Mark MacLeod, who sold over $1 billion in startups, says the best investment a founder can make is their own health. His three-step routine: prioritize sleep, move your body three times a week, and protect morning deep-work blocks from meetings. He claims it has tripled his energy and output.
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Most CEOs are running their companies on 5 hours of sleep and 3 cups of coffee before 10 AM. Here's the brutal truth: you can't build a billion-dollar company if you burn out. I learned this the hard way. For years, I was that leader—sleep deprived, skipping workouts, back-to-back meetings all day. I thought I was grinding. Really, I was slowly destroying my ability to lead. The wake-up call? My biomarkers. They were terrible. I had chronic stress. My decision-making was getting worse. My performance was stalling and I was the bottleneck. Most importantly, I was destroying myself. Here's what I know from selling over $1 billion in startups. The highest ROI investment that you can make isn't in your product or team. It's in yourself. I developed a 3-step daily routine that has tripled my energy and output. Every founder-led company that's hit unicorn status follow some version of this framework. Step 1: Prioritize sleep. Today's performance began last night. Sleep is the single most important factor in your health and in your performance as CEO. Poor sleep wrecks mood, focus, memory, hormones, and recovery. You are mentally impaired if you're short on sleep. There's just no substitute. And consistency matters. Your body needs routine. Even on weekends, I wake up around the same time and I try and go to bed around the same time. My CrossFit coach told me, "We jet lag ourselves every weekend by staying up late and sleeping in, and then we wonder why we suck on Mondays." Looking back, I was sleep deprived for years. I was using coffee to compensate. Does that sound familiar? Prioritizing sleep has changed everything for me. I have more energy, better focus, improved biomarkers. Step 2: Move your body. Your brain is 2% of your body mass. You have a body for a reason. Use it. In 2018, I joined CrossFit. Functional movements, metabolic conditioning, proper coaching. We do some crazy things in CrossFit. Handstand push-ups, double-under skipping, one-rep max lifts. All of this pushed me through limits that I either legitimately had or only thought I had. It's been a huge boost to my confidence and energy. In fact, it's been life-changing. Here's what you need: at least 3 times per week, move to the point of sweating. If you're over 40, lift weights. Resistance training is the fountain of youth. We lose muscle mass and bone density every year after age 40. Even when I was running my investment bank and doing 6 deals at a time, I still hit CrossFit 4 to 5 times a week. When I exercised, I had more energy and confidence. I crushed my days. When I skipped it, I struggled. I had less energy, less focus. It was actually harder for me to, to crush it as a leader. If I can make time for exercise doing 6 deals at a time, you can too. Last step, deep work blocks. Most CEO calendars make me cringe. They have 8 to 10 hour meetings back to back in 15-minute blocks. No lunch, no breaks. They measure success by meetings attended, emails sent, Slack messages responded to. This is wrong and it's soul crushing. Your company's happening to you. You're a passenger. Eventually you become the bottleneck, and eventually you'll blow up. Take back control of your calendar. Work expands to fill all available time. If you make yourself available for 8 hours of meetings, guess what? You'll have 8 hours of meetings. I have zero morning meetings. Mornings for me are for creative work, deep thinking. Even as an investment banker, it was the same rule. No morning meetings. That was my strategic time to review deal strategy, deal documents. That was sacred time. Non-negotiable. Afternoons were nonstop meetings, but I didn't care because I had won the day by noon. Why this matters. Your job as CEO is making decisions, small ones, big ones every day. When you look back at last year, I'll bet there's a handful of decisions that moved the needle. The right hire, a key product insight, a creative go-to-market angle. You need maximum mental clarity for these moments. Sleep refuels your brain. Exercise gives you energy. Deep work gives your intuition time and space to work. By prioritizing sleep and exercise, you'll build a better company. Happy, healthy humans build bigger, better companies. Look at the biggest tech outcomes: Airbnb, Meta, Shopify, Stripe, Coinbase, the The pattern? They're founder-led. Your company's outcome is 100% correlated with your performance as CEO. Your next step here: pick one, either sleep, movement, or deep work. Master it this week. Then add the next. The founder who prioritizes their health and focus will outlast the one running on fumes every time. Which step will you start with? Let me know in the comments.
