Stop Paying Biological Debt
Most VPs are walking heart attacks.
They sit in back-to-back meetings. They eat cold takeout at 9:00 PM. They drink too much coffee to wake up and too much bourbon to sleep. They call this “the grind.”
It isn’t a grind. It is biological debt. And just like technical debt, the interest will eventually bankrupt you.
Two years ago, I was bankrupt. I weighed 290 pounds. I was tired. I was slow. I didn’t know I had diabetes, but my body did. I was trying to lead a high-growth tech organization while my own hardware was crashing.
I didn’t need a “wellness retreat.” I needed a total system rebuild.
The Hardware Patch
In tech, when a server is failing, we don’t pray for it. We look at the metrics. We find the root cause. We fix it.
I finally treated my body like a machine. I went to a doctor. I checked my testosterone. I found the diabetes. I started GLP-1 injections. Some people call that a shortcut. I call it a patch for a broken system. It leveled the playing field so I could actually do the work.
Then, I found my fight.
I started Karate with my kids. I realized I liked kicking people. I liked the competition. This weekend, I earned my brown belt. I am 180 pounds today. At my lowest, I was 160.
I didn’t just lose the weight. I changed my mental alignment.
The Leader’s Mandate
You cannot protect your team if you are falling apart.
If you are brain-fogged, sluggish, and miserable, you are a bad leader. You aren’t “sacrificing for the company.” You are becoming a liability. Your team needs a version of you that is sharp, focused, and high-energy.
Leadership is a physical burden. If you don’t have the strength to carry yourself, you have no business trying to carry a department.
When I fixed my health, my work changed. My family life changed. Everything got better because the person in the center of it all finally respected himself.
As Gandalf said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Stop spending your time dying in a chair.
The Monday Morning Fix
Audit your metrics. Go to a doctor this week. Get a full blood panel. Stop guessing about your health.
Find a fight. Find a physical activity that is hard and involves others. Gyms are boring. Martial arts or team sports build discipline.
Say “No” to the chair. If a meeting doesn’t require a screen share, do it while walking.
What is the one physical goal you are currently sacrificing for your career?
Great post. If you don’t take care of yourself, it’s hard to take care of others.
This framing of health as technical debt is brilliant. The comparison between treating a failing server with metrics and treating a failing body the same way cuts through all the usual wellness fluff. I tried doinga similar systems approach when I started cycling competitivley last year, but I focused too much on heart rate zones and not enuf on just showing up consistently. Sometimes the metrics can become another form of procrastination from the actual work.