Why I Created My Big 3

Eleven years ago, burnout nearly broke me. That experience led me to build My Big 3. Here's why...

Eleven years ago, my life looked successful from the outside.

I had what many people would call "the dream."

I had graduated from Yale with a degree in behavioral neuroscience and earned my MBA from MIT. I was leading major IT initiatives as a digital program manager at AT&T. I was building not one business, but two -- my Internet startup, 40Billion, and my product management consulting company, 3 Guys in a Garage.

I was a father to two amazing young boys, just 6 years old and 2 years old.

And my family had just purchased our 5400 sq ft dream home on a large corner lot with a backyard oasis that included a heated saltwater pool & spa with waterfall, screened-in porch with 100" movie projector & built-in speakers for outdoor entertainment, irrigation system and professional landscaping, in a swim & tennis community.

On paper, I had made it.

But life doesn't always send hardship one piece at a time. Sometimes it all arrives at once.

My dear mother passed away suddenly shortly after her 66th birthday.

One week later, I was scheduled to close on our dream home, and I moved forward with the closing anyway.

I told myself I could handle it. I told myself I had to stay strong. I told myself to keep pushing.

That's what high achievers do, right?

We push. We grind. We carry more.

We tell ourselves we'll rest later. But "later" has a cost.

Our dream home came with surprises. I discovered mice living in the basement ceiling.

There was a private pool and spa in the backyard, which was beautiful to look at, but demanded daily maintenance.

My startup needed constant attention.

My full-time consulting role at AT&T required focus and demanded excellence.

My children needed their father.

My family needed me.

And somewhere in the middle of all that...

Guess what? I disappeared.

I didn't notice it at first.

Burnout rarely announces itself. It creeps in quietly.

First, you're tired. Then overwhelmed. Then unfocused. Then even small things start feeling impossibly hard.

Soon, I was being pulled in 20 different directions every single day.

My mind felt crowded. My energy disappeared. My clarity vanished.

Then my body forced me to stop, as I got sick with pneumonia for the 2nd time. The 1st had been many years prior during my freshman year in college, and it was an unpleasantly familiar feeling.

And for the first time in my life, I felt something terrifying: I didn't want to do it anymore.

Not because I was lazy. Not because I lacked discipline.

I was exhausted. Completely depleted.

My contract with AT&T ended.

Marketing strategies that had once helped grow my business suddenly stopped working.

Income became unstable. Money became tight.

And everything felt heavy.

At the time, I didn't have language for what I was experiencing. Now I do.

It was burnout.

And burnout doesn't just hurt individuals. It hurts families. It hurts teams. It hurts companies. It hurts society.

According to the World Health Organization, burnout and workplace stress cost the global economy roughly $1 trillion through lost productivity. Yes, that's 1 with 12 zeros!

And it's getting worse.

We live in a world of endless notifications.

Infinite scrolling.

Slack messages.

Emails.

Texts.

Meetings.

Deadlines.

Expectations.

More devices.

More distractions.

More demands.

And yet somehow, we expect the human brain to keep performing at peak levels? Our brains weren't designed for nonstop cognitive overload.

That's why I created My Big 3.

Not as another productivity hack. Not as another task manager. And definitely not as another app that overwhelms you with more features, more dashboards, and more noise.

I created My Big 3 because I learned something life-changing: You do not need to do everything today. You need to focus on what matters most today.

Just three things. Your three most important priorities.

If only three things get done today, what must they be?

That simple question can change everything!

When I graduated from Yale with a degree in behavioral neuroscience and chose not to go to medical school, I didn't know when I would use what I had learned.

Many years later, it all came full circle.

My Big 3 is grounded in behavioral neuroscience. The science shows that writing down your goals improves attention, memory, motivation, and follow-through.

You're up to 40% more likely to accomplish your goals when you write them down and make them easy-to-access visual cues.

When you write down your goals, they become encoded by your brain's hippocampus, which increases the chance that they will be stored in your long-term memory and you will remember to act on them. This goal-setting neuroscience explains why the act of defining goals activates neural systems tied to focus and achievement.

The world's highest performers understand this:

• 6x NBA champion Michael Jordan
• Electricity inventor and American founding father Benjamin Franklin
• Tesla & SpaceX founder Elon Musk
• Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates
• Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

History is filled with people who understood the awesome power of daily goal-setting and intentional focus.

Success is rarely about doing more. It is often about doing less, but better. That is the philosophy behind My Big 3.

My Big 3 is a neuroscience-based corporate wellness app designed to help employees:

• Reduce cognitive overload
• Prevent burnout
• Improve focus
• Build a sustainable daily habit of intentional execution

Because productivity without peace isn't success.

Achievement without wellness isn't sustainable.

And ambition without boundaries eventually becomes self-destruction.

I built My Big 3 because I never want to return to the version of myself who was drowning while pretending everything was fine.

And I know I'm not alone. Millions of high performers are silently struggling.

They look successful. They sound capable. But internally, they're overwhelmed. They're tired. They're burning out.

If My Big 3 can help even one person reclaim clarity...

Help one employee feel less overwhelmed...

Help one parent feel more present...

Help one leader focus on what truly matters...

Then every painful lesson I learned was worth it.

My mission is simple: To help millions of people build calmer, more intentional, more productive lives, one day at a time.

3 goals. One day. A better life.

That's My Big 3. And this is only the beginning.

- Cornelius Colin McNab, founder & creator

   MyBig3@3GuysinaGarage.com