How I got comfortable with being outworked

The Midlife Male is a newsletter and podcast by Greg Scheinman sharing experiences on aging, success, personal growth, and navigating midlife. If someone forwarded you this newsletter, click here to sign up.

There’s something that’s been rubbing me the wrong way for a while, and that is getting comfortable with being outworked.

I look around all day long and can count on being outworked. There are people running much larger coaching programs, building much larger media brands, selling more books, generating higher revenues and speaking on stages way more often than me.

There were people in my yoga class earlier this week who out-yoga'd me. 

I don't go to a certain gym anymore because I don’t want the pressure of being outworked. 

I'm 51, I'll be 52 in December, and I ask myself all the time just who it is I think I am competing with anymore. It’s me.That's it.

What I’ve learned is that it’s hard work getting comfortable with being outworked. 

Why am I so concerned about the perception or even the reality that I am being outworked? 

Why am I looking around, comparing, questioning, and worrying about being outworked?

Because, as men we’ve all been essentially programmed to believe that we have to work hard, or we're not of value.

We are programmed to outwork

And the stats support it. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NORC survey on the importance of values (ranking them as "very" or "somewhat" important), Americans value hard work (94%) over just about everything else, including self-fulfillment (91%), marriage (70%), patriotism (73%), religion (60%), and tolerance for others (90%).

But here’s the deal: What got me here is not going to get me where I want to go and, more importantly, get me to how I want to live and feel. 

Three years ago I designed a Midlife Action Plan (MAP) for the life I wanted to live. I didn’t want the hustle and grind anymore, so part of the MAP meant I had better damn well get comfortable with being outworked.

I no longer was going to live the 24/7, “I’ll sleep when I'm dead” lifestyle. I wasn’t going to be the first one into the office and the last one out. 

I don't want to compete every day. I’m not interested in lifting as much weight as I used to. All these things that used to look so good and work for me don't look as good or work for me anymore.

As we age, the truth is we’re going to eventually be outworked and outperformed by other guys, younger guys, and guys our own age who can’t stop and won’t stop. (Gals, too.) Some of the hardest work I’ve done in my life is getting comfortable with that.

The area where I won’t accept being outworked is sticking to my conviction, being steadfast to the boundaries I’ve established, executing on my  plan, running my own race, and setting my own standards for what success looks like. This is really tough for me, and for most men who have been conditioned to believe that nothing but grind and “outwork” is what’s needed to get ahead in life.

A familiar feeling

I used to think that outworking everyone was the key to success.

Twenty years ago, I was at my family's house on Long Island, up and on the computer on a Saturday morning. I didn’t play tennis or go drink beers with the boys that day. I instead worked on a proposal that landed a million-dollar investment for my company. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make, and outworking everyone else was part of my success formula.

When I was in the insurance business I fell into the trap of year-over-year outwork. I always wanted more accounts, bigger accounts, and to build a bigger book of business so I could earn higher commissions. When I’d hit their number, they’d just make the number higher next year.   When I was finally earning an income I was comfortable with, they changed the game again by lowering the renewal commission rate so that you were working harder, for less. The career that was promised was really just a job.

Even now, I still struggle with thinking I need to be working harder all the time. Shouldn't I be behind my desk at 8 a.m., right after I do my sauna, eat breakfast, and kiss Kate and Harper good morning? “It’s time for work!” I’m better at catching this thought pattern; I now choose to go for a walk and make that phone call to my buddy I want to catch up with to see how he's doing. 

Last year I felt pressure to grow Midlife Male faster and take in money from various investors. I realized I didn’t want to work like that, so I gave it back. I like writing my newsletter on Monday, coaching clients Tues-Thurs, and podcasting on Fridays. Now I have an investor who better understands where we’re going to take this brand and more importantly how we’re going to do it.  We’ll be the ten year overnight success, and that’s ok.

As men, we glorify the hustle. Stories of guys working 80-hour weeks and sacrificing sleep and personal time are often held up as paragons of dedication and ambition. But at what cost? 

A former colleague of mine (total weasel by the way) once said to me, “I haven’t been out of the office for more than 10 days in 10 years.” I had to ask him if he was telling me this because he was proud or embarrassed by it. I honestly didn’t know. I don’t know if he knows, either.

5 out of 6

According to the American Institute of Stress, 83% of male workers in the US suffer from work-related stress, which is linked to significant health issues such as heart disease, depression, and obesity. That’s 5 out of every 6 guys. Men feel the pressure to meet societal expectations of providing and achieving, often leading to detrimental effects on their well-being. I know I did.

One of the most telling statistics is the number of vacation days that go unused. According to the US Travel Association, 55% of Americans do not use all their paid time off, amounting to 768 million unused vacation days annually. This reluctance to take a break is driven by fear of falling behind or appearing less committed, yet it significantly impacts mental and physical health.

I know this much…If you’re reading this and still have unused PTO, stop here and put in your vacation requests right now.  Take everything you can from what your company is offering, because your company is taking everything it can from you.

So how did I get comfortable with being outworked? 

It may sound a bit cheesy, but it really was as simple as “change your mindset, change your life.”  

I began with redefining success on my own terms. Success is no longer about outworking my peers but about outliving stress, outsmarting anxiety, and outlasting the harmful effects of burnout. My value as a man isn't measured by the hours I put in at work but by the quality of my life outside of it.

I now do “just” three personal and three professional things per day. I’ve found that that's my most productive and sustainable bandwidth. I write them on a card each morning while I’m enjoying my coffee and I get them done. No more, no less.

I don’t set out to crush every workout. Simply showing up 5 days a week for an hour of either yoga, weights, boxing, swimming or walking/rucking provides the minimal effective dose and maximal sustainable results.

I don’t register for events with the goal of “winning” the event. I sign up to have a challenge on my calendar, prepare for it and finish it admirably and with enough left over to not have to lay in bed for a week after recovering.

It takes a lot of work to write this newsletter each week, produce the podcast, and coach clients.  Yet, there’s still open space in my schedule that I’m sure I could fill with more work and produce more content, earn more and grow faster. What matters more to me now is quality, who’s on my team and how we grow professionally as a brand and how that aligns with how I grow as a man.

I read this quote from Bruce Arians the other day: "If I hear one of my coaches has missed a family event because of work, I’ll fire them. Family’s first, and if you can’t be with your family, how can you be a coach and help your team be a family?"

He’s right.

The breakthrough is that by becoming comfortable with being outworked in just about every individual category, I’m collectively doing far better in life than I was when I was refusing to be outworked anywhere, anytime.

Years ago I used to compete in an event called the D10 Decathlon. It was ten events in one day. No pole vaulting or javelins, this was more CrossFit/nfl combine type events. My point is that in order to win the D10, you actually did not have to win one single event. You had to win the day. Be in the top 3-5 in every event. Be good at everything, not great at one thing. Be a well rounded, well conditioned overall athlete, not a one trick pony.

The lessons learned there far transcended athletics and an accurate metaphor and understanding for how I wanted to approach living in midlife.

It’s only by focusing on our unique capacities, respecting our limits, and making smarter decisions, that we can build a high-performing life portfolio that reflects our true values and aspirations.

Leave “outwork” behind. It’s this holistic approach that allows us to live a richer, healthier, and more satisfying life, proving that sometimes less hustle and more harmony is the key to a well-lived midlife. ◆

A message from today’s partner*

A mental and physical reset

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In Health,

—Greg