No doubt business leaders have spent the past few months or more setting company goals for the year, as well as the strategy to achieve them. They’ve met with their teams, perhaps talked to outside consultants, and worked through what-ifs and contingency plans. Now that we’ve turned the calendar, it’s time to go out into the market and execute. However, if this is all you’ve done to prepare for the year, you’re overlooking something: your personal plan.
Running a business is a tough job. It’s physically, mentally and spiritually challenging. It’s long hours and tough choices. If your body, mind and spirit aren’t in top shape, business leaders can experience exhaustion and burnout. And not personally operating at 100 percent can often mean your business can’t either.
Standing up to the rigors of the job starts with having a personal plan in place to improve your overall health. Physically, that means engaging in some kind of regular exercise and being mindful of what foods you’re putting in your body. Consider the lessons from Mark Hyman, MD, a practicing family physician and leader, speaker, educator and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine, who also is the Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. Much of Hyman’s focus is on diet — how the foods we eat affect our health. He has said, “You can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet,” and that’s an important consideration for those looking to boost their energy and get their bodies in shape.
Business leaders should also work on their mental and spiritual health. Maintaining mental health is a lot like improving your diet — what you put in your mind every day, what you read and watch and the conversations you have, affects your mental performance. Spiritual health means being grounded, well-balanced and in-tune with your family, colleagues and clients. It means having empathy and compassion to understand where others are coming from on a deeper level. Tommy Newberry, an author, speaker, coach and mentor working to help entrepreneurs maximize their potential, has good advice in the area of mental and spiritual health. He’s said, “If you want to know what you sowed in the past, look around you and see what you are reaping today.”
If you’re not fit to run yourself, how can you be fit to run your company? It’s important that we take care of ourselves and work on our mental, physical and spiritual health so that we can weather the many storms we’ll face, not just as a business leader, but as a parent, sibling, son or daughter, significant other and member of a community. ●
Fred Koury is President and CEO of Smart Business Network Inc.
