Stay Physically Strong

Enough about the philosophy of burnout. Let's talk about the physics of it. Top executives do not tire easily. They have tremendous endurance and boundless energy. According to Admiral Prueher, they have to have a "surge capability"—the capacity to increase their already high energy levels when crisis situations present themselves. As I said earlier, most of them work out and keep in good shape. "An hour workout gives me two hours of extra work capability," says Judge Murphy, whom we met earlier. It is an essential investment that you must make a minimum of three and preferably five times a week.

Working out does more than make your body strong. It cleans out your mind as well. "When I am having trouble writing a brief, I go for a swim," a successful Washington, D.C., lawyer told me one day at the University Club swimming pool. "In the pool, there is total sensory deprivation. No cell phones. No chattering in the halls. It is amazing how my mind replenishes itself as the water swirls around me. When I get back to the office, the brief practically writes itself. Everything has fallen into place."

One of the most senior people I interviewed for this book confided to me that, after a medical checkup revealed some heart problems, he hired a "stress coach" who helped him immeasurably in keeping his stress levels under control. That is a recurrent theme in my study of executives with staying power. Top people do not feel that they can do it alone. They are eager to seek help in any area when they need it, and they are not too proud to say that they need help.

As we touched on earlier, most successful executives also make a specific and conscious effort to carve out family and hobby time to help them stay grounded. Ron Gafford, CEO of Austin Industries, actually schedules time with his family in the same way he might schedule a business meeting; of course, far more flexibility is built into the family schedule. And, as I mentioned before, a lot of top professionals do not need much sleep—two and a half hours a night for Mike Sears of Boeing. A few supplement short nighttime sleep hours with fifteen-or twenty-minute power naps during the day. As I mentioned earlier, Albert Einstein is supposed to have staggered his sleep in small increments throughout the day. He did pretty well for himself.

If you can alter your sleep patterns to squeeze a couple of extra hours out of the day, you will have a tremendous advantage over others with whom you are competing for promotions and recognition. Getting by on less sleep by staggering your sleep, taking naps, etc., can provide such a professional edge that it is worth experimenting a little with alternative sleep patterns to see if they can work for you.