a best self identity. Him at his best in each of these three domains. So health, wealth and relationships. And his health alarm he set for 6:30am and he called it 70 year old me. So that's the phrase that would appear on his alarm when, when you know, on his phone when the alarm went off because he thought that if on a daily basis it was, you know, his 70 year old version of his, of himself was kind of like overlooking and seeing what he was doing or not doing. That he wouldn't even consider some of the poor health decisions that he was making in the first place. And within a few months he set up doing that. He suddenly returned to the gym where he hadn't been to the gym once in a couple of years. He stopped grabbing that, what did he call it, a cinnamon muffin on his drive into work. And he lost about 25 pounds in a space of three months. Just because he really tapped into that whole spirit of identity driven change. Pick you at your best, give it a name on that health front, create an alarm to cue that identity at the right time of day and then act from that intentionality of that identity. Rather than just you going to the gym, for example, it's that version of you making better decisions. At 9am he shared another alarm that he had which was called, I think he called it world's best leader because. Which he timed for 8:45am because that's the version of him that he wanted to start the day, he didn't want to start today as himself, but as that version of himself. And that prompted just a different way of walking into the office, a different behavior. How would the world's best leader walk to the these doors right now? How would the world's best leader interact with people with the world's best leader in a meeting, you know, sit there, you know, ultra passively, or would they take an active role in the meeting? And, and it just once again changed the way he showed up. I think specifically he tied that to him taking a stronger stand when it came to safety in this company. It was a manufacturing company. And as a result of that taking more ownership of that, they reduced the critical incident rate quite dramatically, I think by 75% within a period of a few months. Once again, which again he tied to him taking a more identity driven approach to his wealth domain or his work domain or his leadership domain. And then last but not least, he used the same alarm that I still use to this day on my phone for the evening. So at 6:30pm on his phone came up world's best husband and father to prompt the question, well, how would the world's best husband and father walk through that door right now? When I first used that alarm myself, it totally changed the way I walked into my house. You know, prior to that point. Yeah, well, I was, I wasn't anything close, you know, to the world's best husband and father. Kids might want to play and I'd put it off. Wife might want to talk about something, you know, put it off. To the weekend. Yeah. So that kind of intentionality is.

Let's talk about the three alarms a little bit. I'll share some of the alarms I actually made. As I got ready for the show today, I made some changes to my alarms because I realized some of them had expired. But talk to us about your three big alarms and how you're using it.

Yeah, so I changed them. I've changed them even since when I wrote the book. So now at 6:30am an alarm goes off on my phone. It says pro athlete. I am far from a pro athlete. I never, I always, when I was growing up, I wanted to make the basketball team so badly and I did my best to make the varsity team. And then all I did was sit on the bench the whole time because I was never good enough to play. So I'm so far from pro athlete. But the point is that the pro athlete, when I cue that identity, I think of my disciplined, relentless, almost like pain seeking self. And it just changes the way I approach workouts. You know, I work out when I might brush off the workout, when I'm in a particular exercise routine and I get to that, you know, eighth repetition, I feel like I might give up. I power through. I get 12 for good measure. At 9am the next alarm goes off for me and it says Elon Musk. Because when I'm working, I don't want to work as much as he does. But when I'm working, I want to be as focused, fast and almost like genius driven as I'm sure Elon must be. When I read his biography, there's this really funny part in the book where one of his colleagues says, Elon does everything fast. He eats fast, he works fast, he talks fast, he even pees fast. So I thought, gosh, that's for his girlfriend. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, you know, 9:00am, Elon Musk. You know, I want to have that kind of focus, that attention to detail, right. That speed. And then 6:30pm, you know, same as the story I shared. World's best husband and father, where I take it slow.

You can't get that out of your head. So I hear a couple things in this one. I hear setting reminders in for at least three specific areas, right. Of life, your health, your work and your family. And then I hear also in this, the nature of the alarm creates a reminder, a context, a way of thinking about looking at something. You talk about it as being tied to identity, how we see ourselves, reminding us of who we intend to be. That alters then the way we see the world and, and then the actions that we take, the outcomes that we have as a result of that. Did I get that right?

Totally right. Here's that is Captain America as drawn by my seven year old, Leo.

Yes.

He signed it there, Leo. So Leo gave me that. I have it taped on my monitor here. Leo gave me that about, must be about six weeks ago or so. So I, I bought him a Captain America shield. Like a proper one, you know, like a really nice, like, you know, metal one from, from Amazon, of course, because everything comes indestructible.

Throw it against your enemies.

You got it. And.

Okay.

And that, that, that, that arrived and I gave the shield to, to Leo. Boom. He became Captain America in an instant. I did not need to sit down with Leo and say, okay, Leo, I'm gonna train you or teach you how to behave like Captain America. This is, you know, your behavioral Captain America training sessions. He just became that. And the reason I'm sharing that story is because the whole spirit of the three alarms is nothing other than reconnecting us with how we used to be when we were children. Because kids don't think about behaviors. Kids step into identities and then their behavior follows. And Leo became Captain America. And in short order, he was running around the house acting like Captain America. And it happened instantaneously. So we already get this whole concept of defining what best looks like, you know, the superhero version of ourselves. And I'm just pushing people to. Rather than get overwhelmed by, say, Tony Robbins, you know, categories of improvement, or Stephen Covey's, you know, roles and responsibilities. In both instances, which can be nearly endless, just think about three domains. Health, wealth. And when I say wealth, I mean what you do to create the money work as well as what you do with it afterwards. Health, wealth, and relationships. What does best look like for you? Give it a name. It could be another person like Elon Musk. It could be a phrase like world's best, you know, husband and father. It could be a statement like pro athlete and, and, and, and cue it at the right time of day so you can kind of switch into that champion version of yourself at the time that, you know, matters most for that identity.

So you, you really advocate focusing on the three main categories. Do you use others as well, or is that really your.

It's a slippery slope. And the moment you start bringing others in, others will follow. And it's like, it's like letting somebody in the back door of the party and like, they let in their 10 friends as well.

Yeah.

So no, I mean the three. The three. It's the 80. 20 to. To 80% of the benefits you seek or the improvement you seek in life can be found by just focusing on 20% of the domains. And the 20% of the domains for me is your health, your wealth, or your. Or your work and your relationships. That's it. Yes. There's other categories. Of course they are, but I believe that that's going perfectionist and that's trying to capture the last. You know, that's trying to capture 80% of the categories that remain for only 20% of additional benefit.

Yeah, I like the idea of this. I have a couple of things, and I've used them in different ways. I mentioned that I did a bunch of triathlons, and I. I was not a very good swimmer. In fact, I could barely swim. I wasn't much of a runner, and I was kind of crappy on the bike, so I focused just on the transitions. But the swimming was for sure the hardest thing for me. And in particular, I like the water. But like, swimming competitively, like, trying to get somewhere was a challenge, and I really had to learn proper technique. Even though I'd grown up near the water and surfed and things like that, I didn't know, like, a proper technique, and so I really had to learn it. But I live in San Francisco where the water is wicked cold and that kind of thing. So my alarm, I didn't have an overall one, but I had bragging rights for my swim times because I came up with that if I went out to swim and quit when it was miserable, like cold, dark, you know, foggy or whatever, as it often would be, that, that, that would be kind of embarrassing. But if I did it in the most miserable condition, that was bragging rights. So, like, the bragging rights was that inspiring reminder for me, and it really. It worked really well for a lot of the time to get me to do that. And I've. I've used that naming not with those big reminders that you have, but with lots of little things like remembering to pick up my dry cleaning or do my taxes or things like that. I've. Change the way that I've written it. I learned that from another. Another productivity approach or system out there, and I found it helpful. But. But I think that they, like, have to change that. They evolve sometimes, right? It. They sort of disappear and they lose their relevance to us with time.

Oh, abs. Yeah, absolutely. And the. I think of the alarms and using your phone as the training wheels that you're Putting on the bicycle.

Yeah.

So just to remind you to, hey, this is what you said best looks like in this domain. And this is generally the time of the day when that best self identity is most active or has a chance to be. So here's your reminder. Over time, you become less and less reliant on them because they just, you start to behave, you know, like that. I know the moment, you know, I start getting into a silly, you know, disagreement with my wife, or if I start finding myself getting annoyed, you know, with. With, you know, one, one of the boys or both of them, I'll also, in that same moment, catch it where I didn't catch it in the past and I'll be like, ah, catch it faster. Yeah, yeah. I can feel, you know, this feeling that's festering right now. I know that that's not congruent with the best in me.

Yeah.

So another powerful thing that I do is I just start the day with, you know, I call it a dream team practice because I think of these three best self identities as like my dream team, you know, like, I'm not going into the day alone. I have the help of these other three. And at the start of the day, I literally take nothing more than five minutes to just define redefine. Okay, who am I? What's my health identity? What's my wealth identity? What's my relationship identity? What are the values for each of those? And then I pick what I call a champion proof. Because I think if those three things represent me at my champion self as my champion self, then what's one thing that I could do to evidence that I'm being that version of me in the context of that day? It could be an action, a behavior, something. It might be as simple as telling my wife, you know, that I love her or playing a board game with one of the boys or a video game, more likely. And you know, it could be, I'm going to do 500 calories in the stationary bike today. And on the work front, I'm going to get that presentation off that I know I should, you know, 80, 20, 20% of the effort, 80% of the result. Just get it off, ship it today, and I'll pick one action every morning. That evidence is me at my best in each of those domains. So the alarms just become more of like a reminder over time. And it's starting the day with that intentionality and that focus that becomes more like a permanent part of the daily fabric.

Yeah. I love also that there's distinct day parts like okay. This part of my time is for taking care of myself, and then this part is for building my business, and then this part is for being with my family.

And.

And rather than being all over the place all the time, I'm going to be really kind of focused into these areas at each moment. I like that a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's really powerful, too, when you get to the end of your day and you shut down and you go into, you know, that home segment and, you know, if you do simple things, you know, like leave your phone in the office, if you work from home, or literally shut your phone off, you know, your phone. If you're trying to be your superhero self at home, your phone's your kryptonite, so keep it away from you.

You know, I think it's really easy to see that in others. And if you can see it in others, you gotta ask yourself, well, what am I doing? Right? And so if you've got somebody in your life whose phone bugs you, you might ask yourself, right? Where does your phone or whatever, the distraction for most of us these days, it's our stupid phones that we don't put down, put away. Right? I'm gonna put that over there. I'm gonna turn it down. I'm not gonna look at it, I'm not gonna feel it, that kind of thing. Of course, then you could get the watch, too, and it'll buzz you.

Yeah, yeah. But it's. It's. But I mean, you're right. It's about keeping it out of sight and out of mind, Right? Yeah.

You gotta put the blinders on. Be with the people where you are at that moment.

Yeah. Have your. Don't have an AA meeting in a bar. You know, it's like, keep, keep, keep the. The things that, you know, create difficulty and challenge for you away.

Yeah. I remember I came home years ago when our kids were younger, and I was working on one of my little side hustles. And for a long time, for months, right? And I'd. Be. Half the time I'd be on the phone, and as I walked in the door, and I'd be like, just a minute, I'm like. And I'd motion to my earpiece and be like, just a minute. I'm on the phone, just finishing. And then I'd be in talking. And of course, it wouldn't just be just a minute. Be another freaking 45 minutes or whatever. And they'd all be doing stuff, waiting for me to sit down to dinner or be dad and be friendly and that kind of thing. And I'd be like that and it'd be like, well, I want them to see what I'm like and all that kind of thing. And, and my wife said to me, why bother? Well, you just stay out, you know, just stay out in the car, finish up your call, come home when you're actually ready to be home with us. And I like, it hit me like a knife, like, oh my God, she said something akin to, it's not like you're even here, you know, And I was like, oh God, that's just heartbreaking, right?

Yeah, yeah. And I had, you know, similar wake up call with my wife as well, where she was. You basically said I wasn't present and available even though I was around. And again, having that kind of intentionality in the evening and shutting my day down at the same time each day I literally have an appointment in my calendar that says shut down. It's an appointment with myself, same time every day. And all I do is I look at the day ahead, final check of my email, look at my calendar. I choose the top three things that I'm going to work on and then I schedule those three things as appointments in my calendar with myself.

See, I think this is the thing that we forget, especially people whose businesses have taken off with them and they're been in full reaction mode or people who've been at it for a while and haven't stopped to redesign their life and their business. What really matters to you? What are the, all the different areas of your life? What does it look like if you don't reserve in some time for dinner, for time for whatever else. And, and I think we tell ourselves along the way, oh well, you don't understand. I, I'm, we're a public company. Or you don't understand where we just raised a bunch of money or you don't understand that like this. No. Like there's other people who run public companies who still have families. Right. You're not the only one who's got whatever it is that you've got, that this period of growth or whatever, you can actually do it with some balance and some grace. And if you're trying to Superman it, it right. If you're trying to superwoman Superman and carry all the load yourself and you're probably doing a crappy job and you're almost certainly keeping your team small because the more you're trying to cover everything, the smaller your team is performing completely.

And it's, it's, there's, there's Some great studies out there. One with the, Is it the Human Performance Institute, I think where they talk about the energy requirement of a top performing CEO is the same as that of a professional athlete. So imagine if we sat down with a professional athlete and we said the following. Hey, I have a great idea for you for next season. Instead of those eight, eight hours of sleep that you get per night, you know, why don't you cut that down a little bit because you can't win games while you're sleeping. So, you know, let's shoot for five or six and if you're in a real crunch, you know, four. And why are you eating so well? You know, live it up a little bit. Why don't we sprinkle some pizza and beer and burgers throughout the week and you know, why don't you shake things up at home a little bit every now and then to, you know, really get the, the juices going. And what do you think is going to happen to that athlete's season? Right. It's just going to be. They're definitely not going to be performing as well. And so we want to be, you know, on the, if we want to be peak performers on the field, then we have to recognize that peak performance happens off the field as well. And we have to optimize both on and off to play our best games, score as many points as possible and win as often as possible for people. Yeah, they don't get it.

So in addition to the, the three alarms, I hear thoughtful design context intentions for each parts of the thing. So I have like, I have a beginning of my day, we have a huddle, I have time for lunch. I have a wrap up for the day. I have today only one reminder to be grateful. So I have a grateful reminder in the early evening. And what are some other things? Of course we have our planning sessions and our weekly meetings and things like that, but I have dinner booked in every time. I have some fitness and some thinking time all designed into my calendar so that even if I have to move things around, I've got something that I've got to move. I've already put in and designed in some of that.

I love that and I love what you just said about how you actually have it scheduled in as blocks in the calendar because then if we erase, we replace. So if we have to move it around, we move it somewhere else. It doesn't just disappear.

Well, if you were to say I want to book tomorrow at noon with you, I'd go, okay, should we make that a Lunch meeting or I'd think, okay, I need to eat before, after to get fed and, and not be hangry by my 2 o'. Clock. Right. What is it that I've got to do to manage myself? I've, I've been forced to think about that because it's all like blocked in. Including things like I have morning rituals which is, you know, just all about both the mindfulness practice and the basics of, you know, using the bathroom, taking a shower. Yeah. The whole world of that is part is programmed into my day because I know I need these things like every day.

Yeah. And I think of three, three super powerful routines that you can literally design as you're saying into your day. The, the real game changer for me came when I started. When I recognized that a super productive day doesn't actually start the day of. But the evening before.

Evening before. Yes, yes.

And I implemented and I've already touched on one, but I'll just, you know. So I have an acronym that I use for the, the evening before. So I call, you know, I end my day by sedating myself but not with like a beer or a glass of wine. Although that, that's you know, not necessarily a bad thing. But it's more a creative, creative pronunciation of the acronym SD8SEDATE. And the S is the shutdown. Right. So static appointment in your calendar. You shut down the day. It's at that moment that you make an intentional decision. I am done working now and I'm going to step into be in my best on the relationship front. And you transition into that part of the day. The D is for digital sunset. One hour before bed, all electronics off. Why? Because if you don't one hour before bed, you'll probably compromise your melatonin production sleep inducing hormone by up to 50%. So you have trouble sleeping as deeply and restoratively as you should. And then the 8 is. And then go to bed such that you can get eight hours of sleep. And then I have entrepreneurs and CEOs all the time say no, no, no, no, no, I don't need eight hours of sleep. And yeah, there's a chance you have a gene because there's a gene associated with this which allows you to sleep less than eight hours and still thrive, not survive. Lots can survive with less than eight hours of sleep, but thrive with less than eight. There's a gene associated with that. Your chance of having that gene is equivalent to your chance of being struck by lightning. So you do not have the gene. Even though every CEO and entrepreneur thinks that they do.

I've met quite a few that do. And some that I thought probably did and many others that I thought were pretty self delusional. Right. And I'm like, yeah, you are not. Your company's not winning. You aren't living your best life. So this business, you think you can sleep only two hours a night. Stop it. Like, yeah, change. You have a weird fixation on something here.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, not everyone is willing to take that coaching, but yeah.

And mathematically it's just not, you know, it's just not possible that everyone.

Hearing code. Yeah, right.

So. So if you really focus in on dialing in that evening routine, shutting down the workday, getting those electronics off an hour before bed and then in bed and asleep such that you can get eight hours, that has a transformative effect and suddenly you have the productivity that you need so that you can fit in the stuff on the health front and that you can transition to the home front.

Yeah, I think it's really good. Some super useful gems here. I used to know the same thing. Like if I didn't put my clothes out for my workout, fill my water bottles the night before, like I was going to get a late start, then I was going to compromised workout, then I was going to start the day behind the curve, especially with the complications of triathlon training. I had to think about it and it definitely began the night before. So there was all that. And then the other thing is like being aware of if I went to bed not knowing what I had coming up in the day tomorrow. I was like in a weird. I woke up going, oh, what do I have to do? Like feeling behind the gun already, Right?

Yeah. And if you have those things already scheduled as part of your shutdown routine, as appointments with yourself the next day, you know exactly what you're doing in.

One, then you're there. The book is the Three Alarms. You can find it on Amazon or you can find it on Eric's website. Find him at Eric Partaker. We'll put the link in the crawl here. We'll put the link in the show notes as well. So you can go either get the book or just go to his website and find all of the groovy things that Eric is up to and like that. That I think would make a big difference. If you have Doug, our conversation and that kind of thing. I want to give big thanks to Lucy Harnish in the background, cueing our little screen crawls and things like that, getting our guests ready and prepped and me clear on what the hell I'm doing and getting our show out there. If our show helped you, then please like it and subscribe so that you get them every week. You can do it wherever you get your podcast or you can go to our website scalingcoach.com where you're also find all of the show notes and all of the the last hundreds of episodes with the links to the things that the authors Talk about@scalingcoach.com if you want to drop note if we could help you find a coach in your area or something like that, send email to info scalingcoach.com Big thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of our Scaling Up Framework. The show is produced by Lucy Summers, edited by Albert Burge at Podfly and our show notes are written up by Ayan Kodina and proofread by Tim McGowan. Thanks Eric for joining us this week. Thanks everyone for listening watching everyone keep Scaling up.

Thanks Bill.

Just.