No One Cares How Many Hours You Work – So Stop Killing Yourself

Let’s be real for a second: no one is handing out gold stars for the number of hours you put in. No one is watching in awe as you crank out another late-night email. And trust me, no one is whispering in the breakroom, "Wow, did you see how dedicated they are? Responding to emails at 2 AM! Incredible!" Nope. Not happening.

If you’re in healthcare leadership, you already know that your job is basically a never-ending game of Whac-A-Mole—except instead of cartoon moles, it’s urgent crises, operational nightmares, and the occasional Friday-at-4PM catastrophe. (Because, of course, everything implodes when you're about to log off.)

I spent years in executive-level healthcare leadership, grinding out 60-hour workweeks, convinced that if I didn’t answer every email and solve every problem immediately, the world would collapse. I wore my exhaustion like a twisted badge of honor—until I hit the wall. Hard. Think "walking dead but without the cool post-apocalyptic aesthetic."

Then, a moment of clarity: I realized that plenty of leaders weren’t burning the midnight oil like I was, and guess what? Nothing bad happened to them. They still had jobs, respect, and a semblance of sanity. Meanwhile, I was running on fumes, mistaking burnout for dedication.

So, I did something radical. I told my executive assistant to delete any emails in my inbox that were over two weeks old. She stared at me like I had lost my mind and asked, "You mean…delete them?" Yep. Gone.

And you know what happened? Nothing. Not a damn thing. The world kept spinning. No one stormed into my office demanding answers. The hospital didn’t crumble. All those "urgent" emails? Turns out, they weren’t that urgent after all and many of them were examples of how you can be in leadership for years and still not understand when it's appropriate to use "reply to all."

That’s when it hit me: I had been pouring energy into proving something no one was actually measuring. Healthcare leaders, we have to stop glorifying exhaustion. Working yourself into the ground doesn’t make you a hero—it just makes you tired.

If you feel like you’ve reached full “crispy” status and are ready to reclaim your energy (and, dare I say, your sanity), let’s talk. There’s a better way to lead, and it doesn’t involve sacrificing yourself to the email gods. You deserve to show up as the best version of yourself—at work, at home, and everywhere in between.