Burnt Ends: The Dinner Table KPI

The Key Performance Indicator I have tracked for a decade

There is one Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that I have measured daily for a decade.

And I do not want to sound like a snake oil salesman here, but I am going to.

As KPIs go, this one is the best. It is the 2007 Manchester United of stats. The Breaking Bad of data. The Taylor Swift of information you need to track to ensure you do not burn out. It is the GOAT.

And it is not Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Or VO2 Max. Or even my sleep score (could do better).

It is attention.

And it is attention during a very important moment of my day. The most important moment of my day. Dinner with my beautiful wife, Sophie.

A little Chevy origin story

Let me tell you a little Chevy origin story.

I met my wife when I left my old career behind in 2015 as a very broke and newly qualified Personal Trainer (PT).

Literally a month out of PT school, I had no clients, no clue and just a dream of serving London's runners in the quest of staying injury free.

It is cheesy, but walking into that bar for our first date, I knew there and then that this was the woman I wanted to love forever.

So much so, we moved in with each other after 6 weeks.

You heard right.

It felt right to the both of us, and we also knew we were super busy building careers, so had we not moved in, it would have been likely that we just would not have found the quality time we needed to grow together.

And, surprisingly for two little reprobates, we were right.

Love built at the dinner table

Sit around the dinner table with us long enough and I will tell you that our love was built at the dinner table.

My wife can cook. Like really cook. And Sophie was raised to believe that food is love.

So most evenings, after 12 hour days of hustling to build a coaching business, I would get home to a beautifully cooked meal, made with love.

And around our tiny little table, in our tiny little flat, we learned to communicate and understand each other through the sharing of our day.

Loved ones passing away. Miscarriages. Illness. COVID. Career highs and painful lows.

There is not a subject we have not bonded over.

The table may have changed, but the intention to show up, listen and be there for each other has stayed.

The KPI of KPIs

And that is where the KPI of KPIs comes in.

I manage my health, stress and energy levels by my ability to show up at that dinner table.

If I ask my wife how her day was and my mind wanders, unable to listen or focus on what Soph is saying, I have a problem to solve.

Burnt Ends

"Burnt Ends."

That is how we refer to it.

There is no shame in saying it out loud. It is simply a signal between the two of us that we know we have to watch for as we can both get lost in our work, trying to prove we are no longer those two reprobates who suddenly found themselves adulting.

And I trust this piece of data 10 times more than any stress score on my watch or HRV measurement in the morning.

It is tangible, it is real and I can feel it. I also have 10 years of data to reference it against.

Triangulate, do not rely on one number

I am not saying there is no point to other measurements. But I am a big fan of a few different ones coming together for myself and my clients to triangulate what is occurring.

This one just happened to sit at the top of the pyramid.

I also believe that the more connected we become the more disconnected we get from our bodies.

I ask my clients one question on repeat: "How does that feel?"

You would be surprised how hard it is for most to answer, hence why I put the question on repeat and coax the answer out before carrying on.

Two things to sit with

Two things to sit with.

First, connect your training to a deeper why. The reason I do all the crap in the gym I do not like to do, or eat more green stuff or get to bed instead of one more episode of The Bear, is to ensure I can keep showing up for my wife at that dinner table. Not just this evening, but also in a decade and the next and the next.

Second, if you keep turning up to that table distracted, you need to adjust load in training and/or work.

There may be other versions of the dinner table.

Short with your team? Not present in meetings? Find it hard to make small talk with the barista?

I am not saying these moments are all about energy. Only you know your baseline.

But if you have pushed hard at running this week and at work, and suddenly you are getting a little more irritated, there is a data point to be explored.

Coach

Work is Load // Train Accordingly