Picture this: mile 53 of my first 100k race, legs screaming, vision blurring, crashing hard—because the numbers I relied on betrayed me.

What if the metrics you are chasing in your business are doing the same, grinding your growth to a halt despite despite running full tilt?

Deep Pattern: The Ultra Marathon's Hidden Order

That first 100k was not just a race—it was a mirror. I staggered through it, half-broken, and came out the other side with lessons I did not expect—about trails, about my property management business, about what holds when you push into the unknown (check Part 1 and Part 2 if you are behind).

The challenge of the 100k race had a grip on me after that devastating first attempt. I had to know what would unlock the strongest 100k finish I was capable of. Two years of picking apart every falter, every ache, brought it home:

Success—on the trail or in the office—is not chance. It is all about discovering and harnessing true principles.

In ultras and property management, principles are the foundation. The trails drove this into me. Principles are the rules of success. We can either break ourselves against them or master and move with them.

Here is an example of three principles that hold true:

In ultrarunning: speed and stamina come from recovery between runs, not the workout itself.

In property management: Proactive over Reactive —Preventing problems is always more efficient than fixing them

In business: what you consistently measure improves.

Principles undergird our why, our company values, policies and processes. Principles inform our approach to leadership, which is critical in property management. We are leading unsophisticated, often accidental, landlords on a transformative journey to becoming effective investors.

Principles, like a good headlamp, light the path ahead. They help us connect where we are with where we dare to dream we can be someday.

The Long View: Energy Management Beats Speed Metrics

The reason I crashed so hard 50+ miles into that first 100k race is the same reason my property management business has plateaued several times over the last 14 years. At different times I was pushing too hard on the wrong things. Often in life, ‘force negates’.

Most of us fall victim to the belief that doing more is the solution to having more. Coach Derek once told me something surprising “Mark, one of the most important things I do as a coach is hold people back.” What?!

Principle: Manage effort, not pace.

Your business isn’t stuck at your current plateau because you don’t care enough. It’s not stuck because you aren’t working hard enough. It’s stuck, in part, because you aren’t focused on the right metrics.

American 24 hour race record holder, Nick Coury, wrote a fascinating article about energy management in ultra racing. The principle boils down to this: start at a pace that leaves enough capacity (slack) so that when not if things go unexpectedly wrong, you can recover without throwing your entire race. Problems in ultras compound. It’s why many ultras have a 30-50% DNF (did not finish) rate.

You already know that problems compound in property management. Most of us have dealt with 5 emergencies and 3 angry people and threats of a law suit and 1 star reviews all… before 12 pm on some days 😂.

So how much slack are you building into your day and week? Are you measuring and preserving your energy? Are you reaching out for help before things really compound? Most people don’t. “Don’t be like most people” Coach Derek told me before my first ultra race. “Most people won’t finish strong today. Don’t be like most people.”

We can’t finish strong in our property management business if we don’t protect our energy. This requires being super careful what we say ‘yes’ to, building in slack and reaching out for help early and often!

• Principle: Prioritize energy management for long-term success.

Two years after that first 100k race I returned seeking redemption. I knew I needed to measure my energy to run my best race but I lacked the right metric and tool to measure it. The answer came from my buddy Brian:

“Hey Mark, I was listening to a podcast where these two guys were talking about their race day settings on their watches. They don’t show current pace or mile splits at all. Only cumulative overall average pace, current heart rate and cumulative average heart rate.”

Finding Your Business’s Heartbeat

That was it. I programmed my watch to NOT display any short term pace metrics and only display the key metrics that would show me how much energy I was using.

In ultra-running, pace is a seductive metric—it’s concrete, comparable, and feels like progress. But it ignores the reality of hills, heat, and fatigue. Heart rate, though less glamorous, told me the truth about my energy reserves.

This clicked for my property management business too. For years, I’d obsessed over metrics like “doors under management” or “monthly revenue growth”—the pace equivalents of business. They looked good on paper, but they didn’t account for team burnout, client satisfaction, or operational bottlenecks. I was chasing numbers that kind of lied about what really mattered.

So, I started experimenting, just like with my watch settings. I asked: What’s our heart rate equivalent? For us, it turned out to be “answering phone calls live” and “average response time to emails” These weren’t the flashiest stats, but they reflected our core strength: building trust over time.

When only 60% of landlord calls were answered in real time, clients consistently reported frustration—like my nausea from ignoring effort in that first race. By training our team to prioritize live responses and reviewing this metric weekly, landlords stopped saying, ‘I can never get anyone on the phone,’ and satisfaction soared. When we focused there, churn dropped, referrals increased, and we are seeing more growth again—without grinding ourselves into the ground.

• Principle: The right metric reveals your system’s natural flow; the wrong one prompts you to fight it.

This isn’t about abandoning ambition. It’s about redefining success to fit the long game. In ultra-running, finishing strong beats starting fast. In business, sustainable growth trumps short-term wins that leave you limping. The trick is finding what your system—your body, your team, your operation—naturally excels at, then measuring that. For me, it was heart rate on the trail and retention in the office. For you, it might be employee satisfaction, cash flow consistency, or client feedback scores. The point is: stop running someone else’s race.

• Principle: Greatness comes from doubling down on what you’re built for, not chasing what others measure.

Closing: The Hidden Lie Unraveled

That first 100k taught me I’d been measuring the wrong things—both on the trail and in my business. I crashed at mile 53 because I chased pace instead of managing energy. My company stagnated because I tracked vanity metrics instead of vital signs. The hidden reason we get stuck isn’t effort; it’s mis-measurement.

So, here’s your challenge: audit your metrics. Are they pushing you toward burnout or pulling you into alignment? Are they universal principles or borrowed obsessions? Success isn’t accidental—it’s the compound effect of daily routines guided by the right gauges. Find your heart rate, in life and work, and watch how far you can go without breaking.

• Final Principle: Measure what sustains, not what shines.

What metrics are you rethinking after reading this? Hit comment—I’d love to hear your take. Are calls answered live, owner retention, or response times holding you back, or are you avoiding tracking them due to overthinking data collection? Commit to tracking 2–3 this week and comment back next week with what you implemented.

p.s. For a list of solid operational metrics for your pm business check out Profit Coach’s 2024 PM Standards report here.

p.p.s. For the right metric to measure consider measuring how often and fast your team answers inbound calls. Landlords are begging for this as highlighted in The recent 2024 PM Trends report. At MBP we currently answer 98% of calls live during business hours but it took us over a year to dial that in consistently.