Margin

I have the good pleasure of meeting with many business leaders, owners, and creators, including the wonderful people who work with us at Calm Capital. Without question, the biggest recurring challenge they face is not having enough margin in their lives. This lack of margin, or busyness, seems to be a cultural epidemic affecting everyone, from entrepreneurs to EZ-GO golf cart mechanics.

Let me clarify. I am not immune to busyness. However, I am grateful that it occurs much less frequently in my life now compared to before. With that being said, I would like to share a few insights God has revealed to me about how to establish and preserve margin in my life over the past few years.

Before diving in, let’s define what margin is in this context.

Margin matters more than productivity or calendar planning.. It’s the opposite of overload and lives beyond work-life integration.

Margin is about creating and maintaining reserves. It’s what you draw from when you encounter contingencies or unanticipated situations.

Margin is essential to produce exceptional returns and maintain vertical alignment. It’s understanding we’re stewards without full control of the outcomes.

We need margin. We require it to experience personal flourishing, to enjoy thriving relationships, and to lead successful businesses. In other words, we need margin to grow, to give, and to go.

Margin to Grow

You need to prioritize margin for yourself first. It’s vital for avoiding burnout, taking time to rest and retreat, and focusing on your priorities like family, body, soul, and spirit. Margin allows for personal growth and creates space to work on your priorities instead of constantly being immersed in them.

When was your last day free of meetings, just for thinking? What was the last book you read or podcast you listened to with a notebook and pen?

If you’re like me, when you don’t have margin in your life, you’re constantly grasping and running from one thing to another —— busy. Priorities for me that produce margin include quiet times reading the Bible, days of solitude to think, and taking a Sabbath.

I’ve been fortunate to know several very successful musicians who toured the world. One habit that fascinated me was the warm-up and cool-down routines they performed every day. They protected this time, around 10-minutes before and after a show or practice, which gave them enough margin to rest their voices so they weren't weak and dull during and by the end of the tour.

Busyness produces dull men and women. Margin allows you to grow.

Margin to Give

You also need margin for the people who you serve—— your customers, your employees, people you're mentoring. If you don't have enough margin, you’re unable to pour into other folks.

When we ask our leaders what the number one thing we can do for them is, they say it’s being available for them. They don't want answers. They don't need someone telling them what to do (although there are times when that's the case). Primarily, what they're looking for is that if they need to call us that we’re available. That's possible only if we have margin.

It’s the same with our families, isn’t it? Right? Your marriage, your kids, your loved ones need you to have margin for them. Margin means you’re available emotionally, physically, and spiritually for them.

Once, when I was way over extended without margin, I was operating a few services and SaaS start up. I prepped late for a final sales presentation for a significant piece of new businesses. The next morning, I left the house and showed up at the meeting with two different shoes on. Not two different socks. Nope, those were the same. On my feet, however, was one Sperry Top-Sider and one Vans Old Skool.

It’s a funny story, but at the time the relationships in my life suffered.

Busyness acts like a leak in the love and trust tanks of those you serve. Margin enables you to give.

Margin to Go

We need margin to pursue opportunities and to go when and where we’re called.

There's a performance coach named Josh Waitzkin. He was the subject of the film searching for Bobby Fisher about a young chess prodigy. He now coaches some of the world’s top athletes, professionals, and business people. One observation he makes is the ability for the best performers to capitalize on momentum by accelerating their capacity at an incredible rate to peak when opportunities present themselves.

An example he uses is that of a boxer or track and field athlete. Before a race or a fight, sprinters and boxers are extremely calm and stress-free. This is a state of high margin, which allows them to flex swiftly and perform closest to their potential.

Waitzkin talks about this like a scale from one to ten where the ten on the scale represents 100% of your capacity (skill, energy, mindset, etc.). Top performers have a resting state of a two until opportunity presents itself (game time). On “go” they jump to ten. And the amount of energy you generate going from three to ten is exponentially greater than from, say, a seven to ten.

A simmering seven or eight is where I lived for most of my life. I was always on, with little margin to ramp up to go, to maximize momentum and create escape velocity.

Busyness depletes your reserves and resilience. Margin creates the capacity to answer the call and go.

As leaders, we expect to get the results. But outcomes, ultimately, are beyond our control.

I think back to my competitive golf days. I could play the best rounds of my life and still lose the tournament.

It’s similar with business. You can do everything in your power to get the sale or make the hire, or whatever the goal is, but at the end of the day, the result you want is not 100% up to you.

The tension we hold as stewards and leaders is we’re results-oriented even though we only have so much control over the actual outcomes. But to eke out as much as we can, we overload ourselves and lose our margin. God controls the results. We just need to be obedient to seeking him.

Proverbs chapter sixteen verse one says:

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

When we don't have enough margin in our lives, we cannot fully or effectively accomplish the work God has prepared for us.