Ep 492 | The Dimmer Switch Effect – Balancing Life Without Burnout

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. There's a new book out written by a guy named Sahil Bloom. He's actually someone I had found on Instagram. I love a lot of what he's posting around life and relationships and health and all of that. He's got this new book out. It's called The Five Types of Wealth. And I actually have not made it all the way through the book yet. But in the, the first half, you know, what I've covered, I've been pretty darn impressed. And this book isn't really new content per se. I mean, the concept, the book's about designing your dream life, but Sahil's approach is unique and fresh. And there's a number of concepts that he's been talking about that I've really enjoyed learning more around. And there's one that really stuck out to me, and that one has to do with this dimmer switch effect. You ever feel like you're juggling too many priorities and dropping the ball on something important? My guess is if you've been around long enough, you've— you have felt this way where you're juggling too much and as a result maybe dropping the ball on something important. What Sahil would ask is, what if the solution isn't about balance, but a better way to adjust your focus? That's what this dimmer switch effect is all about. The idea that different areas of life need to be dialed up or down, but not turned on or off. Hence the analogy. It's about a dimmer switch. If you picture a dimmer switch, a light switch, like a light dimmer, that you can control how bright or how dull that light is versus an on-off switch that is just, you know, it's just straight on or it's straight off. This dimmer switch effect is a slightly nuanced or different way to look at life and things in life, areas of life that you could dial up or dial down. You don't necessarily have to turn them on or turn them off. And I think this really matters to our No Days Off Nation because if you're a business owner or you're an athlete or you're just a high performer, Understanding how to best leverage this dimmer is an important thing. Let's, let's talk a little bit more about this concept of the dimmer switch, and then maybe how we can apply it in our world. So the concept of the dimmer switch, I think what it really comes down to is that life isn't about the strict balance, but adjusting intensity in different areas at different times as needed. Again, this is like a dimmer switch versus an on-off switch. Life isn't about choosing work or family, fitness or business, but knowing when to turn the dial up or turn that dial down. So, an example for me, I talk quite a bit around endurance sports. When you're training for a big race, it means you're going to dial up your fitness. You have to dial up your health. You have to dial up your training. But your work, and your family and other things that are important to you, they can't just be switched off. You have to have a strategy for how you might have to dim, you know, like you— like the dimmer switch, how you're going to dim these, these areas, not let that light burn out or go off, and dial up in the area that is necessary in order to, to thrive in that, in that particular area for that time, for the time being. See, the problem that we experience is that, you know, there's this mentality that we're all familiar with. It's kind of this all-or-nothing mentality. Many high achievers think success comes from going all in on one thing at a time, and there are books written about this. But sometimes going all in on one thing at a time might lead to burnout or might lead to neglect. In some of the books we've read around One Thing. There are chapters dedicated to, okay, you can do this, but you can only run in the red for so long. An example of this, like a business owner who grinds 24/7, but runs in the red for too long, and as a result, wrecks their health or relationships. How about athletes that prioritize training and suffer professionally or personally? How about sales professionals who crush quotas but lose complete sight of what fulfills them or long-term fulfillment? I think you see the, the Red Queen effect take hold here. If you're familiar with the Red Queen effect, it's not about, uh, just adjusting, because if you're not adjusting right? You're falling behind. There's this constant all-or-nothing mentality. So, I think about this dimmer switch effect and how we could apply it in real life. Again, I'm not saying not go all in on something. I'm not saying not have one thing. But I don't think you have to neglect everything else around it. I think through leverage and through strategy and by thinking actively around this, there is ways, there are ways to turn that dimmer down in those areas so you don't completely neglect it. How do you apply this dimmer switch effect in real life? The question I'd be asking you, what, what needs to be dialed up right now and what could be dimmed slightly? I think there's a few practical frameworks we could think around here. The first one that comes to mind for me is what I would call a seasons approach. Recognize that life has different seasons where one area takes priority. For example, this may be business scaling season, or this may be development of relationship season, or this may be, you know, physical health season. We can have this framework of seasons and take that kind of approach. Again, recognizing that life has different seasons and there is time. I think another framework we can think around is just general daily calibration. You take a few minutes daily to assess what is most important in that moment. What's important now? W-I-N. That would be a daily calibration. Whatever is most important in that moment, you go all in and you focus, but you don't turn off everything else. I think the last framework that comes to mind for me is just general reflection, be it weekly, monthly reflection. Like this structured sort of check-in to ensure that nothing is completely off. We have to be aware. We have to create awareness around it. So, an example, again, I'm gonna, I'm gonna relate to my personal world. I know I'm prepping for different endurance races. So, I've dialed up my endurance training, but I'm not going to completely shut down my business or my family time. So, how do I effectively go all in on my training but also dim the areas? And I don't want to say pay less attention, but how do I better manage the areas that are, that are important to me in this particular season? In sales, maybe you push really hard in Q4, but then you ensure you have recovery time in Q1. These are things that you can do as you're thinking about applying this dimmer switch effect. Now, when you think around adjusting your dimmer switches, I think you can use 80/20 sort of thinking. Remember, 20% of your actions drive 80% of the results. I think you could focus on avoiding the burnout loop, right? If you're running at 100% in multiple areas, you're going to break. Something's going to break. So again, what can you dim? What can you dial up? And how do you— how do you play with those gauges? I think you could also Check in with your core values. We've been talking about this a lot here at No Days Off. Are you neglecting things that actually matter most to you? Or, you know, are you— do you have something dimmed that can only stay dim for a moment in time, but you got to turn it back up and make it bright because it matters that much to you? It's part of your core values. So, in conclusion, as we kind of wrap this up, my closing thoughts. I think the big takeaway here is you don't have to balance everything perfectly. You just need to be intentional about what gets dialed up or dialed down at any given time. And I think too many of us don't plan. We don't, we don't build strategy around this. Like we know, say the next day or week or month or year is going to have lots of, you know, chaos and ups and downs. But do we actually take time to plan? So, you know, so you don't go into the year thinking, I'm going to balance all this stuff perfectly because it's not going to happen. You need to be intentional about what gets dialed up and dialed down at different times in different seasons. So, my challenge for you today, I want to ask you, if you think about this dimmer, what do I need to turn up right now? What do I have to turn up right now and make brighter? What do I need to dim? Not turn off, remember, not turn off, but what do I need to dim? I think it's a really big question and something worth contemplating. I think there's areas in all of our respective lives where we probably need to turn the light up a little bit at this moment and dim other things at this moment. And you know what? Again, as we reflect, right, as we, as we, you know, check our core values, as we think around our seasons, as we daily, we have this daily calibration, as we think through this and we're a bit more strategic, I think we become a little bit more successful in business, life, relationships, health, and so on. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day, brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.