I wanted to share more insights from some of the books I've been reading recently, as you could say that I've been obsessed recently with figuring out how to ensure high performers don't just perform well, but continue to do so on a long time horizon without sacrificing any other element of their lives. I think about all of you whenever I'm reading these articles/books, and I want to share things that I feel like are important and can be applied to this group as a whole.

We absolutely have a culture that rewards intensity, but I want to make sure we're not accidentally punishing recovery.

The Idea

Core principle is simple: progress doesn't come from stress alone. Progress comes from stress followed by rest.

Stress + Rest = Growth

In athletic training, stress is the workout. Rest is when the body adapts and gets stronger. If you never apply stress, nothing changes. If you never rest, performance breaks.

WORK is no different :)

We need pressure, standards, deadlines, and intensity to grow. But when stress is constant and never turns off, it stops helping and starts hurting. Judgment gets worse. Creativity drops. Everything begins to feel urgent and massively important even when it isn't (You all know who you are who get what I call .. ehh em.... the ‘spins’).

Rest is NOT lowering the bar. Rest is part of performance. It's when lessons sink in, thinking gets clearer, and energy comes back so the next push is actually strong (if not strongER) instead of forced.

The Mistake High Performers Make

One of the biggest mistakes high performers make is thinking that being under pressure all the time proves commitment. It really doesn’t. It usually proves that you don’t know how to recover and you are lacking in skills.

If your first reaction to any of this is "I can't afford to rest right now" that's exactly the sign that you need to, as I’m sure many of your first reactions might be. It more likely means that you've been operating that way for so long that you actually just don't even know how to recover. The forms of recovery that you may think help probably don't, such as being on your phone, watching a television show, etc etc

There is nothing wrong with this, but if you really want to win in the long run, you probably want to have two different sets of tools in your toolbelt:

Elite performers have both. If you have one and not the other, and you're wondering why you are not further along, well - there’s your answer.

What We Can Do

I don't want this to be a nice idea we agree with and then ignore. Here's what I'm asking of this team:

1 - Plan recovery before the push, not after the crash. If you know an intense period is coming, a launch, an event, a filming cycle, a big planning push - I want you to put a recovery window on the calendar BEFORE the work starts. I'm going to start asking about cooldown plans alongside project plans. No more back-to-back sprints without a decompression window built in.

2 - Take one full day off each week. One day where you do not check Slack, email, or work documents. Not mostly off. Fully off. This protects your judgment and your long-term output. I have been knee deep in enough studies at this point that it is clear - one day off makes the rest so much more productive. And it increases your quality of work the rest of the week.

I'm telling this group because your teams will multiply your efforts. They do what you do, not what you say you will do. If you don't take time off, come out, they won't take time off. You are NOT showing the lack of commitment by doing these things. You are showing a deep commitment to wanting to perform in the long-term.

Many of you are like me, rest is actually harder than working hard. If that's the case, then you should feel like this is the highest form of commitment you could make.

Please take five minutes today to schedule in either recovery after your next big work push or a day off in the next two weeks. And if you do this, I would say encourage your teams to do the same.

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