The Secret Weapon To Success All Leaders Need
We’ve spent the last few months talking about choosing and leading a dream team, the importance of innovation, and how to overcome your fears so you can take risks. All of those are great topics and critical to growing your business but all of those mean nothing if you don’t take care of your biggest asset, your secret weapon:
Your health and wellness.
It’s that simple! Optimal health and wellness are numbered among the keys to remarkable business success. Then the key is treating your body well, eating right, and getting sufficient sleep each and every night. This will help you attain heightened levels of productivity, and scale your business faster and faster. A healthy and mindful lifestyle has the power to radically transform you into someone who leads by example, in both business and your personal life. This is the ultimate balance we all strive towards, right?
With a new year on the horizon, now is the time to take control of your own wellness and develop some healthy habits that will give you the energy and stamina needed to take your personal and business life to the next level in 2023.
Let’s look at some great examples of very successful, wealthy, and powerful individuals with healthy daily habits:
- Barack Obama, the 44th president, never skips breakfast.
- Mark Wahlberg, the American actor, has a very early wake-up and manages to fit in two workouts, a quick round of golf and an hour in a cryo-recovery.
- Avram Miller, former corporate VP of business development at Intel, and current board vice chairman of Sommetrics, sticks to a consistent sleep schedule.
- Oprah Winfrey, a globally renowned American talk show host, takes time out of her daily schedule to meditate for 20 minutes twice a day.
- Ariana Huffington, singer, songwriter, and actress, practices yoga each and every morning.
- Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and of Square, dedicates two hours each day to meditation.
Business is Part of Your Life and Not Your Life
The first rule of Health & Wellness: Work to live, don't live to work!
You have to make an intentional effort to live a great life in which you can attach your business in a seamless fashion. Make a deliberate effort to separate your professional life from your personal life and continue to do so until it becomes deeply ingrained in you. This way, you’ll be able to function appropriately and ensure no part of your life can suffer for the sake of another.
Take Action
Here’s your action piece for 2023, I encourage you (if you don’t already) to fill your calendar with as many personal and family activities as you do business ones so you can encourage a sustainable, balanced lifestyle moving forward.
None of us can avoid being at work. An average person will spend ⅓ of their life at work. When it comes to leadership and health and wellness at the office, Richard Branson nailed it when he said
“If you’re spending most of your life at work, it shouldn’t be a chore but fun”.
As a leader, integrating some fun into the workplace can only benefit your business. What you could gain:
- A boost in your motivation
- A boost in team motivation and productivity
- Improved delivery of customer experience and services
- Attract and retain top talent
- Improved your bottom line
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that it should be all fun all of the time. Rather, I’m encouraging you to inject small bits of fun into your business day, to help you and your team form greater bonds to make the workplace a better space both mentally and physically for everyone. They don’t have to be lavish and can be as simple as:
- Acknowledging and celebrating staff birthdays
- As a leader, once a month/quarter, take your team out for breakfast or lunch
- An annual picnic/BBQ/ski trip/away day where you can remove clients/employees from the regular workplace surroundings
- 2-day strategic planning sessions at a resort with an added group activity, like zip-lining or ATVing
- In summer give employees a “FriYAY” every other Friday afternoon where they can leave a couple of hours early to be with family and friends
- Get season tickets to a favoured team sport where staff members get turns to go or win the opportunity to go based on performance or customer service awards
Get a Non Work Related Hobby
After a day at the office, you need a hobby that makes your downtime not only entertaining but fun too. It is in those moments of fun that your spirits will be restored and your creative energy renewed. You NEED to make time for your favourite hobbies, even if that means scheduling them into your calendar. Add it to your action list!
Stress Management
There’s no doubt that a leadership lifestyle can be hectic and extremely stressful, ultimately leading to reduced focus on health and wellness. Stress reduction is key to preventing burnout. With the passage of time, accumulated stress can often culminate in chronic mental health problems including chronic depression, anxiety, burnout, and addiction, to name but a few. So effective stress management skills are especially important if you wish to be a notable leader. Here are some things you can do to help:
• Breaking down issues that are stressing you
• Take regular breaks while working
• Delegate your workload
• Practice meditation
• Get sufficient sleep
• Watch your diet
• Rest and Relaxation
• Mental health awareness
Take some time this month to reflect upon your health and wellness this year. What did you do well? What didn’t you do? And what can you do for your health and wellness next year?
If you followed me earlier this year and filled in my easy one-pager 2022 Goal Setting Sheet, go back and pull it out from the depths of your computer files and look at your health goals. Did you do what you said you were going to do? What can you do to make a difference to your goal before the end of the year? Are you going to have the same goals next year?
As an entrepreneur, former CEO, project manager, and now executive coach, I consistently encourage a healthy lifestyle in those around me. Where adventure and the outdoors are part of my health and wellness, these characteristics and consistent activities have shaped my successes in both my professional and personal life. I can only encourage you to do the same for your health and well-being.
If you need more help with this, you know where to find me. Connect with me today to see how as a leader you can have your cake and eat it!
Meet Chris Hardwick
Executive Business Coach
For over 20 years I've been helping entrepreneurs and business leaders to realize their dreams and achieve success.
As an entrepreneur, world traveler, adventurer, and motivator, I lead by example. My goal is to inspire you with my passion for life, success and happiness.
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