09 Feb Health-Conscious Lifestyle for Professionals, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs
How to have vibrant health, generate energy, and stay healthy while pursuing your passion non-stop
Everyone knows that health is more important than anything else, especially as we age. Without vibrant health, you cannot enjoy your:
- Relationships,
- Wealth, and
- Fame.
What is more? Without your health intact, you cannot effectively use your precious time and generate the energy you need to fulfill your family, professional, organizational, and societal duties.
Just think about it. Last week, I was in West Virginia to facilitate a three-day intensive workshop as part of launching a cohort program designed for emerging and middle leaders. I was on my feet the whole day and for three days!
One may handle such a demanding job if it happens occasionally. But one cannot sustain such a lifestyle without taking care of his/her health and excelling at generating and sustaining energy for a prolonged period.
In West Virginia, this past week, I was full of energy and fulfilled my duty successfully. Some participants and organizers found the session very engaging, dynamic, inspirational, and informative. I will soon share with you some of the things I do to lead a health-conscious living, keep reading…
Even if you are super healthy today, don’t leave your tomorrow’s health to chance
You may be someone who:
- Got very lucky genetically with a perfectly build body from the get-go.
- Doesn’t have intergenerational health complications you inherited from your bloodline.
- Grew up health-conscious, thanks to your health-conscious parents or guardians.
- Live in a subculture that favors Mediterranean foods.
- Is relatively healthy and without any underlining health issues you are dealing with right now.
However, even if you’re healthy right now, you shouldn’t become reactive toward your health if your desire is to stay healthy and pursue your passion without retirement.
Of course, if you have the resources to hire a personal health and/or nutrition consultant or coach, that is great! Otherwise, you must self-educate yourself by:
- Reading books,
- Attending programs, courses, and
- Learning from others on how they lead a health-conscious lifestyle like you’re doing now as you read this blog to learn from my experiences.
Even if you may be sick now, you may gain one or two things from this blog
Well, you may not be lucky as the individuals I identified above. You could be experiencing some serious health issues now.
I wish you a quick recovery! I’m sorry, but this blog may not help you that much to alleviate your pain. You may need professional help.
However, you may gain one or two things that may help you to lead a health-conscious living once you recover from the acute health problem you’re experiencing right now.
Investing in your personal development to stay vibrant and get fulfilled in life
At success Pathways, we understand the importance of holistic growth and offer 4 Pathways to inspire, stretch, challenge, inform, educate, equip, and empower individuals, organizations, and communities to:
- Recognize their uniqueness,
- Tap into their individual and corporate potential,
- Lead a vibrant and healthy lifestyle,
- Pursue their passion,
- Fulfill their mandates,
- Become world-class in what they do, and great in their own unique ways.
One of the four pathways is Personal Development.
Unlike many management training companies, we are a holistic organization. We don’t just offer Organizational and Leadership Development programs and leave our clients to deal with their personal development needs by themselves or let them leave it to chance. We offer personal development programs to complement the other two Pathways.
We at Success Pathways strongly believe that investing in personal development is a win-win for the greater organization and its people. The good news is that more and more smart organizations are realizing the benefit of providing personal development programs to their people and leaders, and as a result, they’re investing heavily. My hat is off to such caring and serving organizations.
One important area of personal development is one’s well-being. In this blog, I only focus only one aspect of well-being- Health.
Even if your organization isn’t health-conscious and supporting you in leading a health-conscious lifestyle, you should take this matter into your own hands. You must self-educate and stay healthy and vibrant if your desire is to:
- Enjoy every minute you get out of life.
- Experience joy in your relationships.
- Perform your family, professional, organizational, and community duties properly.
You must focus on prevention though. Take your well-being seriously while you are still healthy and vibrant.
You don’t want to find yourself dealing with deteriorating health once your defense line is obliterated.
Prevention is cheaper than treatment. Strengthening your immune system and building your defense line is a strategic approach while waiting to deal with one disease at a time is tactical and costly.
The 3-stage Personal Mastery Model of Success Pathways
We at Success Pathways, using our Personal Development Pathway, would like to work with individuals and institutions that are strategic. This Pathway uses a three-stage framework to empower our clients to attain self-mastery (see the illustration below).
Fig. 1: Self-Mastery model
Under each stage of the personal mastery model, there are some elements, one of which is Well-being, more specifically Health. And I’ll be focusing today on this just one element and show you how the framework helps you lead a health-conscious lifestyle…
Increasing your and your people’s Well-being through the framework
When it comes to Well-being, the first step in the 3-stage personal mastery model is to increase one’s awareness. Below, I’m enlisting a few self-awareness areas to lay the foundation that leads toward holistic Well-being:
- Recognizing one’s hereditary health history,
- Assessing the state of your body and mind constantly,
- Evaluating your environment regularly to assess what fits with your body and mind profile and vice versa,
- Taking lab tests regularly to identify potential health hazards before they manifest,
- And more…
For many years, I didn’t know my hereditary history and failed to go for an annual health checkup even if it was available for FREE through my health care providers. Why? I was healthy and didn’t find it necessary to do preemptive and regular health checkups. I had a faulty belief! Are you also holding this the same wrong attitude?
Of course, now, I never miss the once-per-year mandatory annual checkup even if I feel super healthy. As I age, I may even consider a once-per-quarter checkup 😊 What about you?
By the way, I know some colleagues who do elaborate health checkups that aren’t available through most health insurance companies. I applaud their initiative and proactiveness. If you have the finance and time, thanks to advanced medical technologies, you can go ahead of the curve and prevent many deadly diseases by paying for advanced health checkups that can locate potential future health problems.
Once you increase your self-awareness, you should manage what you discovered from the Self-awareness stage.
The hereditary history and lab tests increase your self-awareness. But they only give you insights about potential health risks. You should take it to the next level. That is where the second stage of our Personal Mastery model comes in: Self-management.
From Self-awareness to Self-management
You must capitalize on your self-awareness. If you don’t act on your discoveries, they expire. They don’t benefit you at all.
The starting place to self-manage your risks is to self-educate. You may be shocked. Many doctors may not follow the latest scientific discoveries. They may be too busy taking care of their patients and don’t have enough time to upgrade their knowledge. You shouldn’t leave your health and well-being in the hands of your doctor, or for that matter, anyone else’s. This is something you must be in charge of, especially once you realize that you are predisposed to certain potential diseases.
Self-manage what you become self-aware. To begin that journey, further self-educate yourself on those health risks you discovered from the self-awareness stage. Or, if you have the resources, hire relevant professionals to consult and coach you regularly.
Even if you’re very young with a perfect pedigree and nothing seems going wrong right now, you should pay attention to what you eat and drink starting from now while you’re still healthy. Even if you don’t think that you’ve any potential health risks now or in the near future, I encourage you to manage your health proactively by:
- Thinking right,
- Eating and drinking healthy, and
- Exercising regularly.
For instance, some years back my blood work showed high sugar and cholesterol levels. I was so glad I caught these spikes before they destroyed my health to the point of no recovery. Since that discovery, I’ve been self-managing myself without treatment to make sure they go down and stay there.
Please: If you have a high level of sugar or cholesterol in your blood right now, implement your doctor’s instructions and pursue treatment. In my case, I didn’t need treatment because they were a little higher than normal.
Because I educated myself and managed these two health indicators well that the sugar level came down to below normal within one or two years.
Now, my A1C level is below average normal.
Unfortunately, I’m still having slightly higher cholesterol though within a safe range. My doctor and my own suspicion are some of the food items I’m consuming are the culprits.
What can I say?! I love eggs and butter 😊
So far, there are conflicting data about these favorite foods of mine that are tempting me to keep consuming these moderately. Some latest data challenge the notion that some foods like eggs and butter can solely contribute toward bad cholesterol.
A quick tip: Though I consume eggs and butter, I am selective. I only eat pasture-raised and organic butter and eggs. Even then, I may need to muster courage and reduce the amount I’m taking in. I’m working on this weakness 😊
At this point, you may wonder and ask, AZ, regardless of the Cholesterol setback, how do you self-manage to lead a health-conscious lifestyle? Here you go. I don’t eat foods that are high in:
- Starch,
- Carb, and
- Processed foods.
I also don’t drink soft drinks even those that are labeled Diet and Zero sugar. I also don’t drink alcohol. I only eat:
- Selective vegetables,
- Certain ‘colored’ fruits,
- Nuts that don’t have lectins, and
- Healthy seafood.
I also take a couple of necessary supplements daily.
You may look at my list and get bored by just looking at them 😊 Let alone incorporating them into your diet. I hear you. You’re not me and you may not have my hereditary and health profile. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa.
Your self-awareness results could be different from mine. The key is to manage your own discoveries by disciplining yourself to think, eat and drink right, and exercise regularly.
Self-awareness is the first and foundational to leading a health-conscious lifestyle. But it’s the easiest. The hardest is the self-management stage where you’ve to act on your insights and discoveries.
Once you discipline yourself enough and keep acting, you develop productive eating, drinking, and exercise habits. Ultimately, you achieve self-mastery where you don’t need to exert tons of energy to remind yourself, and struggle to stay on course; it becomes second nature…
Given the kind of unproductive eating habits I had for decades, I had a hard time adopting a vegetable-based diet. I was struggling to eat vegetables:
- They didn’t taste well.
- I was starving more frequently.
- Besides, I was craving and having difficulty letting go of those high-sugar and sweet fruits and soft drinks.
By the way, I’m not presenting myself as a nutritionist or someone who is strict in my diet. I’m not! And that is not also our goal at Success Pathways.
I know some friends and colleagues who count their calories and eat strictly Keto or Vegetarian Diets. They never touch meats of any kind nor drink alcohol. Good for them! I’m proud of their discipline and super self-management competencies. So far, I don’t count calories nor vowed to never eat meat and drink alcohol…
If you are someone who needs a specialist, you should find those professional nutritionists who can help you implement strict diet regimens.
We’re here to support our clients who are professionals, leaders, and entrepreneurs. Those clients of ours who need immediate health attention, may not need our personal development programs to fix emergency health issues. They may need professionals in the field of medicine and nutrition.
Our programs, however, are preventive and very helpful to those who are healthy. These programs aim at supporting our clients who are getting our Organizational and Leadership Development programs to develop self-mastery one step at a time.
Our Personal Development programs contribute toward achieving holistic health by empowering our clients to pursue their passion while having the vibrant health and energy they need for prolonged periods. We assist them to enjoy life without leading a boring and too much restrictive lifestyle. If that is you, we’re here to help…
Self-mastery is a lifetime journey
From Fig. 1 above, the last stage is Self-Mastery. As you can see, I’ve mastered some aspects of my Well-being but not yet there in other aspects of my Well-being. For instance, when it comes to high Cholesterol, I’m in the Self-management stage and working on it…
At this point, I still spend a little time to continue to increase my self-awareness concerning ALL aspects of my Well-being while managing those I became aware of. There are some aspects of my Well-being I mastered while struggling to manage a few. What about you?
Time to self-audit. From 1 to 10, 1 being I’m in a bad shape and sick right now, and 10 being I’m super healthy, how do you rate your well-being?
For the different aspects of your Well-being, where are you on the spectrum of our Self-mastery model? Self-awareness, Self-management, or Self-mastery?
A quick disclaimer: Self-mastery in every aspect of our lives, including well-being, is a daunting task and a lifetime journey. Wherever you may be on the spectrum of self-mastery, keep on advancing one mastery at a time. We’re here to help you advance on the continuum one step at a time…
Be flexible and don’t beat yourself up badly because of a milestone missed
It’d be unfair if I close my blog here. Life isn’t a straight line. It’s not predictable all the time.
You’re a work in progress. You’ll be missing more targets than you hit before you become a master of your destiny. Never beat yourself up badly for falling short of meeting your goals. Don’t waste your time mourning over a milestone missed. Learn, regroup, and keep going…
I’ve to be honest. We cannot always maintain our discipline, eat and exercise as scheduled. Life happens; things happen. We need to socialize, travel, and so on.
When do things happen (you see, I didn’t say ‘if do things happen’), be flexible, and don’t beat yourself up badly. Do whatever you have to do and go back to your habits, schedule, and keep disciplining till life interrupts you again 😊 Because it will…
For example, when I socialize with friends, colleagues, and clients, and when I travel, I may eat foods I don’t normally eat. I may also drink wine depending on the occasion and the people I’m with at the moment. That is what happened when I traveled this past week to WV.
You may also consider this. Recently, I learned to go to the nearest grocery, preferably Whole Foods, to buy the vegetables and fruits I need to reduce the number of unhealthy foods I consume while staying in hotels.
Look! As a person who has a preference for introversion, I prefer to stay private and hang out only with my inner circle. But my passion requires me to socialize, spend time with diverse people, and travel. Click here to read my story and what I’ve been doing to remain who I’m while also adapting to the situations I find myself in, some of which may not totally align with my most preferred modes…
If you’re a frequent traveler, you already know how hard it is to keep your eating discipline and sleeping schedule.
Partly because you don’t have a choice. You may not find the kind of healthy foods and drinks you consume at the airports and hotels. The guest at your top or side may be too noisy or your room is next to an elevator or a vending machine…
When I work from my home office or drive to consult, coach, speak, or facilitate in the DC metro area, I have control and keep my healthy eating habits and sleeping schedule with minor modifications.
I normally eat twice per day and sometimes once per day.
Mostly, I eat vegetables, fruits, nuts, and sometimes sea foods. I seldom eat meat. I may drink wine when I socialize. And of course, I drink coffee and tea on a daily basis 🙂 What are your favorites?
Lastly, we shouldn’t be rigid if our desire is to succeed in what we do and continue to pursue our passion, serve others, and get fulfilled in life, become world-class in what we do and great in our own unique ways. We need to be flexible like WATER without:
i. Watering down our principles,
ii. Compromising our productive habits, and
iii. Violating our strict schedules too much…
We should find some:
a) Strategies,
b) Approaches, and
c) Methods that allow us to keep the balance between our Well-being goals and passion as we serve others with world-class excellence.
And we are here to support you and your people on this journey as you develop your and your people’s personal development.
- To learn more about our Personal Development Pathway, check this page: https://www.successpws.com/personaldevelopment
- If you would like us to custom-design a personal development program, reach out at [email protected]
- If you would like us to speak at one of your future events, fill out and submit the Speaker Request Form and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible: https://www.successpws.com/Speaker-Request-Form