How to handle your busiest day.

There’s an old story about someone interviewing a Buddhist monk and one of the questions they ask is how long do you meditate each day?

The monk replies that she meditates for an hour each day and the interviewer replies, “An Hour! That’s a lot. What do you do when you have a busy day?”

And the monk replies, “Oh, when I have a busy day I meditate for 2 hours.”

This is obviously counter-intuitive to many of us. Those of us who are high achievers, entrepreneurs, and hard chargers tend to prioritize our time somewhat backward.

We tend to think that work is the most important, then family responsibilities, then social gatherings, then maybe physical health, then, at the bottom is mental and/or spiritual health.

Then, what we all find out after a few months or years of living this way is that it’s not sustainable.

If we’re not taking care of the vehicle, the vehicle will break down. Especially if we’re asking a lot of the vehicle.

This can be hard to see when we’re busy in our work. We feel like we can’t possibly afford the time to do anything other than address the needs of the business, but that’s seriously short-sighted thinking.

In order to make a long career healthy and happy, we have to take great care of the vehicle all the way. This includes sleep, nutrition, movement, and something to take care of your mental health like meditation or engaging in therapy.

If you employ all these things, then you’re gonna run like a high-performance sports car. You get out of the vehicle what you put in.