“When are you happiest?” She asked me.
“When I’m running.”, I replied.
“What are you running from?”, she retorted.
Fuck, I hate when she does that!
A pregnant pause.
A silent exchange of blank stares.
A once clear view of her on my screen now distorted through the tears welling up behind my eyes.
Dammit. I hate when she does that!
“She” is my therapist, Cindy.
She is altering the course of my life.
“Chad, you’ve experienced what’s called “compound trauma.” I want you to make yourself your next project.”
Trauma?! Me?!
In my mind, trauma was what war veterans or victims of real-life misfortunes experience.
Not me. I’m neither of those …
It was the summer of 2022, and I was just experiencing a little stress:
- 4 years earlier I had lost my 17-year old niece (and Goddaughter) to Cystic
Fibrosis.
- 2 weeks later I lost my brother-in-law.
- A year later an immediate family member went into the hospital for 10 days.
- A year later I lost my mom.
- A year later I lost my sister-in-law.
- And in the middle of all that, I almost lost my business and my livelihood to a failed merger and attempted hostile take-over.
Compound trauma, apparently.
“Battlefronts everywhere”, I’d journal about, on a daily basis. And I’d brute-force my way through my days, with both fists up.
I bottled it all up.
I worked more hours.
And I ran more miles.
And that worked. Until one day it didn’t.
One morning, I found myself working at my kitchen island … having not slept for 3 straight days.
While I was trying to drive my company forward, I was driving myself into the ground.
On the outside, I was pulling off all that manly, bravado, “no days off”, “keep hustling,” bullshit.
On the inside, I was imploding.
At the encouragement of my closest friends, colleagues and family, I left town – for my benefit AND THEIRS. I was unbearable to be around.
2 days later, I was on a train from Chicago to Denver. Surely, an 18-hour train ride through the middle of America, with no connectivity to the outside world, would be the life hack I needed to get back to good.
I would sleep 14 of the 18 hours.
I was imploding.
And when I arrived in Denver, I did what I knew best when all I wanted to do was crawl out of my own skin – I went for a run.
16 miles later, I was convinced that in a matter of just a few more miles I could be at the top of the Rocky Mountains and life would be good again.
I was lost – mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
I was imploding.
After my short stay in Denver, I was back home and on my way to see my doctor.
“How long is your leave of absence policy?”, he asked.
“No clue. Why?” I snapped..
“You’re taking time off, and I need to know for how long I’m stating your leave for in my letter to your board.”
“I’m not taking any more time off!” I postured.
“You’re not listening to me!” he snapped. “If you don’t take time off, time is going to take you off! Because you’re a runner, your vitals are fine, with one major exception – your blood-oxygen level is in the low 90’s. You are literally suffocating under your stress and anxiety.”
Apparently, while I was brute-forcing my way through my days with both fists up, ready to defend myself from everything and everyone, I was hypoventilating. My breathing pattern was so shallow, I was literally suffocating.
There’s an old saying in recovery that says, “Sometimes you have to quit to win.”
For me, this was one of those times.
It was time for me to quit:
- Trying to please everyone.
- Perfectionism.
- Letting my work define me.
- Running from my need to grieve.
Eight life lessons from my ultimate Clarity Break that changed (saved) my life.
I took the 12-week leave of absence, and took the opportunity to deconstruct and reconstruct my lifestyle. To do that, I had to reject the prior version of myself in order to get to a newer, better version of myself – and in between, I had nothing.
Here’s what that time off taught me …
Be CEO of You, Inc.
I always ran my businesses on a balance scorecard, and now I run my EOS practice on a 13-week scorecard. It gives me a snapshot of the health of my business. Sadly, I had nothing of the like for myself and my life. My time off allowed me to create a balanced scorecard for myself and my life, to keep me living well, as if I was CEO of Chad Eddy, Inc. – because I am! What’s on it?
- Financial Health – how I manage my money, track savings and my net worth.
- Physical Health – how I eat, drink, sleep and exercise.
- Mental/spiritual Health – how I read, journal and pray.
- Community Health – how I stay connected within my tribes (EOS, CF Foundation, friends, colleagues and connectors).
- Family Health – how I spend time with my family.
Joy is an inside job.
“Joy” is a word I journaled a lot about during my time off. “Where’s the joy?”, I’d ask myself. Not happiness. But Joy. What is it that I love to do, so much so, that it doesn’t even feel like work? What is it that I love to do, that I’d do it even if I didn’t get paid? And who do I love to be around, those who if I could spend all day with it would be an amazing day? This is what led me to being an EOS Implementer and to dedicating my passion to entrepreneurs and their leadership teams. It also led me back to getting involved with Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and leveraging my passion for endurance running to raise awareness and money for the foundation’s cause to find a cure for CF.
Therapy as a companion, not a crutch
Professional golfers have a swing coach. Professional baseball players have a hitting coach or pitching coach. Professional runners have strength and conditioning coaches. So why wouldn’t we have a therapist to help us stay on track mentally and emotionally. Yes, I balked at the idea at first myself. But I’ve been with my therapist ever since. Sometimes an outside perspective, asking the tough questions that we don’t want to ask of ourselves, is just what the soul needs.
Perfection as a defense mechanism
My unrealistic expectations of being perfect was nothing but a defense mechanism. I’m a people-pleaser and fear being judged. Being perfect – and my incessant drive to be perfect – was my only way to protect myself. False. What I learned is it was actually toxic to my health, my productivity, and my relationships with those around me.
Just breathe
That’s right, just breathe. I know, it’s involuntary as much as voluntary. But spend time truly focused on your breathing. Start your day taking deep, intentional breaths. End your day taking deep, intentional breaths. And if you wake up at 2AM with those midnight obsessions, take deep, intentional breaths. It’s a good reminder of the most basic necessity of life. Treat yourself, be good at it.
Set boundaries to do focused, deeper work
I clearly had no boundaries, as evidenced by my office, which contained all my technology, my books, my journals, my workout clothes, yoga mat and weights. I’d do push ups with my ear bud in just in case a call came in, and with my phone on the floor in front of my face in case an email or text came in. Ugh! I learned to physically separate all my activities into separate rooms. So, when I was working, I was working. When I was reading, I was reading. When I was working out, I was working out. From 4:30AM to 8AM, I was solely focused on my personal growth – mind, body and spirit. But from 8PM to 8AM, no technology – this was the biggest game-changer.
Time as my frienemy
I made a list of all my good, healthy habits (e.g. reading) and all my bad, unhealthy habits (e.g. doom-scrolling social media). Two great books I read while on my break taught me this – The Compound Effect (Darren Hardy) and Atomic Habits (James Clear). Time is the great multiplier. Spend too much time on bad habits and time will bring you the receipts. Conversely, time will be your best friend when you spend the majority if not all your time in your good habits.
[(time x good habits) – (time x bad habits)] = your life’s trajectory
Time and space – the sixth of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
What makes elite athletes elite, aside from their God-given talents? They create time and space to make great plays with their God-given talents. Similarly, in life and in business, we need to create time and space by taking Clarity Breaks! It’s one of my favorite tools that we teach in the EOS Toolbox – the Clarity Break. It teaches leaders to take time away from their day to day grind to just think. This time away is not time to get caught up on to-dos and emails. It’s time to create space for clarity and to protect our confidence. For me, it’s time to do 5 things I now refer to my “5 Rs”:
- Retreat. Get away and remove myself from the grind. Unplug from it all!
- Rest. Decompress, silence my mind. And breathe. And sleep!
- Reflect. Put it all up for review. All of it. My words, thoughts, actions and emotions. I sit with it all, and observe. Judgement free. And learn.
- Rejuvenate. With grounding and a renewed focus on the opportunities and challenges ahead, the world conspires in our favor when we pursue our future with passion.
- Re-engage. There are 1,440 minutes in a day, to be all in, at my best for those around me, with failure as a feature, not a defect. And never letting the worries of yesterday or concerns of tomorrow steal any of today’s moments.
This can be 30 minutes, 3 hours or 3 days. Whatever you need. Just put it on your calendar, and hit repeat forever!
More on the Clarity Breaks … make the time to save time!
One discipline that all great leaders practice is taking time on a regular basis to rise above the everyday demands of their jobs to reflect and think at the thirty-thousand foot level, to stay sharp, confident, and at your best for your people.
By definition, a Clarity Break is time you schedule away from the office, out of the daily grind of running the department, to think and to work on your business, your department, and yourself. Stepping back to think will create clarity for you and restore your confidence.
Schedule an appointment with yourself. Put it down on your calendar. At first you may be concerned about when you’ll find the time. The irony is, you’ll actually save time by taking Clarity Breaks. When you are clear about your bigger objectives, you gain the confidence to simplify procedures and create efficiencies.
Use this scheduled break wisely, though. This is not time to catch up on email or complete a to-do list. It’s time to think, to see things clearly and restore your confidence.
If you want to learn more about EOS and how running on EOS will help you get more of what you want from your business (and your life), let’s connect. DM me here on LinkedIn or email me at chad.eddy@eosworldwide.com.
You can also subscribe to my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/iM39WA
=============================================================
PS Today, I’m still practicing the art of living my best life with the lessons learned from my time off. I’m not great at it. It’s a struggle, though, to fight old habits.
But I do consistently take a Clarity Break every Sunday from 1 to 5PM. I find a quiet corner at a local library, with my journals, and my notebooks and just think. And write. And create time and space, to create clarity as to what’s important and to protect my confidence.
And yes, I still run half and full marathons – but for fun, and running with my grief, not from it.
Thanks for reading!