I've been fairly active my whole life. Even when I was starting out in management, I prided myself on prioritizing my health by working out on a regular basis and eating healthy for the most of the time. I’ve had my ups and downs of course, but I’m definitely not a couch potato.
About a year into middle management, where, as most of us, I was caught between an unrealistic executives and a stressed team of my own, I hit a wall. It wasn’t a burnout, but a relentless energy wall. I was functionally competent, but at the same time I had zero capacity left for anything but work.
I would often stay up late to catch up on things I missed during the day, then wake up drowsy the next day after five hours of restless sleep. That resulted in me feeling easily annoyed by minor things, and relying on constant caffeine just to sustain focus past 11 in the morning. I was constantly running on an energy deficit. And on top of that I was skipping exercise and the quick fast food diet didn't help as well.
One morning, after another rough night of sleep, I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked tired, puffy, and defeated. I knew I needed to change something foundational.
As most of us would, I googled things like “how to eat healthy,” “lose weight,” and “best exercise program.” Because why not start with everything, all at once, right?
What I didn’t realize was that there are so many specialized plans, routines, and supplements out there. Often contradicting one another. And it's overwhelming.
I wasted so much time during that period by chasing "new trends" on how to eat and exercise. I downloaded the complex meal plans, followed the high-intensity workout routines, and tried some of the specialized supplements.
And the crazy part was that no one even talked about the importance of sleep. Mostly it was optimizing output - faster running, harder lifting, more restrictive eating.
What I didn't realize was that I was optimizing for the final 10% of health, while completely ignoring the basic 90% - the foundation.
Now when I look back at it, I think I was trying to build a sustainable career on an unstable body, and the math never worked. I needed patience and strategic thinking, but my low energy meant those skills weren't available.
What Changed
The change was when I realized I had the equation backwards. I was telling myself: “I’ll fix my health when this project is over.” But in a way it just was a form of procrastination. It allowed me to feel productive about my health without actually doing the basic work.
Every time I chose one more hour of work over an hour of rest, I was increasing the complexity of tomorrow's problems because I was making myself less capable of solving them.
The change I made was simple: I stopped treating my health basics as a reward for hard work, and started treating them as the prerequisite for hard work.
Easy to say, hard to do.
What helped me was starting to look at it as risk management, not just health. If I didn't protect the basic inputs (Sleep, Movement, Nutrition), my professional output was compromised, and I became a liability to my team.
Your energy is a professional tool
We are conditioned to believe that prioritizing self-care under pressure is "soft" or selfish. Somehow it’s normal to brag about how few hours you slept, or how many cups of coffee or cans of energy drinks you’ve consumed to pull an all-nighter.
But that is not sustainable. You should look at your energy baseline as a non-negotiable professional tool. It determines your ability to absorb emotional impact, manage conflict, tolerate ambiguity, and delegate effectively. These are the things that require the most mental bandwidth.
When you sacrifice sleep, movement and nutrition - the boring basic 90% - you are voluntarily dulling your sharpest tools.
The complex leadership frameworks don't matter if you're too exhausted and annoyed to use them.
The Smallest Viable Investment
You can get overwhelmed by millions of influencers and health gurus telling you to optimize your hydration or your mitochondria.
When you’re stuck in that energy deficit, aiming for "perfect health" is just another source of failure. I used The Smallest Viable Investment (SVI) approach.
Here are the SVIs I started with:
For Sleep: I shifted my thinking to: my day starts when I go to sleep the night before. I set a reminder (just like an alarm in the morning) to signal when to start wrapping up, so I would go to bed at somewhat similar time every night. And I bought a good old fashioned alarm clock, so I could keep my phone outside of the bedroom entirely.
For Movement: This was probably the easiest for me, because I’ve always valued being active. But to foolproof myself against the days I didn't want to work out, I implemented tiny habits throughout the day. (taking the stairs instead of the elevator, having a short walk after lunch, standing up on meeting calls etc.)
For Fuel (Food): Food was the most challenging one for me. My tactic was to simply pay attention to what I ate and deliberately skip one highly processed, unhealthy item, that gave me quick satisfaction but made me feel instantly worse afterwards (usually some form of sugary, starchy snack). My goal wasn't to have perfect healthy eating, but to stop the immediate energy crash caused by low-quality fuel.
Today my approach to sleep, movement and fuel is far more advanced, but my point is, these are simply ways how I started. You need to find your own, low-barrier things that work for you, and that you can stick to, even on the worst day.
Thankfully, taking care of yourself is getting normalized now, but we still need to avoid the shame cycle where we feel bad for not being perfect. It’s okay to eat what you like, just avoid eating in a panic while staring at an email.
The bottom line
I'm not a fitness guru or a health coach. I'm just a guy who saw my leadership competence crash when my energy did. So, I wanted to share what has worked and helped me enormously.
After getting back in a good rhythm with these SVIs, the complex leadership problems didn't disappear, but I had the capacity to handle them better. I could delegate without anxiety and think strategically without the constant, mental fatigue.
So hopefully, if you are struggling and tempted by the next shiny trend, this can encourage you to stop looking for the secret miracle hack and focus on the basic foundation.
P.S. I’m also aware that we all have different circumstances - where we live, our family situation, our job requirements. Your SVI might look different than mine, and that is fine. The only goal is to define the minimum input required to stay functional, and then protect that minimum fiercely.
See you next Tuesday.