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Overcommitment: Killing your Dreams
13 Plays1 month ago
You’re not burned out because you’re weak. You’re burned out because you’re drowning in promises you never should’ve made. In this Voice of Growth episode, Manny Teran breaks down the real reason high performers stay overloaded: we keep saying “yes” to protect our image, to please people, to chase every opportunity — and we call it hustle. It’s not hustle. It’s erosion. We cover: The 12 hidden drivers of overcommitment (ego, validation, FOMO, “firefighter” identity, people-pleasing, calendar lies, and more) Why “being busy” is not a badge — it’s a leak How to install a 5-part system to protect your time like an asset: Strategy guardrails Capacity math (ban the word “hope”) Commitment rules and exit ramps Calendar design that actually ships work Energy rhythm and stillness Then we go deeper: identity. “I make very few, very clean promises — and I keep them.” This episode is how you move from chaos to compounding. From “I’ll get to it” to “it’s shipped.” From impressing people today to building something that lasts. Listen now, cut one “fake yes,” and start taking your time back. 👊 Subscribe for more Voice of Growth — Mastering the Mind and the Market.
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Transcript
Challenges of Overcommitment
00:00:09
Speaker
It's been one of my challenges for pretty much my entire adult life. The firefighter mentality will eventually get you burned. ah Politeness becomes a tax on your purpose.
00:00:22
Speaker
When you protect your promises, your promises start producing. In my previous company, actually outlawed the word hope, and it's gotten me so much in my life.
00:00:34
Speaker
You need to be crystal clear about what needs to get done. because if you don't know where you're going, all roads will take you there.
00:00:47
Speaker
Welcome back to the Voice of Growth podcast, Mastering the Mind and Market.
Introduction to 'Voice of Growth'
00:00:51
Speaker
My name is Manny Turan, and I'm your host. On today's podcast, we are broadcasting for the first time in our motor coach, which we are converting into our new podcast studio.
Ego and Overcommitment
00:01:05
Speaker
Today's subject, over commitment and how it can stifle your dreams and slow down your success. As a hard driving entrepreneur, I too am very susceptible to this.
00:01:17
Speaker
It's been one of my challenges for pretty much my entire adult life. And as such, I have created lots of mechanisms around me in order to prevent this and mitigate this from being a problem.
00:01:30
Speaker
You see, it's not about jumping into that deep water. It's about saying yes to that next wave. It's about continuously thrashing around and treading water with lots and lots of additional things on top of what you're already doing that ultimately slows you down.
00:01:47
Speaker
Now, the idea here is has nothing to do with being lazy or incapable, and has everything to do with the same engine that creates drive and passion and work ethic That same engine is actually hijacking our ego and adding on more when, in fact, it's not serving us one bit.
00:02:13
Speaker
By the end of this episode, you'll have an understanding of why you we overcommit, a practical system in order to prevent it at its source, and then lastly, how to create an identity so that you make fewer, better promises your default and actually become more capable of doing more on your ever so shrinking list.
00:02:39
Speaker
The idea is that our podcast is about mastering the mind and market. And this subject is absolutely central to both because if you're treading water, you're not getting very far.
00:02:55
Speaker
And ultimately, you're not able to create the kind of life you want, or at least it'll be slowed down. And that's the subject today. So the pattern is, this is more of ah of a mirror, not necessarily a verdict. we're not This is a judgment call.
00:03:10
Speaker
we see We say yes because we see possibility. We see opportunity. We're wired to believe that we can find time, that we can somehow conjure new resources, or even bend the calendar or the clock.
Drive and Overload
00:03:24
Speaker
We all know that's impossible. So the idea is that the optimism that gives us that drive is actually tied to ego and to validation.
00:03:36
Speaker
Those two twin cousins are the cause of a lot of what slows us down as business leaders. You see, an ego, it basically hijacks our desire to prove we can do it.
00:03:53
Speaker
to match the vision we have of whatever we want to create with the possibility of us creating it. And in validation, we hand other people the power to judge our worth and then essentially do what we can, sometimes in vain, to meet that timeline.
00:04:12
Speaker
It's losing game. A win in this situation is that to fortify your self-worth, your sense of self, so you don't need any proof of validation external or, more importantly, internal.
00:04:31
Speaker
There's a great quote by Steve Jobs that says, focus is about saying no, and I'm proud more of what we haven't done as what we have done.
High Achievers and Overcommitment
00:04:42
Speaker
It's very powerful quote. I will now read the 12 reasons why high achievers overcommit. This list is extremely comprehensive in giving us an understanding why we say yes so many times.
00:04:57
Speaker
The first of which is the optimism bias. So we see a path faster than others. We become very enthusiastic about saying yes because we believe we have a shortcut.
00:05:09
Speaker
We chronically underestimate the time required to get this done. We chronically underestimate the switching cost, the planning, and we go down the line. Things happen.
00:05:21
Speaker
Things occur. And we get off course. And what we thought would be a ah week to do becomes four weeks, eight weeks. Number two, the validation loop.
00:05:32
Speaker
So we want to prove that we're the person. There's ah an element of validation that we want and seek from others. Hey, watch me. This loop never ends. You need to absolutely put a block and a stop to this because this will consume you alive.
The Hero Complex and Ego
00:05:50
Speaker
Number three, FOMO. The idea here is that everything is a precious opportunity. and we want to not miss out, fear of missing out, right, FOMO.
00:06:04
Speaker
And so we say yes constantly because we believe that in some way that opportunity is a unique snowflake and is the only way to reach our goal.
00:06:16
Speaker
Where I've talked about this in the past and I'll talk about about it again in the future. Opportunities will always be there. Opportunities are there for you to create.
00:06:27
Speaker
And so the idea of FOMO and saying yes will actually detract from your ability to reach your end goal. Number four, you identify as a hero.
00:06:41
Speaker
Somebody says, can you do this? Hey, I'm the fixture. I'm the closure. I get things done. I'm the firefighter. And so this is directly tied to our ego. I've seen this in myself.
00:06:53
Speaker
I've seen this in friends of mine that just jump in when there's an opportunity to to say yes, rather than slow down and take a look of who is the best person to take this, what's the best framework, what are the best resources to get this done.
00:07:08
Speaker
The firefighter mentality will eventually get you burned. Number five, the ambiguity aversion.
The Power of Saying No
00:07:17
Speaker
So the idea is that if we say no, we're somehow creating tension in that relationship.
00:07:25
Speaker
And the idea is, okay, well, they're going to ask me to do something now. And in the future, unless I say yes, they're going to start cutting me off and I won't have any opportunities going forward. Goes back to what I said before. Opportunities are abound.
00:07:39
Speaker
they're They're everywhere. And I'll tell you this from the other side. If I have a resource at my company, if I have an engineer, that says, hey, I can't do this, I will place almost no credence to that to that decision as to that person individually.
00:07:58
Speaker
I'll say, fine, they can't do it. I'll move on. It's not a judgment for me to to think that they are less of a person, less of an engineer if they say no. As a matter of fact, I respect them more.
00:08:11
Speaker
If they say they can't do something and they are working on what they can do at a superior or excellent level, that's exactly what we all need in our organizations.
Importance of a Clear North Star
00:08:23
Speaker
We need people that are focused in on delivering the task and have the proverbial blinders on to other opportunities. And I'm not saying that they're not going to be agile and nimble,
00:08:38
Speaker
What I'm saying is that they will find a way to get that whatever they're they need to get done, done without adding more and more to their plate. Number six, misaligned strategy.
00:08:51
Speaker
If our North Star isn't explicit, If the direction we need to go isn't clear, then things that are similar to that will take us in that direction and will be a smokescreen.
00:09:06
Speaker
You need to be 100% clear to the best of your ability on what needs to get done so that everything else just is very easily a no, where the one thing that you're focused on is a yes.
Time Misjudgment
00:09:22
Speaker
Number seven, the calendar illusion. We look at our calendar, we see a bunch of white space on it, and we say, oh, we've got all this time. We have a tendency to completely underestimate the amount of time we have on our working day that we feel it's OK to add more and more and more on there.
00:09:47
Speaker
White space is not like oxygen in the sense that we need a certain amount to keep us functioning, And more than that begins to actually drown us out if we're consistently and constantly adding more to it.
00:10:03
Speaker
Number eight, underpriced recovery. The idea of underpriced recovery means that when we switch from one task to the other, there's a cost associated with that. There's recovery time.
00:10:17
Speaker
If I'm working on project A, I say yes to project B. So I start moving in project B direction. I work here here for a little bit of time. And then then I go back to project A. The amount of time it takes for me to recover is oftentimes 25%, 20% of how much time I actually dedicated on one or the other. We're talking about, if you work on project A for an hour,
00:10:45
Speaker
and you switch to project B, that recovery is going to be at least 15 minutes for you to get back in that mental zone. doesn't seem that way because you immediately start working, but you're going to be thinking about this other project A for a certain amount of time.
00:11:01
Speaker
And eventually you'll get back focused on project B. And then when you go back to project A, there's that recovery time there as well.
Social Instincts and Overcommitment
00:11:09
Speaker
This is wasted time rather than just focus on getting one thing done after the other.
00:11:16
Speaker
Now, this is coming from a guy that says yes to a lot, but I've been saying no to many more things in the past five to 10 years than I did earlier on in my career.
00:11:28
Speaker
And all of these are very clearly very close to my heart. Number nine, people-pleasing. The idea that if somebody comes to us with a question, hey, can you please do this?
00:11:41
Speaker
We feel that we need to be polite, that we need to say yes. ah Politeness becomes a tax on your purpose. And we begin to, instead of staying polite,
00:11:55
Speaker
rigid to our own ethics, integrity, our own vision, we say yes because we want to make the other person continue continue to like us. If we say no, we feel that somehow we are going to displease them and they're not going to like us and they're going to throw us out of the tribe.
00:12:14
Speaker
I've mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again.
00:12:18
Speaker
Our 200,000-year-old operating system, our brains, we are very sensitive to certain things. Some of them are very clear. Food, shelter, water, the those sorts of things are very important.
00:12:32
Speaker
But safety is also very important. 200,000 years ago, maybe even 50,000 years ago, were living in caves and we needed to survive in an organism, right? where As a tribe.
00:12:47
Speaker
And if we were thrown out of that tribe, our chances of survival would plummet. In that tribe, in that group group of people, there was safety in numbers, there was water, there was food, there was opportunity, there was shelter, all that.
00:13:03
Speaker
If we're ostracized in a certain situation, we're thrown out of that tribe, now we have to fend for ourselves. And now we are become a more of prey to the predators and our abilities begin to diminish. And so that's why many people are afraid of public speaking, because if you make a mistake, you'll be quote unquote thrown out of the tribe.
00:13:25
Speaker
Goes back with people pleasing. Same exact thing. If we do something wrong or say no constantly or say no for this or for that, then we'll be thrown out of the tribe. but And that really hits a very foundational level of why we exist as human beings.
00:13:40
Speaker
Number 10, lack of exit ramps. If we say yes to something, the connotation is that we'll get to the finish line.
00:13:51
Speaker
We very seldom add any level of an exit ramp. If you're going to say yes to something, if you were to create exit ramps or milestones at certain elements along the path,
00:14:04
Speaker
Then you can say, OK, we've reached this first element, this first milestone. We'll now decide whether we continue or this is an exit ramp for us to say no.
Clarity in Objectives
00:14:14
Speaker
And so that is something we don't do very often is create exit ramps.
00:14:19
Speaker
Number 11, no capacity math. We have a tendency that our capacity or ability to produce is way higher than it really is.
00:14:34
Speaker
We don't have a clear understanding of what it really takes to get certain things done. we We get asked the question, how long is this going to take? And we say, it'll be a 40-hour job without really having any data in response to what it would really take.
00:14:51
Speaker
With the advent of AI, with all these time tracking modules and apps and so forth, We should be able to have a very clear understanding of what things should take to do.
00:15:05
Speaker
The idea of the off-the-cuff will only, more more likely than not, get us into trouble. And number 12, the unconfronted past script.
00:15:19
Speaker
This one has to do 100% with ego. Things that play out in the past, If we were always ah yes man or yes woman in the past, and now we're getting better about saying no and staying on course, then time passes.
00:15:39
Speaker
Maybe we lose our North Star slightly. We get asked to do something again. Our plate is already full. And because we have an unresolved past yes mentality, we'll fall right into that old script.
00:15:56
Speaker
And this approval, scarcity, fear mindset starts to kick in and we just go back into that groove. Now that we understand why high achievers overcommit, we'll now delve into the idea of building a resource fortress.
00:16:16
Speaker
This fortress is comprised of five elements that work together to create a moat around your more most precious resource, time. This framework is based loosely on the agile methodology where you come together with your team in a scrum.
00:16:35
Speaker
You spend time looking at what needs to get done, creating milestones, assigning resources, and so forth. And then you go out in a two to three week sprint to get these things done.
00:16:48
Speaker
If you don't know much about this, you can look online. There's lots of resources for agile software development. We've modified it for use in ah across lots of types of businesses.
00:17:00
Speaker
We do this for clients. If you have any questions, we can talk about this offline. But certainly, these are elements that need to be worked and looked at together, the first of which is element one, strategy guardrails.
00:17:14
Speaker
It's all about clarity. You need to be crystal clear about what needs to get done.
Goal Clarity and Focus
00:17:20
Speaker
Because if you don't know where you're going, all roads will take you there. The idea of clarity is pervasive in all the podcasts we talk about.
00:17:30
Speaker
Anything to do with business growth. You need to have something clear as day in your mind. Write it down. Share it with your team. So there's no ambiguity of what needs to get done.
00:17:41
Speaker
If you don't know how to do this, spend some time with this one sentence as a starting point. We create some outcome by some mechanism, whatever that might be, for this customer, could be an internal customer, could be the machine shop, could be the financial team, whatever, by this time.
00:18:08
Speaker
This sentence will help give you clarity on what needs to get done. You also need to understand that by saying yes, you need to say no lots of times.
Strategic Task Management
00:18:21
Speaker
So we won't do this. So we won't do that. So we won't do this. So we won't do that. If anything comes into the conversation that is not your yes and not your no's, then you need to 95% the time throw it throw it out We leave 5% in there because we never want to be so blind to the rest of the world that we're not willing to look at a new solution.
00:18:48
Speaker
Now, you need to be very careful, especially in light of all that we're talking about here, to 95% of the time say no, because otherwise you're going to continue going down that rabbit hole.
00:19:00
Speaker
Element two, capacity math. We have a Distorted framework of what reality looks like and what we hope things will unfold.
00:19:14
Speaker
In my previous company, actually outlawed the word hope. The word hope is very ambiguous. ambiguous If I ask my team, how long will it take to do this?
00:19:26
Speaker
Well, we hope that we can X, Y, Z, or we hope this. No, no, no. I want something written down. I want you to commit to something. If it doesn't work out, at least you thought about it. At least you you put your put some shoulder into it.
00:19:43
Speaker
If you use the word hope, it gives you a very easy way out. You also need to add a tolerance budget and a recovery budget. Tolerance is that we severely underestimate how much time things will take, and we overestimate how much time we have.
00:20:03
Speaker
So the idea is immediately add at least 25% on top of that. So if you think something will take four hours, immediately add an additional hour, and I would even say two hours.
00:20:16
Speaker
And as projects get longer and longer, those things will begin to go haywire. The other element, is recovery. We've talked about this. If you go and working on project A to project B, you're going to have some time that is still tied to project A as you're working on project B.
00:20:37
Speaker
25%. Immediately between those two, 50%. You think something's going to take four hours, it's going to really take six. If you're wise, if you have a lot of experience doing this, you understand that likely it'll take eight.
00:20:52
Speaker
Next one. Commitment protocols. These four protocols need to be really looked at and put forward when you're asked to work on a new project.
Protocols for Commitments
00:21:05
Speaker
Number one is three no's before yes. No matter what, you look at something and you need to stay really diligent about saying no three times before there's a yes.
00:21:19
Speaker
Is this arbitrary? 100%. one hundred percent Is there going to be exceptions to this? 100%. Should you try to follow this as much as you can? What I mean to say is you need to be extremely, extremely decisive about those things that come across your desk.
00:21:39
Speaker
And as Warren Buffett once said, have a great quote by him here.
00:21:46
Speaker
Really successful people say no to almost everything. He used to be famous about list 20 things you need to get done, rank them. The two through 20, throw them out.
00:21:59
Speaker
Focus on one thing. That might be a little bit overkill, but certainly the Oracle of Omaha is extremely successful. So maybe there's something to that. The other thing you want to do with the um the first part of element three is you want to ask lots of clarifying questions if you're going to say yes.
00:22:19
Speaker
All right. The second piece of element three is for those that are coming to ask you something. I actually had this idea framed in my old office when I ran my company a decade ago.
00:22:36
Speaker
Number one, clearly define the problem or the opportunity. Number two, what have you done towards addressing it? The idea is that when, by the way, I had an open door protocol.
00:22:49
Speaker
People could come in anytime. ah But I wanted them to have had some time thinking about what the problem or opportunity is.
00:22:59
Speaker
Possible, write it down. If you didn't write it down, be able to repeat it as clear as can be. And the second piece is, what have you done about it? What have you considered? What are the the ideas? Have you tried anything?
00:23:13
Speaker
So that way, when people come to my office, and rather than spend an hour trying to tease out what that might look like, we're instead spending 10 minutes tops to identify what needs to get done, what didn't work, what did work, go try this out, go.
00:23:29
Speaker
That way you can get way more things done during the day. I make decisions very quickly. always have. And there's a lot of benefit to that. If you sit too long, you get the paralysis by analysis and nothing ever gets done.
00:23:43
Speaker
While you're still thinking about the right way, the person next to you in the other building, and the other company is already three. Three plays down the field. They may drop the ball from time to time, but they're at least running the ball.
00:23:58
Speaker
The next thing is the third part of element three is the scope triangle.
Interconnection of Time, Quality, and Scope
00:24:04
Speaker
Time, quality, and scope. If one moves, consider that the other two will have to give.
00:24:12
Speaker
If scope moves, Time will go up. Quality will go down, right? You've got to be very intentful to keep quality up and time up.
00:24:24
Speaker
um If quality goes down, then you'll have more time and your scope will change. So these things are all tied together. Be very, very, um understand that they're all tied together.
00:24:36
Speaker
D, the last part here in element three, is create language that you can refer to so that if somebody comes to you, you have an instant exit in your and your're yes.
00:24:49
Speaker
Okay, we're going to say yes to this, but these are the off-ramps we're going to bake into our are yes. So at this point in time, we're going to reassess. If it doesn't work out, we're going to pivot and go a different direction.
00:25:02
Speaker
The other thing is have some some verbiage that if people come to you for a certain thing, you say, thank you, but I'm at capacity. Maybe another time. All right, element four, calendar design.
Efficient Time Management
00:25:17
Speaker
Thinking that time is a product. You can consider using theme days. So Mondays are strategy days. Tuesdays are meeting days. thursday or Wednesdays are creation. Thursdays are for HR.
00:25:30
Speaker
Fridays are open. Whatever you want to do. Figure out something that works with you. I know folks that actually split the day into two halves. So Monday morning is this, Monday afternoon is that, and so forth.
00:25:44
Speaker
You can get as granular as you want. The idea here is that you protect your time. So as if Monday is strategy day, then come hell or high water, you're working on strategy.
00:25:56
Speaker
If Tuesday is for clients and a client comes on Thursday, You better be sure that you're making concessions to and not the the the rule. This is an exception rather than then just constantly bend the rules for whatever suits you're your whim.
00:26:17
Speaker
um The other thing is you want to think about your calendar as ah foundation. If it's not on your calendar, it's not going to happen. The other part of that, the the antithesis of that,
00:26:31
Speaker
is you need to create and maintain open spots in your calendar. When I meet somebody at a networking event and we sit down to find a time to meet and they tell me, well, I can't meet until two and a half months from now.
00:26:50
Speaker
Unless you're going on vacation for two months, I immediately write them off. Because it tells me this, it tells me that I'm not important enough for them to find an hour, even a half an hour in the next two and a half months.
00:27:07
Speaker
And secondarily, they likely suffer from over-commitment. And they're either being very judicious with their time, which is very rare.
00:27:18
Speaker
So they're actually following these frameworks. Or more likely than not, they are just so over capacity that you don't want to work with them anyway. So I'm very careful to keep open times in my calendar.
00:27:33
Speaker
If I meet somebody, I can usually ah meet with them in a day or two. Half an hour is easy for me to find in my day. Build it by design. Enjoy that I have it there.
00:27:45
Speaker
And it's gotten me so much in my life. These spur of the moment meetings that I'm able to say, well, I can't meet now, but I can meet at 2.30 bring so much fruit than having my schedule so tight that I can't break away for a phone call or for a meeting.
00:28:03
Speaker
I also protect my lunch. I protect lots of other times that for me are important. Okay, the the last element is energy and rhythm.
Maintaining Energy and Productivity
00:28:15
Speaker
So the idea here is that before you make a big decision, you pause. It's lots of famous generals that would pause before they made a decision. We're talking about Napoleon, Washington, Eisenhower, Hannibal, Sun Tzu. These are all epic generals that had epic careers.
00:28:38
Speaker
Many of them, most of the ones I just listed, all the ones I just listed, would pause before they made a decision. Napoleon was famous for not opening mail for a week on purpose.
00:28:52
Speaker
And what he would find is that when he did open his mail, much of what was written had already been figured out. Whether that is a lazy way of dealing with stuff or not, there's a lot of power to it.
00:29:05
Speaker
We have a tendency to be glued to these things so that we get an email, we want to immediately react to it. But there's a lot of power in pausing.
00:29:17
Speaker
Remember that. and the other thing I'll say is with ah this last element is focus windows. So create time in your day when you're able to focus on certain things.
00:29:31
Speaker
There's lots of science tied to this. If you were able to, we talked about recovery time. We talked about um creating that that time for yourself so you have free time. But when you have to get something done, block out two, three hours, put your phone away, turn off your notifications on your on your laptop, tell your admin that you're not going to be available for like two hours unless there's an emergency and you just sit down and you work.
00:30:00
Speaker
So much power to it. If you are able to to just put this away, you're already going to have a huge benefit. if you If you ask those around you to give you this space, you're going to eat roop even reap even more benefit.
00:30:15
Speaker
So to wrap up here, the idea of creating an identity that is a person who protects their time, who makes very few clean promises, but keeps them.
Concluding Thoughts on Time and Integrity
00:30:32
Speaker
You want to trade short-term validation for long-term compounding. You want to do this day in, day out. And if you're able to do this, you will reap the rewards for a lifetime.
00:30:44
Speaker
This is one thing I've struggled with and am now just becoming more in stride. But just like I've explained in the beginning of this conversation, there's still day-to-day fight that I need to address these things on a constant basis.
00:31:01
Speaker
So to end today, we'll talk about the paradox of doing less so that you can do more. We talked about being able to be capable of doing more, but you first must do less.
00:31:17
Speaker
You know, we're here to convert chaos into compounding. It's about integrity. It's about the quiet. It's about the confident power that says,
00:31:29
Speaker
I keep my word because I make it carefully. There's so much power to that. You know, we didn't come here to collect tasks. We came here to build something that compounds, whether that's relationships, trust, outcomes, because when you protect your promises, your promises start producing.
00:31:49
Speaker
We win when we fortify your sense of self so strongly that anything that comes down to disrupt that internal and external will set aside to deal with your goals.
00:32:08
Speaker
Thank for your time. Cheers.