Are you constantly running on fumes, relying on caffeine to get through the day, and telling yourself you’ll rest after the next big deadline?
You’re not alone.
But here’s the truth: your health is not a luxury or something to ‘get round to’ later. It’s the single most important asset you have in your journey to partnership.
In this episode of the How to Make Partner podcast, you’ll rethink the hustle-at-all-costs culture of professional services – and discover how optimising your wellbeing is a non-negotiable.
Listen to this episode to discover:
- Why burnout is more than just tiredness – and how it silently sabotages your performance.
- The 4 self-care pillars that support sustainable high performance (no scented candles required).
- How to use the 3 Buckets Model to check your energy levels and spot the warning signs of overload.
- The real cost of skipping sleep, exercise, nutrition and downtime – and how small changes can shift the dial.
- Why professionals who make partner and thrive long-term treat wellbeing as non-negotiable.
- One small change you can make this week to move from survival mode to strategic, sustained performance.
Tune in to learn how to stop treating your body like a machine and start investing in your most valuable career asset – your health.
Listen to my podcast on Your Health or your Career Progression. I’ve put the transcription below if you’d prefer to read the advice.
You can also listen to this episode on Substack and on Apple Podcasts
Do you ever feel like this?
Hello and welcome. Are you running on fumes? Maybe relying on caffeine to just get through the day? Can you not cope until you’ve had your third double espresso? Does the idea of working another 16-hour day or pulling an all-nighter feel less like an exception and more like Tuesday?
I’ve been in the world of professional services now for over 20 years and it can be brutal. There’s often immense pressure, crazy deadlines and a culture that sometimes seems to equate dedication with sheer hours clocked, pushing self-care way down the priority list.
Maybe you tell yourself, I look after myself when this deal closes or when I make partner. But what if I told you the mindset? The one that says work targets always trumps your own mental and physical health. It’s not only unsustainable, but actively hinders your path to partnership.
Today on the podcast, we’re talking about why your health isn’t a luxury. It’s your most critical career asset, especially on the demanding journey to partner. This is the How to Make Partner podcast with me, Heather Townsend, the author of Poison Partnership and co-author of How to Make Partner and Still Have a Life.
In this podcast, I’ll be highlighting some of the great stuff in our Progress to Partner Academy. New episodes are released weekly, so press subscribe so that you never miss a new episode. Right, let’s get into this vital topic.
Think about elite athletes. Like a marathon runner preparing for a major race, they don’t just train hard, they meticulously optimize their self-care, whether that’s sleep, nutrition, rest, physio, for months, even years to ensure they can perform at their absolute peak when that happens. Now contrast that with what often happens when you’re I’m just doing your day-to-day job, let alone aiming for partner.
You’re effectively doing two jobs, smashing your demanding day job and building a practice on top of that.
You need to be at your best constantly day after day. Yet instead of optimising self-care like that athlete, many professionals do the exact opposite. They prioritise work above all else. Sacrificing sleep, grabbing unhealthy food on the go, skipping exercise, forgetting to recharge. Does that sound familiar? Here’s the problem.
You simply cannot sustain peak performance nor make the significant mindset shifts and step outside your comfort zone required for partnership if you’re physically and mentally exhausted. When you’re running on empty, your brain defaults to survival mode. Are you just getting through the day doing what you’ve always done?
It doesn’t have a capacity for critical thinking, learning new skills or building relationships. And just surviving is not good enough if you genuinely want to progress. Think about the pressure you’re under. There’s a well-known concept called the pressure versus performance curve. Imagine a graph. As pressure increases from low levels, performance goes up.
That’s the optimum stress zone where you feel challenged and engaged. But at a certain point, as pressure keeps rising and becomes overwhelming, performance starts to drop off sharply. That’s the burnout zone. As you climb the ranks towards partnership, the pressure inevitably increases.
So to handle that higher pressure effectively and stay in the high performance zone, you need robust coping mechanisms. And guess what those robust coping mechanisms are? They all fall under the umbrella of self-care. Now, when I say self-care, I’m not talking about spa days. Actually, I quite like a spa day at the moment.
I’m talking about the four foundational habits crucial for ongoing wellness and performance.
Let’s start with the first one, sleep. You know, just as I’m recording this, due to medication changes, I’ve had three days, not three days, three weeks of really poor sleep. And I feel horrendous. So I really know that everything else feels easier after a good night’s sleep. But scientifically, it’s vital.
Proper sleep, especially REM sleep, impacts serotonin levels affecting mood and energy. It’s when your body’s cells heal and recover. Chronic poor sleep is linked to serious long-term health issues and crucially, managing stress directly impacts sleep quality. The second foundation habit is exercise, or as I like to call it, movement. Our bodies were designed for movement.
Regular physical activity isn’t just good for physical health and stamina. It’s a powerful stress reducer. Exercise releases serotonin, which enhances mood and clarifies thinking. Think about it. When you’ve gone for a walk, have you ever managed to solve a problem? How many ideas do you get when you’re relaxing under the shower?
Serotonin is also the precursor for melatonin, which is the hormone in your body that is linked to deep sleep, which all creates a virtuous cycle. Plus exercise helps dissipate stress hormones like adrenaline, which are produced by that fight or flight response, which is so common in high pressure environments like professional services. The third foundation habit is nutrition.
What you eat and drink directly impacts your stress levels. Foods high in caffeine, sugar and healthy fats, sadly, I’m sorry, like many takeaways in processed meals, can aggravate stress and anxiety.
Conversely, highly nutritious food provides the fuel your brain and body needs to cope with pressure. Relying on caffeine might feel necessary, but it’s a stimulant that heightens stress and harms sleep. Now, the fourth and foundational habit is recharge time. In a culture, particularly professional services, that rewards being always on, working long hours, deliberately switching off is vital.
Taking proper breaks, using your annual leave, now without working on your annual leave, and spending time on things you genuinely enjoy outside of work. And this is what the book, How to Make Partner & Still Have a Life, called Feeding Your Soul, builds resilience. Having a meaningful existence outside works helps you cope with the pressure inside work. A useful way to visualise this is the three buckets model.
Imagine three buckets, career, relationships and self. You only have enough energy, i.e. water, each day to fill perhaps one bucket. Be honest, how full is your self bucket typically? For most ambitious professionals I work with, it’s practically empty. And when you’re tired, you start the day with even less water, meaning all buckets suffer.
People who successfully make partner and thrive long term, they have strategies to keep their buckets, especially the self-bucket, sufficiently filled. These strategies aren’t nice to have. They’re non-negotiable parts of how they operate day to day. So take a moment to reflect. Where are you on that pressure curve right now? How full is your self-care bucket?
You know, what’s one small achievable thing you could do this week to invest in one of those four pillars, whether that’s sleep, movement, nutrition or recharge time? Maybe it’s leaving work on time one night, scheduling a walk at lunchtime, swapping one coffee for water, blocking out 30 minutes for something you enjoy.
Prioritising your health isn’t selfish.
It’s the foundation that allows you to sustain the energy, resilience and clear thinking needed for the partnership marathon. Recognising that relentless grind and prioritising work above your own wellbeing is actually detrimental to your partnership goals is a huge step. Building sustainable habits around self-care is what allows you to perform at your best,
manage pressure effectively and have the mental energy for the strategic thinking and behavioural changes required if you’re going to take your career and progress it in the profession.
Now, if you’re listening and finding yourself nodding along thinking, I know I need to do this, but I feel guilty taking time for myself, or I don’t know where to start building healthy habits amidst the chaos, then the course How to Truly Commit to Moving Your Career Forward can provide crucial support, helps you unpack those mindset blocks around self-prioritization and gives you practical frameworks like the default diary we mentioned before to build sustainable self-care routines that support rather than detract from your career ambitions.
Now, to be helpful, I popped a link to buy the How to Truly Commit to Move Your Career Forward course directly in the show notes for this episode. This course is just one of the 12 plus courses in our Progress to Partner Academy.
Also in the show notes, you’ll find links to my books, Poised for Partnership and How to Make Partner & Still Have a Life. So you can easily find them on Amazon. And as a thank you for listening, there’s also a link for a 10% discount on annual membership for our Progress to Partner Academy, where we offer resources and community support focused on building resilience and sustainable high performance for the long haul. That’s all for this episode of the How To Make Partner podcast. Think about those four pillars, sleep, exercise, nutrition and recharge time. What’s one small investment you can make in your most important career asset, your health, this week?
And remember to hit subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode. Thank you for listening.
Join my Progress To Partner Academy and access all my courses and use the code PODCASTBP10 to get 10% off 12 months of premium annual membership.
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