Sleep: A Totally Legal Performance Enhancer

This past week, a friend sent me a link to a video talking about how Roger Federer sleeps 12 hours per day. Turns out he is not the only athlete at all who does this. Lebron James, Usain Bolt, Steve Nash, Venus William are in the same boat. I know some entrepreneurs would say that “sleep is for the weak”.

Well, I have been on both sides of this debate and I would just like to comment about this a bit now. For athletes, it is clear that sleep allows the body to rejuvenate itself and keeps athletes at peak performance, which is their livelihood but does this apply to entrepreneurs as well? My experience as I have gotten older is that this is definitely true (but don’t jump to a full conclusion until you have read this full blog post).

I find unquestionably that a good night’s sleep (9-10 hours) makes me unquestionably more productive the next day when I have to write or do heavy thinking. If I do not have at least 8 hours of sleep, I see my productivity go way down. As the great basketball coach John Wooden said, never confuse activity with achievement. I can see this very directly as the amount of output (i.e. quality pages written) is not just related to the amount of time I spend necessarily. I have to be of a clear mind and well-rested to get good throughput.

People ask how long it took me to write the Disciplined Entrepreneurship books all the time. First, it took years to accumulate the knowledge necessary but then when it came down to writing the books, which to me is the real question, an interesting situation happened. When I tried to write the books at MIT or close to MIT, it took me much longer. In part, because I was not well-rested and also because there were lots of interruptions. When I came up to our escape house in New Hampshire, I noticed I was productive after I had gotten some exercise and a good night’s sleep. The pages then flowed. In fact, it only took me a summer to get the first book written and it was the same for the second book. But in both cases, I learned that I needed to make sure to get a good night’s sleep, and then even a little extra, to be successful. I am sure I am not the only one who has experienced this but I have directly and I am now a big believer.

Even when I am in back at MIT, I know work to get more sleep and also sometimes lie in bed when I first wake up visualizing the day ahead. Once I spring into action, it is hard to have that clarity of mind and I am frankly less creative in my solutions.

Now all of this would have sounded so weak when I was younger but I am wiser now. It is clear that the unhealthy culture of non-stop working with a minimal amount of sleep has led to what many have talked about with regard to depression in entrepreneurship. Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey are known for their 18 hours days, which does not leave enough time for sleep, but what is the real lesson from this? At least two of these people are known for wildly irrational behavior.

In our MIT delta v program this year, Trish Cotter had included for the first time a wellness component run by former student Kathleen Stetson. Kathleen was a full-on entrepreneur experiencing the pressure to “Do More, Faster, All the Time”. This ultimately did not work for her and she spoke out against it. She found that many others were in the same boat. You can’t be productive if you are not feeling healthy. Entrepreneurship is a long journey and not just a sprint.

That being said, in entrepreneurship, it is necessary sometimes to sprint. This need for sleep overall is certainly true in the long term but in the short term, there will be windows of opportunities that you need to capitalize on. One of the huge competitive advantages of startups is their ability to react quickly to new market conditions and information. The clock speed of an entrepreneurial organization is what makes it able to compete so surprisingly effectively with Goliaths like IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Apple. So the answer is not so simple. There should be some stress in an entrepreneurial organization, just like on a high performing sports team. It is all about balance, like so much in entrepreneurship and life.

So understand the benefits of sleep and don’t get mindless sucked into an unhealthy culture, but there will be times in a high performing entrepreneurial organization where you will have to sprint. Those sprints may well define whether your organization succeeds or not, whether it has the full impact it could or not. You should do everything possible to be ready for those situations and identify them, and be all in when they arrive. In between them, you should build up your fuel tank so you are well-rested and ready to sprint. If you are well-rested and productive in between, you will surely be able to be proactive to win as many of these battles as possible before they even start with smart, creative and already implement plans.

In the great book on leadership The Art of War, Sun Tzu said: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” That is our goal and the way to do that is to be clear of mind and productive before the battle starts. Sometimes, however, no matter how smartly you try, you can’t avoid a battle—especially an unanticipated one—and then you better be ready to go all-in and win the battle. Once done, you can and should go back and rest up but you can’t be fighting battles all the time. Be smart but be prepared to sprint when needed.