Latest / RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Leadership Podcast / Episode 16: Why Leaders Come Home Empty (and Netflix Won't Fix It)
Transcript
- Kent: You can be home for dinner every night, and your family can still be getting the scraps. I know because I lived that way for most of a year. I was in the chair, I was at the table, but I was 100 miles away. What finally started bringing me back surprised me. It was a palm sander in my garage. Today I want to show you why fun and hobbies are some of the things that owners and executives cut first, and the fastest thing to refill an empty. You're growing the company, but if you're honest, home has been getting your leftovers. Most owners think the fix is more balanced. The truth is, you were never a scale. What you need is rhythm. I'm Kent Moroski, and this is the Rhythms of Rest Leadership Podcast, where owners, founders, and CEOs learn to grow the company without it costing them their family, themselves, or their teams. If the company is growing and something still feels off, take the Rhythms of Rest assessment now. In under three minutes, you'll see which of your four rhythms is out of sync and one move that matters most this week. Just go to Kent Moroski.com and click any of the buttons that say rest assessment or go to restassessment.scoreapp.com if you want to go directly there. Let's go. Well, if you've caught yourself drifting off at the dinner table, short with your wife over nothing, snippy with the kids, you're not alone. I know what that feels like. Most leaders do. You're not imagining it, and you're not a bad parent or spouse. Your emotional tank is empty. And that doesn't stay at home. That same empty tank is the one that you're leading from on Monday morning. Your family gets less of you, but so does your team. More than one of my, especially male executive coaching clients has told me, I don't do feelings. You ever heard that before? Or I'm not good at feelings. I get it. Most of us, and especially men, were taught that feelings are weak and unnecessary. The feelings don't go anywhere because we just don't do them. But before we get into all that, let me back up and give you some context for where this is all coming from. So several years ago, I had a serious disagreement. This is probably this is over 10 years ago now, but I had a serious disagreement over our organizational values with a young man on our team that I had personally mentored for years. I'm obviously no longer leading that organization. But at the time, we tried for months to find common ground. After nearly a year, it came down to a choice that I gave him. Embrace the long-standing written value or step down from leadership. He chose to step down from leadership and eventually ended up leaving the organization. that final conversation, those final months were heavy. I felt conflicted, though I knew it was the right thing. This young man had led several different initiatives and departments. He had been close to us personally, watched our kids. been a foundational part of helping us you know, build the organization. And I felt honestly, I felt heartbroken. I felt emotionally spent. I had nothing left to give. I was physically present at home, but emotionally distant. And I'm sure you know that feeling. My family got the scraps, but they didn't get the best of me. This is how emotional burnout often shows up. It's irritability, it's lack of compassion, it's brain fog. I tr I so I retreated where a lot of men do to the garage. I had no plan. I just started I started by puttering, and then I realized that I was going to start refinishing some furniture. And that turned into me refinishing every piece of furniture that I could find. My grandma's dresser box, our 10-year-old dining room table. A credenza I found on the side of the road. In fact, I'll if you're watching on YouTube, I'll put a picture of me by that credenza. It's still in our house today. there was something about working with my hands that was really healing for me in that season. taking tangible measurements, stripping and putting on new stain, sanding with my palm sander, it all allowed my mind to rest and my emotions not to dwell on the situation, which oftentimes, to be honest, when you're trying to get healing or you're going, even if you're going after an objective. Focusing on the thing itself isn't what helps us. It's looking slightly to the left or right, doing something that occupies our minds and frees it up to think about other things and allows our emotions to heal as well. I also went skiing a few times during that season with friends. It was late winter at the time. And then when the weather turned, I went and played a few rounds of golf as well with friends. But During that season, it wasn't overnight, but during that season, something unexpected happened. I noticed that my emotional tank started to replenish. Little by little, I started to feel whole again. I wasn't as snippy and irritable. I was present at the table. I was playing with the kids. I wasn't somewhere else while I was in the room. But wait a minute, let's just back up. What do fun and hobbies have to do with emotional health? A lot, actually. Most people think fun and hobbies are a reward you get once your tank is full, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Fun is actually what fills our emotional tank. I want you to hear that, leader. Fun is not a reward once the tank is full. Fun actually fills your emotional tank. Here's why I believe this can change for you. I didn't refill my tank by figuring it out. I had no answers in that garage. I just knew how I felt. But I did something with my hands, I did something with people I liked, and the refill started to happen underneath it all. When you keep pushing through without dealing what you're feeling, without dealing with what you're feeling, it catches up with you. For me, doing things I enjoyed was part of finding my way back to myself. It didn't fix everything, but it helped me feel like myself again. That means you don't have to solve your whole inner life before you start feeling like yourself again. You need something in the tank to work with. I want you to think of this. When is the last time you lost track of time doing something you loved? See, that guy or that lady is still in there. And if you're saying, I can't remember the last time. I lost track of time doing something I loved. That's a problem. Now, emotional and mental rhythms, the E and REST and the rhythms of rest framework, R stands for relational, E for emotional and mental, S for spiritual, faith or philosophy of life, and T for tangible. That E chamber is about creating space to process, to reflect, to heal and grow instead of just pushing through everything. When I had my fall down on the floor nervous breakdown at 27, it was because. I just kept pushing through and ignoring my feelings until I couldn't anymore. So if that's you, leader, I want to speak directly to you. If you're that type of leader that's hard driving, that just pushes through, that ignores feelings, that pushes them to the side when they're popping up, they're like that, they're like dashlights, lights on the dashboard in your car. They're trying to tell you something, okay? And if you're that leader, Who just pushes through them and pushes through them and pushes through them, I'm telling you, you're headed for some type of crash. So the E covers three rhythms. When I talk about emotional and mental rhythms, here are the three that specifically I've identified as the highest leverage ones. And I'm actually gonna draw a picture for this. All right. So I'm going to draw this for us on the screen right now. I've been trying my hand at a little bit of art while we're in this. Well, I guess I wouldn't call it art. That's a that's a strong word. But anyway, regardless of all that, here's the rhythms of rest framework. Rhythms of rest. Okay. So there's four chambers four chambers, excuse me. I'm gonna draw those first. And if you're watching on YouTube, wow, that was bad. you can see these. And we've got the R for relational, the E for emotional and mental, the S for spiritual, and that could be faith or a philosophy of life. Draw filling these out. And then we've got the T for tangible. Those are the eat, sleep, and exercise, our work and our finances. In the middle of the four chambers, we've got the heart because these are really, these four chambers are really pullouts of the heart. If we want to operate as a whole person and leader, we've got to have those four rhythms, like the four chambers of the heart, working together in harmony. So today we're specifically talking about this one. the E or the emotional rhythm. Next time we'll be talking about the spiritual, that faith or philosophy of life. But when I say, let me stop sharing my screen. when I say The E chamber, that e covers three different things. In fact, let me share those share the screen as well, and I'll I just want to put those on the screen for us, okay? So those three things, what are they? Let me just erase this. Boom. I'm just going to fill in, just going to pull out the one box, the emotional. I'm not with the eraser, I'm not. The emotional E. And it consists of three different categories. So they are the first category under emotional rhythms is acknowledge your feelings. So I'm just gonna write feelings. Acknowledge your feelings and learn how to regulate them. Number two is sharpen your mind and intellect. So mind and intellect. And then the third category of emotional rhythms is have fun and a regular hobby. So fun and hobbies. Now that might seem weird to you that fun and hobbies are a part of the emotional rhythms. I'm gonna tell you why, so don't worry. each of the four chambers has a what I call a keystone rhythm. Comes from Charles Duhaig's Power of Habits. He calls them keystone habits. You may not think it, but fun and hobbies are the keystone rhythm for for the e chamber, the emotional rhythms. And What I mean by Keystone Rhythm are it's the one that starts a chain reaction in your emotional health. So it's the one that drives change in other areas. So what actually counts as fun? Let's jump in there for a minute. Catherine Price, she wrote a book called The Power of Fun. She gives a really simple but helpful formula for fun. Here's what she says: she says fun equals playful, connected. Flow. I'm going to draw that on the screen for us too. So fun equals playful connected flow. Now there's three different aspects there that we need to unpack. So fun. let me take off my rhythms of rest there. Put the pen back on. I'm going to draw in a different color for this. Let's draw in blue. So fun. Why didn't it work? Work. There we go. We got blue and black. Fun equals playful. Plus connected, I'm gonna abbreviate, plus flow. Now, what are those? The playful is this. Playful means basically lightheartedness, okay? Lightheartedness. In other words, it's not taking yourself too seriously. Leaders, can we just admit that we have a problem with that sometimes? We just take ourselves way too seriously, don't we? How about the connected? Let's look at connected. Connected means a shared experience with someone else. And then flow, you know that word, it means totally engrossed. And that means that you're not passively passively zoning out, which is why Netflix doesn't count for fun, at least in this scenario that Catherine Price gives us. So we've got fun, it's playful, plus connected, plus flow. So let me give you an example for me. For me, golf is fun, skiing is fun. They're lighthearted, they usually involve other people. And they require me to be engrossed. I have to concentrate on what I'm doing, but it's a different part of my mind than the cognitive part that I use when I'm working in my business or writing books or coaching clients or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So hobbies can be fun. Now, well, so that was fun. Hobbies, on the other hand, they can be fun, but they don't always involve other people, right? They usually engage your hands and they don't require emotional output. Leadership is intangible and it's mentally taxing, which is why refinishing furniture or listening to a record gives emotional and mental rest. Now, I can't say this strongly enough. I'm not talking about a productive hobby that you can monetize. This is not optimization disguised as fun. So, leaders, when you pick a hobby, when you schedule something fun. Do not try to optimize it. Okay. I know we want to be the best at everything, but don't try to optimize this. It's especially for fun. I had to decide a long time ago that I wasn't going to try to optimize golf. now maybe even someday if I take lessons and I get way better, I play three times a week or four times or every day or whatever. and get better, I'm still not gonna try to optimize it. Why? Well, because I do I've just decided years ago. I do it to be outside. I do it to be with friends. If I have a great round, great, but I'm doing it for fun. Now, if you can't do if you if you're thinking about a hobby and you you're there's like there's no way that I can't optimize this, then pick a different hobby, okay? Now there's plenty of leaders in this day and age, especially this season, that are talking about analog hobbies lately. And I love that. I've been talking about this for years. Corn Ferry, a global consulting firm, they've been tracking this and leaders are putting down their screens and they're picking up hobbies like Lego, like bread making, like woodworking or pottery. These activities, they don't have to produce anything useful or help the business whatsoever. They can just simply be enjoyable. So, as one CEO put it, not everything has to be productive to be worthwhile. Amen. That's the truth. I love Proverbs chapter 17, verse 22, in the Hebrew scriptures: a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength. Now, this also matters for how you lead, not just your home life and your family life, which is most important, and yourself, but it also matters for how you lead. A leader who doesn't have fun doesn't sorry, a leader who has fun doesn't take himself so seriously or herself, is emotionally replenished and leads with more clarity and more patience because your tank isn't empty. So I also encourage leaders to have fun with their team. it doesn't it does double duty. It refills everyone's tank and it strengthens trust at the same time. Now there are two ditches on either side of finding a hobby or something fun to do that leaders can fall into. number first ditch is we can overcompensate. we can numb out on things that feel good in the moment, but don't actually replenish us again, like Netflix. We can also undercompensate. We can deprive ourselves of enjoyment, keep pushing through, call it a busy quote unquote season when it's actually a lifestyle, and stay emotionally and mentally absent and spent. Now, how do I know this? I know this because I've actually done both. there are seasons when I would just retire to my bedroom early, right after not too much after dinner, and I'd watch something. I'm weird, I can watch this. bits of movies like 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and it drives my family crazy. But I'd watch part of a movie or a show because it required no thinking. Now you might say, well, what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with it. But I was emotionally numbing and it was longer than 20 or 30 minutes. And after a while, my wife said, Hey honey, you've been disappearing to our room after dinner. And I and I, I see you're watching a show and that's fine, but I feel like I'm left here with the kids all by myself and I need help. And so, that jarred me out of my numbing out. In other seasons, when I asked myself the question, when is the last time that I lost track of time doing something I loved? I couldn't remember. That's why now, ever since that season I told you about earlier. Of puttering in the garage and refinishing furniture. That's why I now try to make sure to put something fun on the schedule at least once a month and to have at least one hobby I'm pursuing. In this season, it's been golf. I've decided that's going to be my one hobby that I'm pursuing. Obviously, that changes in the winter because I don't live in South Carolina or Florida. I can't play golf in the winter, nor do I want to, at least in the super cold weather. So that changes sometimes from season to season, but that's what I've decided. Now, fun and hobbies replenish depleted emotions, but they don't make up, I want to make this very clear, they don't make up for a lack of self-awareness or emotional intelligence. The deeper work still needs to happen, but it can only happen when there's something in the tank to work with. You can't become more self-aware, more emotionally intelligent, which means. You can comprehend your own emotions and how they impact others. You can't do that when the tank is empty. So that's why I'm asking you and pleading with you to schedule something fun, have a hobby, and make sure your emotional tank is full before you try to do that deeper inner work. Now, I run into so many leaders who say, I don't have time for fun, Kent. that's great that you can do that. I, wonderful that you can play golf or you can, ski or do other things. I just, I don't have time for it. I get it. you have heavy leadership expectations, family responsibilities can make it hard. It feels like a waste of time, or if not that, just that there is no time. I've been there before, so I get it. But underneath that, I don't have time is usually something else. It's I'm not allowed to do this. It's this doesn't help the bottom line. It's I can't afford to take time off. Or hobbies are laziness. I'll do it once my kids grow up. Or the worst one I hear is they'll there'll be time to rest when I'm dead. Okay. But under that question, Is a question that most of us never say out loud. It's this. Am I worth time spent on something that produces nothing? See, leaders, we tend to place an unhealthy amount of our identity sometimes on what we do. And so. Sorry for that interruption of my phone. I'm gonna go ahead and shut that off. That's how you know this podcast is real and it's not AI. Because there's mistakes in it. Anyway, where was I? Under that question is am I worth time spent on something that produces nothing? That's a reasonable question for someone who's been rewarded his whole life or her whole life for output. But here's what I've seen. The leader without some fun becomes emotionally numb and callous. I know I did. And without feeling you can't lead well at home or in your business. Without feeling it's hard to understand yourself or the people you lead. Your family is worth a spouse and a parent with something left. Your team is worth a leader with patience to spare who is present. And energized. Fun gives you the space to reflect and heal without having to figure it out. That's the leader's advantage. Now that's why I encourage the business owners and executives that I coach to pick at least one hobby and do it. there's gonna be more time as seasons shift, but for now, pick one thing and do it. Something you love and have dreamed of either doing somewhere, or sorry, someday, or something you used to do and haven't done in years. A recent example for me is hunting. I told you I was focused on golf, which I was. but this year, my season has changed a little bit. I've got two adult children, twenty-three and twenty. They both work full time, though they still live at home right now. And then I've got a thirteen year old, we call them our happy ending. And so I've got a little more time to pursue some of those things. I'm still very present with my thirteen year old. We go hiking on weekends, we do a lot of different things, but recently I decided I wanted to get back into hunting. I grew up in Pennsylvania in the middle of nowhere in a small town hunting turkey and small game and deer. And by the time I was 16 years old, in Pennsylvania, I was hunting alone. Though admittedly, many times it was because I just really enjoyed being in the woods. I didn't know why at the time, but now we know it's very stress relieving. But I also just wanted to smoke a cigarette and get the heck out of my home because it was turmoil. and so Now I'm not I'm not necessarily smoke I'm not smoking the cigarette in the woods. I don't smoke anymore, but I'm getting back into hunting for the first time in over 30 years. Now I'm gonna place a picture if you're watching this on YouTube of me that one of my kids took of me in my grizzly bear sweatshirt with my new hunting hat that they thought was comical. So this is not what I'm wearing out hunting, except for the hat, but I'll put that up right now. Now, the leader who schedules his fun is the one who comes home with something left to give. Don't you want to be that leader that comes home with something left in the tank? You know what it feels like to come home totally empty and you're running on fumes and you're trying to be present with your family. They all notice. They they understand they understand isn't the word. They see it. you can't really hide it. I want to be. The husband and the father and the friend and the person who, when I'm sitting with someone, they can see that I'm paying attention. I'm not emotionally absent. I'm not checking my phone all the time. I'm not scattered and fragmented. I can just look them in the eye and be present and be a friend, be a leader, be a husband, be a parent, and really just be all there wherever I am. I know you want to be that leader too. we all appreciate those people who when we sit with them, we feel like we're the only person on the face of the earth. Well, it's time for our rhythms check. Each time during this podcast at the end, we focus on one of the four rhythms of rest. And I give you an action step you can take in the next 24 to 48 hours and a reflection question to help you go deeper. Everything in today's story lives in the emotional, excuse me, the emotional chamber. Now, here's your action step for the next 24 to 48 hours. I want you to, I said it before, I hinted at it, but now I'm just gonna call you out. I'm gonna ask you to do it. Pick one fun activity or hobby. Now, if it's fun, there's gotta be another person involved. If it's a hobby, it doesn't necessarily, but it can be both. put a specific date. On the calendar in the next two weeks. And if it involves another person, send the text today. Okay? Do that, and you become the leader who refills his tank or her tank on purpose, or at least you start to. Your family is going to get the best of you instead of your scraps. You're going to see that over time. And your team is going to feel the energy too. Now, here's your reflection question for this week. When you open your calendar to block this and you hear the resistance, this doesn't help the bottom line, or I just don't have time. I want you to ask yourself, what has it been costing you, your family, and your team? And I want you to write that down. Listen, if you follow me on social media, if you watch this on YouTube, or if you're part of my email list, drop a comment, send me a DM, hit reply to the the email newsletter with the one thing you picked and the date that you put it on your calendar. I read them. I love to hear from you in whatever way you want to reach out. And if you're interested in working with me in some way, just go to Kent Moroski.com. and You can find all that information there. Well, if this episode described a challenge all too well, that's what the newsletter is for. Every other week I send tools I use with business owners and executives to build rhythms into how they lead. Just go to Kent Moroski.com forward slash newsletter and you can get on the list. It's free and it's where new frameworks show up first, special content. Pictures that everybody else doesn't get to see, and it happens before anywhere else. I'll see you in a couple weeks.