You’re the guy (or gal) at the top.  The buck stops here.  Let me ask you a question: What is your most important job?  Self-care.  What?  Self-care?  That sounds wimpy, or medical, or stupid; at any rate, we don’t like to hear it.  However, I have personal experience with two separate instances of having to be on bedrest and unable to work. If you get laid up in the hospital and can’t come to work for a month, what happens? Illness and accidents have put many businesses under.  Especially the smaller ones, where the owner does it all.
We spend so much time talking about how to increase productivity, that often we forget that one of the best ways to increase productivity is to be in super condition and perform at your best.  As the leader, when you perform at your best, another benefit is that you create a culture of health and wellness, which ultimately increases your employees’ productivity, morale, and increases revenue.  Likewise, if you don’t take good care of yourself, you work too many hours, you don’t get enough sleep, you’re drinking too much, your back is sore, and you’re low on energy, you are unknowingly creating a company full of people who do the same.  In today’s hyper-competitive business world, you need every edge, so please, please, pay attention. 

We all know that the number one reason businesses fail is undercapitalization.  Well, your body can be “undercapitalized” as well. If it is undercapitalized, and you’re having to cut corners, your daily burn rate is higher than your daily revenue, it’s going to catch up with you, isn’t it?  If you are a high producing, high expectation, working maniac, stop for long enough to read the rest of this blog entry.  Take a deep breath and prepare to be reminded of some things you already know, and consider that there is a reason bigger than you or I that you found this entry:

Can you relate to this pattern, in some form: “I used to work out every day and get at least a game or two of golf in every week.  Now, I don’t have time to work out OR play golf, things are just too busy, we have too many deadlines, and we need the business more than ever.  I’m working longer hours, and having trouble getting up in the morning early enough to get to the gym.  I’m working through lunch, and when I get home I am so exhausted, I just want to crack a cool one and get all this “stuff” out of my head for a few hours.  I don’t feel like making dinner, but I’m so hungry after skipping lunch.  I’ll just grab some crackers and cheese . I don’t remember how I ever had time for my weekly massages; I’m lucky if I get there once every 6-8 weeks. ” Of course, we can all relate to this scenario to some degree, and in some similar form.  “overwhelm” is one of the most common problem my executive clients have.  (Sometimes referred to as time management, but it’s really energy management, not time management.  Time won’t stop to be managed.

Here are your reminders.  Pin them up in front of you for the next month and score yourself and check your revenue in 90 days:

1.  Your most important job is to take care of yourself.

2. Your workday begins the previous evening, with what you eat, what you drink, what you think about, and what time you go to bed.

3. Saying you don’t have the time to exercise is like saying you don’t have time to go to the bathroom.  That’s ridiculous. Everyone has time to walk around the block and stretch for a few minutes.

4. If you are a high-powered, stressed executive, you need massage once a week.  No, I know you don’t have time.  Do it anyway. 

5. The major number one cause of fatigue is dehydration.  The number of ounces of water you need to consume daily is computed by weighing yourself in pounds and dividing by two.  I recommend Alkaline Antioxidant water.  And no, I don’t sell it.  But you probably know someone who does.  Some of my clients put the amount of water they need to drink daily on their desk and they know they can’t go home until the bottles are empty.

6. Watch your intake of alcohol.  You’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) how much alcohol some of my C-level clients drink.  Alcohol interrupts your sleep patterns, makes you fat, makes you say stupid things at business gatherings and leads to addiction.

7. Limit your caffeine intake, especially after lunch.  You want to get the best sleep you can.

8. Sleep enough.  Some of my hard-charging clients hardly sleep at all.  ANd no, you can’t tell me that you do just fine on 5 hours of sleep a night.  You’ve already been proven wrong.  Recent studies have shown that sleep deprivation causes diabetes, heart disease, and impaired brain function. That will not help your next board meeting. 

9. The ninety minute rule.   “The Corporate Athlete” Studies  show that just as professional athletes, we perform at optimum level for 90 minutes and then show diminishing returns.  Give yourself a short break each 90 minutes.  You’ll be more effective and get more done.

10. Explore Stress Reduction Techniques.  There are many ways to reduce your stress; yoga, tai chi, kickboxing, riding your bicycle, power naps, you name it. Suffice to say: there is a reason the airline attendant tells you to put your own oxygen mask on first.  You’re the leader.  Be a good one.

Tags: Executive Coach, Increase Sales, Increasing Productivity, pumping mental iron

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Best Practices, Brain Function, Business success, Energy, Health, Increasing Sales, Inspiration, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Mental Iron, Motivation, Productivity, Sales increase, Self-Improvement, Stress Management, Success, Sustainability, Time Management, Uncategorized, brain power, overwhelmed, positive attitude, pumping mental iron. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.