Mentoring your Body and Investing on your Health

The topic of this current issue of Rowad made me ponder on the similarities between looking after your own business and looking after your own body.

I am sure I am not the only one who does both so I thought of sharing with the readers some of the common aspects I discovered, that go beyond both beginning with the letter ‘B’.

Ever questioned why we have expressions such as “…a healthy bank account” as well as “… a healthy body” or “… he looked withdrawn” or “… he withdrew his savings’’ - these are terms that can be used interchangeably in the business as well as in the fitness field.

Fitness is pretty much like a bank account: one has to make regular deposits to increase its equity. The more you borrow against that equity, the less you will have and before you know it you will be overdrawn. This means an injury or a breakdown.

What I am driving at is that, in general, when we look after our bodies, our bodies will be able to sustain us for longer. In the formative years, for example, when we spend most time at home and in schools, it is very important to stimulate our senses and motor skills, to eat a balanced diet to help us to grow, to educate ourselves, to develop and nurture relationships: all types of investments which we will use later on in life. If we did not, we could not function optimally and therefore there would be flaws in our operating system, which could compromise our well-being. Similarly, when we start up a new business, first of all we would have developed an interest for that particular business and some skills in order to set it up and run it, after some in depth research. We would have gone through some investment decisions, set up time aside to plan it and develop it and would have created a network of partners or clients with whom we could trade. What would happen to our business if we did not go through proper planning, proper mentoring, proper understanding and proper investments? We all know it would not last very long or it would not be successful.

So let’s think of fitness as an investment against injury (temporary breakdown) and future greatness (success) especially in later years. Learning how to move correctly and investing time and money to train with experts at the beginning will eventually save you a lot of money down the road and avoid burn outs.

When we chose a location for our business, we spend time looking around and we also spend time in interviewing staff and getting resources to set it up. When we look at investing on our fitness, therefore, we should also be looking around for the best place to train and we should ensure that the people and places we train at are qualified to do the job.

Our body is the best thing we have in life and should come before our car and our house and our business – not necessarily in that order. The body was given to us to be able to survive life on earth – and we have only that one body. Everything else (like the items mentioned above) is outside our immediate control and comes and goes and gets replaced as we move through life, but our body stays with us – we cannot replace it. If we take it for granted, however, and abuse it, misuse it and overuse it, we cannot still expect our body to function optimally and sustain us throughout our lives. If we do not move it, as it is meant to be moved by the very nature of being human, we will eventually atrophy, stagnate, age much faster or get hurt. If we over eat, over drink, abuse our bodies via using drugs, via poor diets, will end up ill or even worse. We can only take on what our bodies can manage in order to survive on earth. Anything over and above that eventually is going to affect our health.

In business too, if we overstock without selling, run into debts, expand without proper resources, get involved in poor business ventures or risky transactions, we would not be able to make any profit and eventually the business would suffer or close down or merge.

Abusing our body by overworking, by stress, by practicing dangerous sports, by poor breathing or poor posture, will sooner or later result in some sort of malfunction. Exercise and keeping fit will help your body to cope with and overcome these issues as well as all other challenges that life itself from time to time brings upon us. The stronger your body, the better equipped you are to face these challenges and recover.

Train with your mentors, people who understand your body and your needs, but at the same time learn how to train on your own and be self-sufficient. Learn to train safely and efficiently following a method that makes sense to your body and leave you invigorated rather than exhausted. As we move through our lives, the type of training and the way we train has to change, but the practice has to remain.

Being enthusiastic and positive can affect the outcome of our training sessions as well as our businesses. Love your body and be passionate on how you treat it, because if you don’t more effort will be spent on its upkeep sooner and most certainly later on in life, when more demands are made as we grow older. This should not be intended as a way to preserve it, on the contrary we should push it to safe limits, grow in it and with it. Be mindful with your approach to life, business and risk taking.