A LEADER’S LIFESTYLE – PERSONAL WELL BEING

My last blog ended with a few simple truths; ‘train tough and lead easy’, ‘build a new lifestyle – a leader’s lifestyle’ and ‘secure your own mask first’.

As promised, over the next few installments I’d like to make this a guided but highly interactive blog about bringing out the best in you. I am asking for your participation. We’ve established three critical success factors to an effective leader’s lifestyle:

  • Personal well being  – movement, fuel and recovery
  • Interactional excellence – attention, commitment and trust
  • Professional transformation – purpose, growth and service

My plan is to take each CSF separately, spell out what we know to be true – and then solicit your personal examples, best practices and suggestions. Please share freely, specifically and often, consider this a web-based foray into feed-forward!

The first success factor to effective leadership is personal well being; creating and balancing the healthy behavioral habits of movement (exercise), fuel (diet) and recovery (rest). The simple truth here asks the question; if you are eating poorly, sleeping little and exercising not at all – how can you be effective with others? The answer of course is that you can’t. As resilience goes, so goes productivity. Let me give you what we know to be true about movement, fuel and rest:

Movement

1. Break a light sweat everyday – the ad offering unbelievable results in just ‘10 minutes, 3 times a week!’ is just that – unbelievable. We are made to move, and made to burn, every day.

2. Movement need not kill – exercise shouldn’t physically beat you down every time you work out. Let it build you up, not wear you down (15-30 minutes is enough).

3. Do what you like – what works for you is repeatable. What’s repeatable becomes habit. What do you enjoy most? If you don’t know, experiment and find out.

Fuel

1. Eat real food – shoot for three ingredients or less in most of what you eat, and beware of sugar (stay under 10 grams per serving).

2. Eat 100% clean 80% of the time – 8 of 10 meals or snacks should be clean and healthy, leaving 2 of 10 for a bit of a treat.

3. Hydration is not hypothetical – if you are thirsty you are already dehydrated. Strive for half your body weight in ounces every day.

Recovery

1. Live by ‘80/20’ – give 80 percent of your attention to movement and fuel, but don’t forget to focus 20 percent on rest.

2. Wake up with the sun – it is said that your hours of sleep before midnight are more important than those after. And naps rock too!

3. No multi-tasking – rest means rest, not laying on the couch and watching TV, texting or emailing. Give recovery its due.

Now comes the interactive part – I am asking for your input. If you are reading this, you are a leader-practitioner. What examples, best practices and suggestions can you share about your movement, fuel and recovery strategies? There are no wrong answers, only missed opportunities. Let me know what works for you.

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don brown holding

Don Brown dedicates his career to ‘helping people with people’ in leadership, sales and customer service. Bilingual and experienced at the executive and line-level alike, you see the results of his work across dozens of industries, including brewing, automotive, airline, banking and medical equipment.

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