💥 I Tried to Work Like Elon Musk (My Health Paid the Price) 🦠

Why copying other entrepreneurs' schedules is neurologically sabotaging your business

Learn what’s draining or sabotaging your business 👉 Business Health Reset™ Quiz

Elon Musk sleeps on the factory floor. Sara Blakely cut up pantyhose at night while working full-time. Jeff Bezos worked out of his garage for years.

These stories inspire millions of entrepreneurs to compare and copy their paths. Here’s the problem: Your brain isn’t wired like theirs + following their blueprint is neurologically sabotaging your success. ⚠️

I learned this the brutal way.

When I started my business, I had no clue how much energy and time marketing would consume. I found myself drowning in a sea of overwhelm, constantly comparing myself to other business coaches. Every scroll through LinkedIn left me more distracted from actually moving my business forward.

“If I just had this ONE thing to implement... if I could afford this new shiny program... THEN I’ll become super successful.”

Sound familiar? I did all that. Bought the courses. Hired the coaches (and I’ll always advocate for having support). But at some point, I needed to realize when to cut ties and start listening to what my nervous system was trying to tell me.

Spoiler alert: It wasn’t working out as well as I’d hoped.

🦠 The Success Story Virus That Almost Killed My Business

The global coaching industry hit $6.25 billion in 2024 (ICF Global Coaching Study). That’s just the coaching side. Add in business biographies, courses, and “success blueprint” programs, and we’re talking about a massive industry built on teaching people to copy other people’s methods.

But here’s what I discovered during my own health crisis: I love a good success story (still do!), but I’d been treating them like instruction manuals instead of inspiration. My body was trying to tell me I needed a break or new approach.

Every time I tried to copy another entrepreneur’s 5am routine or 12-hour work days, my autoimmune symptoms flared. My body was rejecting someone else’s success story like a mismatched organ transplant.

Dr. Marco Iacoboni’s research at UCLA shows why this happens. Mirror neurons fire both when we perform an action AND when we observe someone else doing it. When you watch Elon pull all-nighters, your brain literally maps that pattern as something YOU should be doing.

The problem?🪞Mirror neurons can’t tell the difference between behaviors that work for your biology versus behaviors that will destroy it. You’re essentially downloading someone else’s success operating system onto hardware it was never designed for.

💥 The Day My Body Said “Absolutely Not”

It’s 4:47am. My alarm is screaming because I’m trying to copy some entrepreneur’s “miracle morning routine.” I’m exhausted, my joints hurt, and my brain feels like it’s wrapped in cotton.

But I drag myself out of bed anyway because ‘successful people wake up early,’ right?

Three weeks later, I’m still dealing with autoimmune flares that leave me bedridden. My productivity plummeted. My business was actually performing WORSE than when I was sleeping until 7:30am like a normal human.

I was downloading someone else’s success operating system onto hardware it was never designed for.

🎯 Entrepreneurs Succeed By Ignoring Everyone

While I was torturing myself with morning routines, other entrepreneurs were quietly building empires by doing the exact opposite of conventional wisdom.

They exist, but you have to dig to find them. They’re not posting motivational quotes at 4am because they’re asleep. They’re not hashtagging #NoDaysOff because they take weekends.

Jason Fried built Basecamp into a $100+ million company with:

• 4-day work weeks during summer

• No meetings on Wednesdays

• Work ends at 5pm, period

• Mandatory vacations

His philosophy? “Being calm is the new productivity hack.”

🛠️ The Pat Flynn Protocol 🤩

Pat Flynn built Smart Passive Income into an 8-figure business using what he calls “lifestyle-first entrepreneurship.”

Instead of copying other entrepreneurs’ schedules, he designed his business around his family’s needs:

📅 No work after 6pm or on weekends
🏠 Home office to be present for kids
🎮 Gaming breaks as mental health strategy
✈️ Business travel limited to 1 week per month
🧘 Daily meditation and exercise non-negotiable

The result? His business generates more revenue working 30 hours per week than most entrepreneurs make working 80.

“When you design your business around your life instead of the other way around, both thrive.” -Pat Flynn.

Both of these guys would be considered “lazy” by hustle culture standards. Both are wildly more successful than 99% of the entrepreneurs grinding 80-hour weeks.

The difference?

They designed their businesses around their biology instead of fighting against it.

And here’s the thing - you can too. After studying entrepreneurs who succeeded without destroying their health (and nearly destroying mine in the process), I developed what I call The Bloom Method™. It’s not about working less - it’s about working in alignment with how your specific nervous system operates so your business can actually bloom without burning you out.

🧬 Your Success DNA vs Their Success Story

Here’s what Marty Neumeier taught me about brand building that completely changed my approach to business: You can’t build a successful brand by copying someone else’s brand.

Same principle applies to entrepreneurial success. We each have unique Success DNA:

🕐 Chronotype (when your brain actually works vs when you think it should)
⚡ Energy patterns (sustainable vs burst energy styles)
🛡️ Stress response (how your nervous system handles pressure)
🌊 Recovery needs (what you actually need to restore, not what productivity gurus say)

• Elon Musk’s Success DNA: Extreme energy, thrives on chaos, minimal recovery needs

• Sara Blakely’s Success DNA: Creative hustle, resourceful innovation, parallel processing

• Jeff Bezos’s Success DNA: Systems thinker, long-term focus, analytical processing

🧬 Your Success DNA: ???

Until you understand your own wiring, you’re building someone else’s business in your body.

🧘‍♀️😌 What Happens When You Finally Listen to Your Body

After my health crisis forced me to stop copying everyone else, something interesting happened. I started tracking my actual energy patterns instead of forcing fake ones.

Turns out:

• I’m not a 4am early morning person (shocking, I know)

• I need 2-3 hours of deep focus time, not 8-10 hours of busy work

• My best ideas come during walks, not at my desk

• I can only handle about 3 client sessions per day before my brain shuts down

When I built my business around THESE patterns instead:

🔋 My energy stabilized

🎯 Decision-making improved

📈 Revenue per hour worked increased by 35%

🌱 Autoimmune symptoms calmed down

My business performed better when I stopped trying so hard to perform like everyone else.

🔬 The Science of Why Biology-First Business Works

Dr. Andrew Huberman’s Stanford research says:

✔️ Proper sleep increases creative problem-solving by 33%

✔️ Regular recovery enhances decision-making by 23%

✔️ Stress management improves working memory by 19%

🍏 Entrepreneurs who prioritize their nervous system don’t just feel better, they seem to perform better.

🌸 The Bloom Method™: 4 Steps to Biology-First Business

After studying entrepreneurs who succeeded without destroying their health (and nearly destroying mine in the process), I developed what I call the Biology-First Business Model:

Step 1️⃣: Map Your Actual Energy (Not Your Ideal Energy)⚡

Track when you naturally feel focused, creative, and energized for two weeks. Most of us have 3-4 peak hours daily, not 12-16.

✨ Your natural rhythms reveal your competitive advantage.

Step 2️⃣: Design Around Your Real Rhythms (Chronotype) ⏰

Morning people: Front-load cognitively demanding work before 11am
Evening people: Protect afternoon/evening hours for deep work
Bi-modal types: Work in two focused blocks with recovery between

✨👉🏻 Stop apologizing for when your brain works best. Build your business around it.

How I measure and track my biology using nervous-system + ADHD smart tools. (Visual maps = kindness to ourselves)

*If I know where my energy is going, I can track and plan my schedule according to my energy leaks + energy credits.

Step 3️⃣: Install Nervous System Guardrails 🛡️

Daily: 20-minute walks without phones (resets sympathetic nervous system)
Weekly: One full day without work (allows inflammatory markers to normalize)
Monthly: 3-day digital detox (restores dopamine baseline)
Quarterly: Week-long retreat focused on recovery, not productivity

Step 4️⃣: Track Biology, Not Just Business Metrics 📊

Instead of only measuring revenue, monitor:

• Sleep quality scores

• Energy levels (1-10) throughout the day

• Inflammatory markers (via blood work)

• Stress recovery heart rate variability

• Cognitive performance during peak hours

What gets measured gets optimized. Your biology is your business foundation.

Learn more about how visual planning regulates our nervous system here.

🏆 Your New Success Metrics

Stop measuring yourself against other people’s highlight reels. Start tracking what actually predicts sustainable success:

🏆 Your New Success Metrics

Stop measuring yourself against other people’s highlight reels. Start tracking what actually predicts sustainable success:

• Energy sustainability over hours worked

• Profit per focused hour over revenue at any cost

• Recovery-to-performance ratio over constant hustle

• Personal best improvements over comparison metrics

• Internal alignment over external validation

🌱 What Happens When You Stop Comparing

🍒 Week 1-2: Energy levels stabilize, decision-making improves (shocking how much better you feel)
🍒 Month 1: Creativity increases, problem-solving accelerates (your brain stops fighting you)
🍒 Month 3: Revenue per hour worked typically increases 25-40% (efficiency over effort)
🍒 Month 6: Sustainable systems replace forcing and grinding
🍒 Year 1: Business becomes anti-fragile instead of stress-dependent

It’s not just about feeling better either, your business will grow stronger too.

🔄 Breaking the Success Story Addiction

Here’s how to rewire your brain away from comparing others and toward optimizing your unique system:

When you catch yourself comparing:

1. ✋🌬️ Pause and breathe (interrupts mirror neuron firing)

2. 🔋⚡ Ask: “Does this behavior support or drain my biology?”

3. 🌞🚀 Ask: “What would my most energized self do here?”

Instead of consuming success stories, create your own success data:

✔️ Track what actually moves the needle in YOUR business

✔️ Document what energizes vs drains you

✔️ Build case studies from your own experiments

🎯 Business Health Reset™ Quiz

Helps you identify:

🔍 Your natural energy patterns (when you perform vs when you crash)
⚡ What actually motivates you (beyond external success metrics)
🛡️ Your stress signals (before they become health problems)
🌊 Your recovery requirements (what you need to sustain performance)
🎯 Your unique competitive advantages (that don’t require copying others)

Business Health Reset™ Quiz

---

💭 The Bottom Line

Success stories are seductive because they promise shortcuts. But there are no shortcuts to sustainable success, only alignment with your biology.

The entrepreneurs thriving long-term aren’t copying someone else’s blueprint. They’re designing their own.

Your nervous system is your wisest business advisor. It’s time to start listening.

Stop downloading someone else’s success virus. Start building your own biological advantage.

---

What success story have you been trying to copy that’s actually working against your natural wiring? Sometimes the most powerful business strategy is giving yourself permission to succeed differently.

Your business is a reflection of you. When your biology thrives, your business thrives. 🌱