Integration is a hard concept for most achievers to grasp,
especially men. They’ve been so focused on their careers and providing for their
families that they forget to take care of their own health and their
relationships. They figure they can wait until they turn 55 before they have to
pay attention to their health and family. Problem is, they turn 55 and they have
a stroke or they’re diabetic, their kids hate them and their wives want nothing
to do with them. What I’ve come to understand is that single-minded focus on one
area of life, be it an executive’s career or a pro athlete’s fitness, is
detrimental to a person’s overall performance. The carnage you leave in your
wake drags you down and keeps you from accomplishing all that you can. Instead,
you’ll accomplish more in your career when your relationships, health, nutrition
and fitness are a source of support, rather than a source of stress. The five
essentials for a winning life (fitness, nutrition, health, relationships and
career) are enmeshed in everything you do. If you’re weak in one area, you risk
taking down the other four. But, if you’re strong in all five, there’s no limit
to what you can accomplish. .
Challenge yourself
consistently. Exercise must be challenging
for you to progress. I see many people go through the motions—doing the same
exercises, at the same pace or resistance, for years. Your body adapts to
stress, and when it adapts, you have to increase the load to continue moving
forward. When people stagnate, that’s when they stop exercising. .
Get rid of the clutter. After analyzing thousands of people’s diets, I keep finding
one amazing theme: Many people are already eating good, nutritious food. The
problem is that they pile worthless garbage on top of it (peppermint lattes,
500-calorie
muffins, gallon-size Cokes). If people stripped away the dietary
clutter, they’d see that they don’t really have to make wholesale changes to
what they eat; the good stuff may already be there. Cutting back on sodas and
fancy coffee drinks can save a person 5 to 10 extra pounds each year. . Be proactive. Make
an appointment and talk with your doctor about being screened for
life-threatening conditions such as breast cancer and hypertension. The medical
system is patient-initiated. It’s set up to deal with you after you get sick,
but early detection increases your chances of survival. .
Audit your relationships and cut out
the deadweight. The most important
relationships you have are with the people closest to you: your family, lifelong
friends and supportive colleagues. These are the people who will be there for
you—but you have to be there for them as well. That is why you have to stop
supporting the relationships that drain your time and emotional energy and that
deliver no value. It seems harsh, but I think it’s the ultimate form of respect.
You choose to consolidate your energy so you can better support relationships
that are the most meaningful to you. . Recharge your batteries. There has to be a time in your day when you give your mind and body a
chance to recuperate. Athletes perform at their best when I make them work hard
and then make them recover, and the same holds true in the office. It’s not that
you can’t sit at your desk and pound out reports dawn to dusk; it’s that you can
enhance the quality of your work, the brilliance of your ideas and the depth of
your creativity by taking time out of the day to rest. I treat work as an
athlete in training. Training is about building your stamina through a cycle of
intense and productive periods of work, followed by total recovery. Your
productivity at work follows the same pattern. You can focus and accomplish a
lot, but you need to take a total break from the chaos of your desk. Likewise,
don’t think of the weekends and vacations as a luxury; the rest they offer is
vital to the quality and volume you can produce at the office and your long-term
contribution to your business.
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