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Hello everyone, and welcome to The Upstream Leader. Today we’re going to take a slightly different path in our conversations and we are going to be discussing the importance of physical health as it relates to leaders and actually helping you achieve what it is that you’re trying to achieve professionally. And I know for many of us, trying to find the time to take care of ourselves from a physical health standpoint is not necessarily easy, but it is incredibly important. And for that discussion, I do not have a doctor with me here today, but I have someone that has understood the importance of this, and has taken steps to make a big difference in their life, and that is the CEO of Decimal and host of After the First Million, Matt Tait. Matt, great to have you on the show.
Jeremy, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. And I have to say, I’ve done a lot of things in my career and worn a lot of hats. Being a doctor is definitely not one. My kids might disagree depending on how often they fall, but no, not a doctor.
Yeah. And it’s probably worth pointing out whatever all of the necessary disclaimers are, we’re giving them. We’re not giving medical advice. We’re talking about this topic through the lens of a leader, right? And what do we have to do? But before we do, before I get ahead of myself, Matt, I’m going to start the conversation the way I do every conversation on the show, and that is how did you become the leader that you are today?
Failing a lot and getting back up. I mean, that I think is a lot of the essence of leadership is learning lessons. And I don’t know about you, but I find I learn better, faster, and more from my failures—of which there are many—and figuring out how to continue to do better after each one of those. And then also how to allow my team to embrace those failures and to do both transparently.
So how do you help your team? I completely agree, by the way. I think we learn way more in failure than we do success. I think success actually gives us a bit of a false sense of security sometimes that we’ve got it all figured out when we probably don’t. How do you help your team embrace that?
By doing what I do and how I fail, publicly, and talking about it. You know, when I fail, when I try something that doesn’t work, when we try something as a company that I set out to do or chose to do and it doesn’t work, or more often doesn’t work the way we thought it would, we talk about it. We talk about what was different, what we messed up, where we could have been better. And I find that when I start talking about failure, it normalizes it for everybody else. It gives people permission to fail. We also talk about how we want people to try new things.
One of our core values at Decimal is to move fast and make things better. And when we talk to people about it, it’s like, look, moving fast is messy. Moving very slow and deliberately, you can put your foot every place you think it should go, when you’re moving fast, you’re kind of crashing through the forest? That’s okay. The goal is to continue to improve and embrace the messiness.
I like that. Move fast and make things better. It’s interesting that that’s one of your values when, as I’m thinking about this conversation, what you accomplished from a physical health standpoint… And I saw your post on LinkedIn, it’s been about three months ago, said it was seven years, which doesn’t feel like moving fast and it’s definitely making things better. But I know that, at least for me, and I would imagine for many other leaders, and I know some that I’ve talked to would share this, it seems like on the physical health side, we all kind of look for that shortcut. What’s the easy button to do that so that we can spend more time in the business and working on the business and doing all the things.
But you mentioned when you posted about this publicly that you knew you were not healthy, and that you had to figure out how to get healthy because, well, you’re better when you’re healthy, right? So move fast, make things better. This was a seven-year journey. What was the big catalyst for you? How did you know you had to change something from a health standpoint?
Well, so for me, Decimal is not my first business, it’s actually my fourth. And in those previous companies, I have had success and I’ve had failure. And what I’ve actually found is more than anything, when business gets busy—and there’s always a fire to put out, and it can always be busy—it’s kind of those little things and those little habits that fall by the wayside. It’s, you know, instead of, I had a smoothie for lunch today instead of Taco Bell. And taking that little bit of time, it used to be when I was busy, I would just run by, get something quick. Or I wouldn’t eat, and then I would snack. And when I snack and when I’m hungry, it doesn’t matter what it is, I’m just going to grab whatever’s there, and I’ve got three young kids, so I have an entire closet full of really unhealthy things that their super high metabolisms can totally take over and eat, but me, I can’t. Then you also lose the kind of timeframe to say, like, hey, I’m going to work out, or, you know what, instead of working out, I’m going to answer these emails, or I’m going to put this doc together, or I’m going to do this or that.
Those all kind of happened in my previous companies, and it was about seven-ish years ago now that I looked and I said, look, I had three young kids, I’ve got now 11-year-old twins and an almost 9-year-old, and I was struggling to keep up with them and they’re getting better at sports and running around and I’m huffing and puffing. And it also kind of hit right before the pandemic too, and I looked and I said, you know what? I’ve got to be better than this. And I come from an athletic background—sports was a big part of my life growing up, big part all the way through getting me to college. And I was like, you know what? I missed that. And my kids looked at me one day and they’re like, Dad, we just can’t believe that you used to be an athlete. That was like the final straw where I was like, well, heck, forget you. I’m going to prove and it’s going to be a lifelong journey. There is no finish line to being healthy.
And that was the other decision that I made was I looked at myself and I looked at my wife and I was like, look, I’m going to start to do some stuff selfishly for me, and I think it’s going to make me better for everybody else. And part of that’s going to be eating healthier and a lot of that’s just going to be working out. And I think if I do that, then I’ll be better everywhere around. It took me a few years to kind of lock in what that was, and I’ve definitely adapted how I do it quite a bit, but it’s been an amazing change.
So how did you find the time initially? Because I would imagine that now, seven years on, it’s more of a routine. It’s part of what you do. You have likely crafted a lot of what you do around that, or at least made sure that it was integrated. Go back to seven-ish years ago when you had that moment, where the kids said that. It’s amazing how sometimes the honesty of a child can be such a catalyst—I’ve got three kids myself, I get it. How did you find the time when you were already busy with the businesses to actually make the change? What did it take?
So, number one, I actually sat down and I thought about it. And I planned and tried to figure out when the best time that I could create a continuous hobby and a continuous routine. So I thought, I looked at my calendar, I looked at my schedule. At the time I was a night person. You could keep me up till 11, 12, 1:00 AM doing work or whatever it was. I said, you know what? And today I’ve got a little over a hundred employees and three kids, and the difference between then and now is exactly the same: There was only one time during my day that I have full control of, and that’s before my employees and my kids wake up. So I decided that I was going to start waking up early. And I ended up, I wake up around 5, 5:30 every day. And that was going to be my “me” time to work out. I wasn’t going to work, I wasn’t going to check email, I’m going to do something for me until I have to take my kids to school at 7:15.
So that was the decision. Then came how. And that’s where I actually got an app. I forget what it’s called right now, but it’s basically, there are a couple of them. They’re habit trackers. And I got a habit tracking app and I said, you know what? I am going to, for a month, start waking up at 6:00 AM. At the time I was probably waking up at about seven, take my kids to school at 7:15. Never been a morning person. I was like, I’m going to start waking up at 6:00. So for a month I woke up at six, I got whatever workout I could done, I bought cheap equipment. Because I’m like, look, I bought a cheap bike. If it works, then I’ll buy a better one. And it did, and I now have a better one. But I started waking up at 6:00 and then I said, you know what? I’m going to wake up at 5:45 for a month, then I’m going to wake up at 5:30, then I’m going to wake up at 5:15. By month four, it was just, I was up every day. I’m ready to go. I get a nice workout in, and you’re right. That is now the habit that kicks off my day, and now I’m in bed by like 9:30, 10 o’clock. But yeah, I love it and I’m totally cool with it.
Yeah. I love the approach you just talked about because you didn’t go all or nothing. Which, yes, we’re talking about health. Yes, it’s the focus of this conversation, but it applies to so many different changes that you might want to make as a leader. You didn’t start by waking up at 4, going from, I’m an evening person, I’m a night person up till 12 or one to, I’m going to wake up at four the very first day, and it’s just all in. It was 6, then 5, 4, and you slowly did that. Do you think that made a big difference in your ability to find success in that, in transforming that? And how long did it take to where you ultimately got to, to four o’clock and you considered it a true routine?
5 o’clock. Don’t give me too much credit. 4 o’clock is milking cow time in Indiana. 5 o’clock is workout time. It was being consistent. That happened. And it was actually like having a plan that when I was in college, I had a cousin Scott, who’s a good friend of mine, and he used to call me “the Oprah Winfrey of the family” because my weight would just go up and down. It’s kind of been that way for me ever since, probably like junior or senior year of college. And I said, you know what? I’m going to make a lifetime choice. And so I needed to build a plan around how to do that, and then I needed to build a plan on how to lock in that habit, because like you said, and I find this with people that do New Year’s resolutions, you spike hard into it and then something pulls you off, which, life always punches you in the face when you’re trying to do something and you fall away. Because it’s like, gosh, it actually feels super nice to sleep in an extra two hours and I miss that. I’ll just miss one workout, then I’m going to miss two. Then you know what, I’ll get back into it. I’m going to start this again in a month for Lent.
It’s just, people kind of come up with these excuses on delays. So for me it was, I wanted to start simple and I give myself Saturdays off. I don’t work out on Saturdays. I wake up whenever I can on Saturdays. Usually it’s at like 6:30. That’s sleeping in for me now. But I knew I had to give my body time to rest, I knew I had to give my brain and mental capacity enough time to rest, but I also knew I needed to walk into the habit instead of sprint, because for me, this was a lifetime decision, and so I needed to build up to it rather than completely all or nothing.
Yeah. I think we’ve fallen into that trap a lot though.
Oh, we do.
It’s got to be all or nothing. If I don’t, if it’s not perfect, it won’t work. Which is probably why when you have that one miss that it feels so catastrophic because it’s not a plan. It’s got to be perfect. I want to go back to a phrase you used earlier, and I’d love for you to talk more about why you chose the phrase “continuous hobby.” So it sounds like to me when you said that fitness is not something you have to do, it’s something you enjoy doing. What does “continuous hobby” mean and why did you go that path?
I wanted it to be something that I enjoyed, and I wanted it to be something that I looked forward to. I didn’t want to hear my alarm go off and want to hit snooze five times and say, oh, I’m not going to do that, or, you know, now my kids are in school, I’m back by 7:35. I still have time before everybody wakes up to work out as well. I wanted it to be something that I found joy in. So I also like to watch TV. There are TV shows that I’m married and I love my wife, but I would say that it’s a 70/30 voting system on what we watch on television, and I’ve got the 30, she’s got the 70. So there’s quite a bit on TV that I would like to watch, and so I put a TV downstairs and when I’m riding the bike or when I’m running, I’ll put a movie on. My wife thinks it’s hilarious because I put closed captions on because I can’t hear. But I’m reading a movie, and that helped me. And so I built it into something I enjoy doing, and I wanted it to be something fun.
It’s also why I’ve changed my routine a couple of times in those seven years to adapt and continue to make it more. I used to row quite a bit, and I didn’t like what that did for my body type. And then I went through and I got injured, I hurt my feet and I got into some physical therapy and that improved it. Then I got into some weight training because my doctor said I’m old and I need some weight training. And so just allowing for an evolutionary process, which that’s the thing with leaders today, there are two problems that we have as leaders and it fits into this working out as well as just running our companies and being a family person. Number one, you have to give space for evolution. Things are going to change, life changes. You have to figure out how to evolve with it. Number two, you also have to not fall into the trap of the shiny object.
That I think is one of the big differences between a lot of successful and unsuccessful leaders is it’s unsuccessful ones that say, shiny object, let me go try this. This looks like a good idea for my business, I’m going to give it a shot. But without that thought-out planning, chances are you’re going to fall into the same trap that most people do with their New Year’s resolutions: Something’s going to knock you off of it. Maybe it wasn’t a great idea to start with, like a little bit of planning, a little bit of preparation, a little bit of strategic thought, whether it’s in your personal life or in your business, I think goes a really long way.
So how has this shift for you impacted your ability to run the company? I know you said that it was part of the thing at the very beginning, right? Part of your mindset is, I need a plan because I know if I’m better in this, I’m going to be better in everything. What are the benefits that you’ve seen from shifting to where now it is a focus on you first, right? Getting your physical health I would imagine it probably has a positive impact on mental health as well, but getting your physical health where it needs to be, how does that impact your ability to run the company?
So it just makes me a better person. When I’m stressed out, I can go for a run or a ride and it gives me time to think. And it allows me to have that space to take a break and it gives my mind, even though my body is working out, a lot of times my mind is taking a break. And I find that when your brain is, your brain’s always cycling. When you’re directly thinking about a problem, it’s focused. When you’re thinking about something else, like you’re going for a ride or a workout, your brain is still focused on that problem, but it’s coming at it from a different angle without you intentionally thinking about it. And it’s where I think a lot of these random thoughts where you’re like, gosh, that’s a good idea, I need to go try that. That I think is where kind of some of those non-intentional brain cycles come from. I found that it’s been a good thing. It’s also helpful with the chaos that is running a business, as well as having three kids and trying to be a good husband, a good dad, a good boss, that’s chaos, constant chaos.
I find that what it does is it makes me better at handling it all. I also find that extra hour of work that I could have done, I’m better on less work time because I focus it more. And that work time is better, more high quality than it is if I don’t. And so when I get work done on Saturdays, that work is always less productive than if I’m working any of the other six days of the week. And I think it’s because when my body is in a good place, when I am working out, my brain is working better, I’m feeling better, I’m thinking better, I’m thinking more clearly, and having those consistent habits, I think is the really important part of that.
I would imagine you travel at least a little bit. I know I’ve seen some of your travels posted on LinkedIn and whatnot. How do you stick to the plan when your environment changes for that? Because I know that for many leaders, it’s great when you’re in your home environment, you’ve got your gym, you’ve got your office, you’ve got everything and the routine is exactly as it should be, and then you go to a conference for a week, and it just feels like everything’s in disarray. How do you stick to the plan when the environment changes?
That’s a great question. I have chosen the habits that allow flexibility too. One of the things that I do that has been, I think, as impactful as anything else, is I start my workout with 30 minutes of yoga. And it’s because I have never been known for my flexibility and having more flexibility and mobility is just generally a nice thing. It’s nice to know that when I go run outside with the kids playing football, I’m not going to pop my hammy. So you can do yoga in a hotel room and that is very helpful. The other thing that I found every hotel has is a set of weights and a treadmill, and for me, I’m able to get a quick lift in if I want to, and I’m able to, now that I’m healthy enough, I run. Before that, I was high incline walking, just getting my heart rate up for an extended period of time, you have that ability. I’m a big Peloton user. That’s what I use for yoga, weights, bike riding every day.
Same.
And I find that some of the nicer hotels also have a Peloton. And so the other piece that I guess I haven’t mentioned is, even though I run, I rarely do it outside. I will when I’m on vacation or I have something like I have that ability to go on a run or a walk outside. But my entire routine is what I can do alone in my basement. Because it means that weather is never a determining factor on if I can get my habit done.
So you control more of the external factors that way.
Yeah, which I thought was important for me.
Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. So you mentioned a moment ago, you know, the brain cycles and the fact that your mind is still working on lots of the problems. It’s not like you just turn it off. But you probably solve a lot of problems. How do you capture that in the moment without it pulling you then into work mode, right? So you’re halfway through a yoga session, you’ve finally got this release, you’re relaxed, you’re in a great spot. All of a sudden the light bulb goes off, that problem you’ve been trying to solve for the last three weeks, it’s crystal clear what you’ve got to do. How do you resist the temptation to just shut it all down and go fix it, rather than keep working through and get through that routine?
So initially what I would do is I’d have my phone nearby and I’d take a quick note. Something to encapsulate how to solve the problem.
Hmm, simple.
I never want to solve the problem during that time. I’m not going to take out the time to do it. What I’ve actually found is better now is I mentally check it off in my mind if this is a good one and I keep thinking about it. I find that if by the end of my workout I’ve forgotten about it, it actually wasn’t that great of an idea. If at the end of the workout I still remember it, I then take a note, and I figure out when to solve it. In my life, what I’ve done is I’ve structured how I create to-do lists, how I create time in my day. I don’t have meetings until past 11:00 AM because from 11 to 6 I’m basically on Zooms. But that structure of a to-do has helped me to give me a place to say, hey, here’s a solution, let me write it down. Then during some of my deep thinking time, which I also find that post-workout before 11:00 AM is when my brain is the best, so that’s when I actually get my work done, and then I hop into meetings and help other people solve their problems, because the majority of my day is in meetings, helping other people and enabling them to solve problems. And so that pre-11:00 AM is when I get the most work done for what I need to do.
So you’ve been very intentional to make sure that you get the benefits of the physical health, of the routines, of the exercise, the mindfulness, whatever it may be. So you are not only, it’s not only helping make you better physically, but you are able to then utilize all of the benefits that come from it to maximize your day as well.
Yeah. And what I have found is now, years into that routine, my team knows, hey, if it’s an emergency, you can get Matt on at 9:30, 10, but you’re not going to get in before then, and if it’s not an emergency, schedule it for after 11. God forbid if it’s not an emergency and you schedule something before 11, you won’t do it twice. Because that’s when I’m best. My job is to help everybody move forward. And my wife and I, we learned this a lot during the pandemic. We had a discussion part of the way through where it was like, hey, we need to start doing things selfishly for ourselves, so that we can be better together and better as a family. We’ve been able to lock that in since the pandemic in ways that it’s just like, these are the things that we have to do for us because I don’t know about you, but with kids, you become an unpaid Uber driver, you’re super busy, life gets away from you very quickly. And if you don’t actually take the time to be selfish, you end up reaching burnout and running yourself ragged pretty quick.
Yeah. It’s actually my favorite experience that you have listed on your LinkedIn profile is the unpaid Uber driver—I feel that and completely get it. So, if there’s a leader listening to this, I’m going to take this from two different directions: So let’s take a leader or a professional that is not an executive, so they don’t have full control of their day from the standpoint of they’re not the CEO, so it’s not like they can necessarily dictate or control everything. What would you recommend for them as first steps if they’re trying to figure out how do they carve out some time for themselves, to figure out, I mean, they use it how they see fit, but what would you recommend for them? And then is it different for somebody that is an executive or is it kind of the same path either way?
I think it’s similar for both. Everybody thinks that when you’re an executive, it comes with so much freedom and so much power, right? And so much control, and that’s just not true at all. What I think is most important is looking out and, number one, determining your willpower. Like, am I willing to do this? And if so, what am I willing to sacrifice? Your day is busy already. A hundred percent. So in order to add something big in, you have to figure out what are you willing to give up for it? And for me it was stop being a night person and start being a morning person. Building the habit of I’m going to wake up really early, and then thinking, where do you have control? So for me it’s, I know I have control before everybody wakes up, so I’m just going to wake up before everybody else does. And that meant that I’m going to sleep earlier than I used to. And luckily my wife also likes to go to sleep early, she gets a lot more sleep than I do, but that was what I could control.
I know other people that do a lunch hour, three days a week, they schedule a lunch and that lunch is actually just heading to the gym and getting a workout in for an hour, an hour and a half. So it’s where can you control things? If you know, maybe two days a week you can get off at 5, but you don’t need to be home till 6:15, go to the gym. Put it on your calendar, like what can you actually calendar in and what are you willing to sacrifice? And whether you have a boss or you are the boss, I think those are the two ways to really look at it: what am I willing to do to make this happen, and where do I have the power to control something? And once you figure out those two and kind of marry them together, I think that’s when you can actually start to say, okay, I can do this, let me build the habit. Let me track it. Let me make sure it locks in. You’ve got to do it for at least three months before it’s going to lock in as a habit.
And here’s what I can also say, like we’re about to head into, you and I are recording this the day before Halloween, which means we’re getting into holiday time. I know so many people that are going to look and think, alright, it’s holiday time. I’ll start this after the holidays. No, start it today. If you start it after the holidays, you won’t do it either. You can always come up with an excuse of why it isn’t a good time. It’s the beginning of the year, I shouldn’t do it. We’re heading into tax season, I shouldn’t do it. It’s almost summertime, I shouldn’t do it. Summer’s ending, I shouldn’t do it. You can always find excuses. Start now, today.
Yeah. I love that. And I also love the fact, like you said, that that myth that executives somehow have more control. I would say that a lot of executives I talk with would argue they maybe have less control, it feels like because they get pulled in more directions. It is all about, as you said, stepping back and saying, where do I have control? Not where does somebody else have control, not what are all the reasons that—where do I and how do I make that work?
Well, Matt, I want to ask you one more question. It’s a question I’ve been asking guests as we’ve gone into this next round of a hundred episodes that we’re on. Who is the person that you’re working to become? Who is the Matt Tait that you’re working to become over the rest of your career or the rest of your life? Who do you want to be?
I’m going to be the best version of myself. That to me is changing too. It’s going to be different today when my kids are in elementary school than it is when they’re in high school than it is when they’re in college. I’ve always wanted to be a good husband, I want to be a good dad, and I want to be a successful business person. I want to balance and juggle all of that, and at various times do less well at a couple of them. But I think it’s important to have that goal, and I’m lucky enough to have some really good coaches, really good mentors. I’ve got a lot of really good people that I can look up to. But I think ultimately, one of the biggest things that kind of was an unlock for me years ago was I’m not going to try to be anybody else. I’m just going to figure out what the best version of me is and try to be that every day.
Absolutely love that. Matt, if folks want to get in contact with you, learn about what you’re doing at Decimal or your podcast After the First Million, where can they learn more?
Yeah, I’d love—just follow me on LinkedIn. I just try to post about what it’s like to be a business owner, run an accounting company, be in this industry. So happy to connect with people on LinkedIn. DM me if you want to chat. You can also listen to After the First Million where we really do interviews and talk to people about what it’s like to grow a business or an accounting firm to pass that first million, where you need to scale and how kind of messy that is and everything that goes into those changes and kind of you and your business.
I appreciate it, Matt. I think I said “Beyond the First Million,” my apologies—After the First Million is where folks will find you and we’ll put links to all that in the show notes. It’s been great talking with you, Matt. I appreciate you. I’m curious, who’s your favorite Peloton instructor?
Oh, man, I’ve got to tell you, the women are the ones that kick my butt. Like it’s not even close. Robin kicks my butt in cycling and I think Katie Wong kicks my butt in weightlifting, so I end up going with quite a few of them, but man, I find that more than anything the women are much harder in classes than the men.
I would completely agree with that. I think on the bike and on the tread, both, it is very true. I appreciate it. Well, Matt, thanks so much for joining me today on The Upstream Leader. It’s been a great conversation and hope to talk again soon.
Awesome. Thanks for having me.
