Although these numbers are generally accurate, of course there are exceptions—maybe you’re a teacher who works eighty-five hours a week or a Harvard MBA who works forty. But stick with me here, because this secret still has meaning for you.
What’s the bottom line?
They all make $28/hour!
So how do you make more money than a Harvard MBA?
Two ways:
Work more hours and make way more per year.
Work way less hours and make less per year.
This works because when you overvalue your time you make more money by working less hours and earning more dollars per hour.
But wait: Am I telling you to work less? Absolutely not! My point isn’t that you should suddenly dial down your interests, passion, or career. My point is to calculate how much you make per hour and know this number. Remember this number. Have this number in your head. I have friends who work around the clock as downtown lawyers and they joke, “When I do the math I actually make less than minimum wage.” They’re right! And, frankly, I don’t understand them.
Do not make less than minimum wage.
The way to make more money than a Harvard MBA isn’t to get your annual salary over $120,000 or $150,000 or $500,000. It’s to measure how much you make per hour and overvalue you so you’re spending time working only on things you enjoy. The average life expectancy in our world today is seventy years, and we sleep for a third of that. That means you have four hundred thousand waking hours in your life total. You have four hundred thousand hours to spend in your life total.
Understand how much a Harvard MBA really makes and overvalue you so every single hour of your working life is spent doing something you love.
Secret #6
The Secret to Never Being Too Busy Again
1
Do this and you’ll suddenly have space back in your life
For years, I’ve watched many business leaders burn out. Sometimes flame out spectacularly. Consultants traveling for months suddenly have anxiety attacks on airplanes. High-powered CEOs in their forties having heart attacks or strokes. Suicide attempts. I don’t want to scare you, but leaders doing too much are bubbling with fire inside—and not the good kind.
Here’s another scribble. This one’s called the Space Scribble, and it reflects what I have learned from those leaders who have been able to manage high doing and high thinking. Instead of checking themselves into hospitals, they knew how to surf between waves of thinking and doing with skill. I’ve seen the Space Scribble mastered by a CEO of a hospitality company, a multibillionaire luxury goods merchant, and a three-time New York Times–bestselling author. No, it doesn’t take a specific personality, makeup, or mood. You just have to want balance.
The Space Scribble helps you get more done and be happier doing it. It’s good news for your future bosses, lovers, and kids.
In the top right corner of this scribble is doing, doing, doing, thinking, thinking, thinking. When we’re going really hard, we’re all right there. Highest possible thinking! Highest possible doing! Up all night prepping for a conference. Week of the big launch. First month on the job. It feels great to be in that corner.
You’re in the moment. You’re in the zone. You’re burning.
Yes, if you’re doing a lot and thinking a lot, you’re burning at both ends. Which two ends? Your thinking end and your doing end.
Take it from Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in her book Poetry, published in June 1918:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!
Burn gives a lovely light. Yes, it’s hard to leave the Burn box because you’re getting so much done. You’re incredibly productive! It’s a massive high. Adrenaline squeezed from battery-size glands on top of your kidneys keeps you turbocharged. And beware of feedback mechanisms. They often can’t be trusted. A big bonus rewards extra efforts. Customers send thank-you notes for bending over backward. Your boss congratulates you on hitting an aggressive deadline . . . and then presents an even more aggressive one. Is this feedback malicious? It’s not meant to be! But it’s a dangerous side effect of finding a business model that works.
A senior partner at a prestigious global consulting firm once said to me after a boozy dinner, “We find type A superachievers from Ivy League schools who need lots of rewards and praise . . . and then dangle carrots just over the next deadline, project, and promotion, so they keep pushing themselves. Over every hill is an even bigger reward . . . and an even bigger hill.”
The Burn is so seductive because it’s so productive.
You feel great there.
Is it any wonder I once heard a retail COO say on a conference panel, “It’s a bad sign when a store manager buys a house. Means they’re settling down. Means they might get stale. We move the best managers from city to city to city so they have a new community to learn and new social and work systems to develop. It gives the stores great energy to have new ideas. And when they get comfortable, we move them again!” He didn’t say this at the head of a mahogany table while petting a cat and filling a room with evil laughter. He just shared what worked best for his business. It was his job to do what was best.
My point is that there’s nothing wrong with burning. But there is something wrong with burning out. It feels great to get a lot done, but just be careful you don’t go too hard, too long. That’s when you slip right off the edge of the scribble. Very few people have the courage to tell you that you’re near your max. Nervous breakdowns, tearful breakups, and heart attacks always come far too late.
So what’s the solution?
You must create space.
Space is the exact opposite of Burn.
No thinking, no doing. This is the sandy beach vacation without plans, phones, or thoughts. Lying on a beach chair while sunbeams soak you, waves pound in the distance, and your mind slowly lets go of everything it’s silently squeezing. That’s space. It’s not the vacation with the packed itinerary or your email buzzing in the background. Those don’t turn off the doing and thinking parts of your brain. Wooded cabins, meditative retreats, or locking yourself in the bathroom can also give you space. You need space! But let me caution that, just like Burn, the Space box can be toxic in high doses.
What do I mean?
My mom retired from her government job at the same time my sister and I moved out of the house while my dad was still motoring around town every day. She was suddenly home alone without social structure, planned activities, or a group of friends. She was in a great thinking phase for a while, but eventually she noticed her weekdays and weekends blurring together, personal problems becoming unproductive, and simply not having enough to do or think about. This continued until she joined a bridge club and a professional network and had a granddaughter to care for one day a week. Space without an end date—or an ikigai—can lead to swirling and swirling.