Under Load

My flight from Berlin to Munich was delayed by an hour, so I found a seat in the lounge and opened the October issue of manager magazin. The cover story, "Das große Rauswerfen," says tens of thousands of German executives are losing their jobs. In 2025, Germany had an average of 49,000 unemployed managers, the highest number since 2015.
As I read the article, many of these managers spent years coordinating other people's work. Their companies asked them to do exactly that. I don't know why any one of them lost a job, and I won't guess.
The article made me ask one question: what am I doing to protect myself from a professional setback? My honest answer was uncomfortable. Over the years, I've lost the skill of making things.
This episode of Under Load looks at what happens to skills you stop using, and at what I've been doing about it.
In 2025, 4 economists published data on German adults aged 16 to 65 who took a reading and a math test, and took them again about 3.5 years later. On average, skills kept improving into midlife. Reading peaked at 46 and math at 41. People who used their skills more showed no average decline at any age. For people who used them less, the decline began in the mid-30s. The study measured reading and math only, and it can't prove that using a skill protects it.
I also look at the hardship we buy: cold showers, the sauna, the misogi, backyard ultras. I like all of it. I haven't found any evidence that it keeps work skills sharp.
We also cover:
  • Why a promotion changes what you do every day, and which tasks are often handed off first.
  • What Andrew Huberman told Joe Rogan about hard things and impulse control, and why I leave that question open.
  • The misogi and Marcus Elliott's 2 rules, as told by Michael Easter.
  • The IKEA experiment from 2011: people who built a storage box bid $0.78 for it, others bid $0.48, and the effect only appeared when they finished the job.
  • Huberman's story of the man at the edge of the boxing ring.
  • What my first LinkedIn posts with 5 likes taught me, and 4 things I've built since.
  • One open question I don't answer: what happens over time if we hand even more of the thinking and doing to AI.
The episode closes with 3 things to try: take stock of what you no longer make, create one first version yourself, and try a small misogi at work.
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Under Load is the Sunday edition of The Upward ARC, by Andre Heeg, MD, DDS, physician and reconstructive facial surgeon. This edition sits within the Capacity pillar: what you can still do, kept alive by actually doing it.
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What is Under Load?

Under Load is the weekly audio edition of Andre Heeg’s newsletter for senior leaders and business owners carrying heavy responsibility.
Each episode examines how demanding work affects your health, energy, judgment, and life outside work. Andre draws on current research through the lens of his medical training and business experience. The result is practical guidance built for the reality of leadership.
New episodes every Sunday.
Read the full editions and supporting evidence at andreheeg.com.