For the past 6 months, I’ve been working with the team at Mascot Books and an incredible writer & editor, Myles Schrag on my first book. My goal for this book is for it to feel like a friend, mentor, advisor, and source of inspiration for men seeking to show up better in all aspects of their lives. I’ve been fortunate to have interviewed more than 150 influential men and each chapter will include a passage that resonated with me, has helped me and I hope will do the same for you. Then I add my spin to it. I wanted to share a chapter with you this week.
Chapter XX: I Miss Every Monday
“When my wife met me, I was a bartender. She didn’t know life was going to go the direction it went. Owning a restaurant was a dream of mine and I would feed her all the dreams that I had as I was building this career. Because I was able to create this business and generate some revenue for our family, about three years into operating The Meatball Shop, I’d worked to the bone. I’d worked so much that I never saw her. She was very busy in her modeling career, but I didn’t take a day off for 18 months straight when I opened up the restaurant for the first business. She looked at me and said, ‘Mike, I love you to death and I want to build a family with you, but it can’t be this way. It just can’t. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me. I need more of you.’
“I knew in my heart of hearts that she was absolutely right and I also knew that I wanted to build a family with this wonderful woman and I would never find somebody quite like her ever again. She just makes me so happy. She’s my best friend. I said, ‘We’ve got to get out of New York on weekends because if I’m in New York, it’s going to be very hard for me not to physically be in the workplace.’ We rented a house with a couple of friends just to see if it was possible for me to do it. We ended up going up at least twice a month to the Catskills. After a year of that, we decided to look to buy a place. I had sold a little equity in The Meatball Shop so I had some capital. We looked for about six months until we found this unbelievable property. We did it and we’re up here two or three times a month on the weekends. It’s a line that I’ve drawn thick in the sand where I’ve told my partner, I work my ass off and I’m not going to subject my family to not seeing me and me not seeing them. I want to be part of their upbringing. I don’t work on the weekends, period.
“Mentally and physically, it’s hard to be present upstate with them. The weekend is the busiest time in the restaurant business. I still struggle with it. Just because I remove myself from the concrete jungle of New York City doesn’t mean my head isn’t focused on business and the abundance of email that are still coming in all day Saturday and Sunday. I have to really practice separation from it. There are times when my wife will be like, ‘You are so not here, at all.’ It’s hard for me not to get frustrated and say, ‘Do you know what it’s like to get 100 emails on a Saturday?’ It’s an ongoing practice. I do believe we’ll come to a point, hopefully sooner rather than later, where this nonstop constant accessibility, unrealistic response times from business that this has to stop. I try my best to leave it in the city when I head upstate and I would say I do pretty well. I do give myself a couple hours on Sunday morning to sift through and get through as many emails as I can before Monday morning comes around. But it’s an ongoing battle.”
—Michael Chernow, founder of Seamore’s Restaurants and co-founder of The Meatball Shop, on The Midlife Male with Greg Scheinman podcast, Episode #38
When you scroll through social media, do you get bombarded with a ton of bullshit Carpe Monday Diem motivational quotes?
What’s Latin for “Slow the fuck down, Caesar?”
I’m not singing “I Don’t Like Mondays” each week by any means. But if you need that much motivation to get you up on a Monday, maybe you’ve got bigger problems.
Whether it’s drawing a thick line in the sand on no-work weekends or choosing a day off from working out or making a commitment to not skimp on sleep, you have to give yourself breaks and time to recover. To win the day ahead, you’ve got to win the night before, which means getting plenty of sleep. You make the schedule that works for you, but plugging in consistent downtime is non-negotiable.
I actually love Mondays (sorry, Bob Geldof). I’ve flipped “Never miss a Monday” to “I miss every Monday.”
I tend to go pretty hard, and as hard as I like to go, it’s also important to slow down. Part of maximizing middle age is knowing when to go hard and when you need to recover.
I’ll redline it Tuesday through Friday with work and projects. On the weekends, I’m all about life experiences, spending time with my family, and being active. That takes a lot of energy and puts a lot of strain on my body and mind, so Mondays are typically my slowdown day.
When Monday comes around I like to be mindful, express gratitude, re-focus, restore, rejuvenate, revisit my goals and take small, positive action steps. In that way, I ease into the new week.
Here are some typical Monday tasks and activities for me:
· I’ll sleep in a little. For me, that’s 6 or 6:30 a.m.
· Take my dogs to the park and then drop them off to get a bath.
· Get my car washed. A clean truck after a weekend of off-road activities just makes me feel good.
· Go over my goals for the quarter and the rest of the year and update them.
· Set up a few calls to make sure projects are on schedule and aligned.
· Touch base with some clients.
· Make a couple of outreach calls.
· Take a long sauna.
· Spend a few minutes in the cold plunge.
· Take a walk or ride my bike.
· Meditate for a few minutes.
· Check in with a good friend or two.
· Read a couple articles on places I want to go, things I want to see, and topics I want to explore.
· Have dinner with the family.
· Get to bed early.
I believe in working hard and playing harder, but I’m not talking about the recovering from your hangover type of playing harder from in your twenties. I’m talking about recovering from good, hard, wholesome physically, spiritually and mentally taxing work—the fun stuff that fills your tank and feels great but can also drain it because it’s exhausting.
When you put so much into everything, it takes so much out of you as well.
You’ve got to take the time to charge back up again.
