Time stands viscerally still when you’re in that bed with tubes and monitoring cables coming out of one too many veins and orifices in your body. Your doctor ushers into the world words that explain why you’ve collapsed.
“You have cardiovascular disease.”
Even with those words, you’re still in that hospital bed, signing documents and trying to close your “deal from hell”. Like so many other leaders before you that have a three-letter C-title, or introduce themselves as “Head of”, you ceaselessly continue to tread on your unique, well-worn path to success.
Of course, those words aren’t going to stop you from going back to work. After all, your team, your colleagues, and your family are relying on you. You can probably just pop some pills, keep calm and carry on.
Will you stop crossing your fingers?
Do you wonder why the dedication and drive you apply at work and at home somehow gets replaced with a faded hopefulness about your health?
How do you choose the fats that are good for you, what exercise to do and how much, or how meditation will ease your stress when you just don’t “click” with it? It’s almost like you need a PhD in health to be healthy!
The tyranny of choice about “how to be healthy” leaves you doubting yourself that the choices you make are the right ones. So it’s easy to default to the fingers crossed approach. It is impossible to be successful and healthy, right?
You need to almost die before you’ll take the right action.
The reality is that the chronic diseases common in high-achieving leaders are diseases of lifestyle. Change your lifestyle and you’ll change your genetic expression to reduce your chances of getting a chronic disease.
That’s how Type 2 Diabetes is reversible (take a look here, here and here) how Multiple Sclerosis can be slowed down and even reversed, and how I resolved the symptoms of my autoimmune condition, psoriasis (see here and here).
Over to you!
Small changes over time add up.
Like going outside first thing in the morning to engage your circadian rhythms, or standing up when you’re taking a telephone call, or having a walking meeting.
And in my case, by doing a few things to restore my gut health, my psoriasis went away. I was able to regain my energy and vitality. And because I felt a sense of equanimity, I was a nicer human being for more of the time, as well as a more heart-centred leader.
Take small steps and the benefits for your own success are exponential. Small steps are what made my leadership feel more and more effortless.
- Maximising your energy and minimising your health blips.
- Slowing down in order to speed up.
- Avoiding spending all your hard earned money regaining your health.
- Showing up as the leader you want to be.
You don’t need a PhD. What you need as a busy, successful leader is to start by doing one thing.
Instead of crossing your fingers, give yourself permission.
It’s the key ingredient to making the small steps happen when your days are full of you saying “I’m busy”. I thought I didn’t have the time. I did, but what was stopping me was not offering myself the permission.
- Permission to take two minutes to go outside.
- Permission to do something for five minutes that will make you happy.
- Permission to ask for help.
- Permission to experience a state of flow and equanimity no matter how busy a day you’ve had.
How about trying it out before you almost die?
