EP157- Health Is Wealth.

Life has a way of reminding us what truly matters — often when we least expect it.

We spend so much time chasing productivity, money, goals, and milestones that we forget the one foundation that makes all of it possible: our health. The moment your body begins to struggle, everything else suddenly becomes secondary. The stress, the deadlines, the ambitions — they all grow quiet when your ability to simply feel well is taken away.

Health is not just about appearance or discipline. It is about gratitude in action. It is the daily decision to care for the one vessel that allows you to experience life, pursue purpose, and show up for the people you love.

Most people wait for a wake-up call before they change. But reflection asks a different question:

Why wait until health becomes a problem before treating it like a priority?

This episode is an invitation to pause and honestly ask yourself — are your daily habits building strength, or slowly taking it away?

Because true wealth is not measured by what you accumulate, but by how fully you are able to live.

Listen with an open mind, reflect deeply, and ask yourself:

If your health determined your wealth today… how rich would you be?

Thank You for listening ! follow us on Instagram. 
@compoundingdailypodcast
Miguel:@m_sanchezvillafane
Email: Compoundingdailypodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Back After The Flu

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello, and welcome back everybody to compounding daily. I'm your host, Miguel Sanchez. Welcome to episode 157. I am first and foremost grateful to be back. I missed last week one of the rare occasions where I missed uh posting an episode. But uh as I always say, if I miss something that I love doing that I'm passionate about, chances are health or sickness was involved, and that was the case for me. I had the flu last week, and man, did it put me through it. I don't think I've ever been that sick before. My wife said the same exact thing. Um, very gratefully, I'm feeling a lot better now. Uh, this was technically two weeks ago. I worked all all of this week, you know, catching up with projects that I needed to and everything. And uh with that being said, if you've been with me for a while, then you know that I always speak about the things that are most adamant in my life, right? I like to speak from my experience and from my observations. Everything that I speak about is always my opinion, and I always tell everybody to receive that like a grain of salt. You know, sometimes it provides value, sometimes it doesn't, but my goal is always to leave you with uh a sort of curiosity that allows you not to just listen to me and to what I said for you to go do, but to question the things that you are doing and ask yourself how you as an individual can become better. So, with that being said, it is Monday. This episode is being released on Monday at noon instead of five in the morning. As we speak, I'm snowed in. We're all snowed in, I'm pretty sure. Uh, I did announce on social media that this episode was gonna be with me and my wife, but unfortunately, she had to go to work this morning. Not physically, she's upstairs, but she's handling meetings and work calls and all of that. So it's just me. But the topic doesn't change. Before we get into the topic, let me refresh your memory real quick. It's Monday, the beginning of a brand new week, and with a brand new week, you have a responsibility, and that responsibility is how will you show up this week? Will you make good decisions? Will you make the same decisions? Are those decisions leading you to a best you or or making things worse for you? You as an individual get to decide and answer these questions, and at the end of the day, you can be full of excuses and you can say everything under the sun is against you. Life is against you, the color of my skin, my family, my friends, the government, whatever, and some of it may be true, but at the end of the day, you don't allow those things to become anchors to justify your lack of effort in creating a good life. Never forget that, always remember that. And with that being said, as I said, I like to speak about the things that are adamant in my life, and when I tell you that that flu changed a perspective for me, a perspective that I haven't had in a very long time. Understand something. If you've if you if you don't know me personally or you haven't gone down the rabbit hole of who Miguel is, then chances are you didn't know that I was fat at one point. I was, in my own opinion, disgustingly fat, right? I was I'm five foot five, I'm small, I'm a small guy, I'm five foot five, five foot six on my license, so let's go with that, right? And you could imagine what a five foot five, two hundred and eighty nine, a two hundred and eighty-nine pound individual looked like. I wanted to be in better shape, I wanted to physically experience a healthy body. And I took many different approaches. I did the the the uh fasting diet before I've done the carnivore for a little bit, I did Herbert life for a little bit, and when I say for a little bit, I mean literally for a little bit. Uh uh I I tried it all and I told myself none of this works. Maybe I'm just meant to be fat. And then I realized, you know, who I am now, this overweight individual, has more than one problem, you know. And the I used to think that the only problem was that I was overweight. But as I started getting older and a little bit wiser, and I started, you know, going down the rabbit holes of of looking into the people that I admired, looking into the people who I looked up to, I realized that my problem was far, far greater than physical. Mentally, I wasn't thriving. Physically, I despised myself. Uh, spiritually, my connection with God was non-existent. I was just an individual who was insufferable. If you were around me, chances are I would tell you about my my complaints, I would tell you all the excuses as to why my life was so miserable and why the the the the future is more most likely to carry the same thing, and that didn't serve me. That didn't serve me or the life that I wanted to create for myself. So understand something physically. I had to change. Physically, I had to change because I started understanding something very important. Everything matters, goals are are are amazing, dreams are are great to get out of bed and and go and chase them and and try to make them into a reality. But what happens when your health all of a sudden is in jeopardy? All of a sudden, your dreams don't matter so much. All of a sudden, the number in your bank account doesn't matter so much, right? You we spend our days stressing about the day-to-day. What am I gonna do? I have to do this, I have to do that. Oh my god, this needs to get done, this bill needs to be paid, and I need to be there at this time, and I need to do that, and then all of a sudden they tell you, hey, you have terminal something, hey, you are now incapable of walking, hey, you don't have much time left on this planet. That conversation will change the perspective in which you approach life, and it makes you look at life from a different lens, the lens of like, wow, the things I took for granted, the things that I was stressing about all of a sudden aren't even a thought in my head, and now the things that are adamant and and at the forefront of my mind are things that I used to take for granted. The people around me, the small foods I get to eat, the beauty that stands before me every single day that I chose to ignore because I was focusing only on the materialistic things and only focusing on the future. Today's episode is short and is only gonna have one goal in mind to to to remind you of something that we all know, but only few of us are getting to experience. Health is wealth. Health, in my own opinion, is the best kind of wealth to have. Why? Because with a strong body, you can overcome anything. With a strong body, you can continue to show up. With a strong body, you reflect to the world that you actually care about you as an individual, so much so that you ensure that your existence is not an inconvenience to anyone else, because you take care of yourself. This is so adamant in my head because when I get the rare sickness, right? I get sick, it's just very rare. I eat healthy, I I work out a lot, I'm mindful, I drink my water, you know. So when I get sick, it it changes everything for me. Because to be the kind of person that I am, to wake up and do my morning messages, and then go out into the world and and I'm building the business, and I'm I'm always enthusiastic of getting out there. I'm I'm looking for it to realize how fast my body started deteriorating the second I got the flu. The fever came in. Excuse me. The fever came in, uh, foods were no longer being held in anymore. I got drinking water was painful, my body ached. All I wanted to do was rest. I stopped putting morning messages out. I wasn't eating, I wasn't myself at all. And it always puts things into perspective how fast life can change, how easy it is from one day to the next to go from oh my god, look at my dreams and the things that I'm aiming for, to wow, this could all be taken away at any second. And I maybe I'm not appreciative enough, maybe I haven't expressed enough gratitude, maybe I haven't said thank you enough, maybe I haven't spoken to the important people in my life often enough. Those are the kind of thoughts that stem into my mind as I sat there on the couch sick day after day. And again, it just puts things into perspective. We live in a world where we have an abundance of options as to the foods we can eat. And it's easy to choose the easy meals, the ones that you don't have to cook, the ones that are rich in fat, the ones that you don't want to track, the ones that you could probably have a day's worth of eating in one sitting because you just don't care. It's easy in today's world, right? Because you got a McDonald's in every corner, another Taco Bell in every corner, a Duncan in every corner. You just got all these fast food options. So of course it's easy, right? And it doesn't matter until your health is injured. Right? I can't speak for you. I'll speak for me, but everything changed for me when my doctor sat me down and said, Hey, you're you're a hundred percent correct. You are disgusting. She didn't say that to me, but she might as well have, because that's the after I left that office feeling like, what the hell am I doing? You know, and she told me, she's like, Hey, you're pre-diabetic, your cholesterol is through the roof. Should you change nothing about the way that you live now, the next time I see you will be to give you insulin, will give you uh high blood pressure medication, it will be to basically tell you that you are continuing to go down a path that won't lead you at all or even near to the life that you want. You need to change. And that wasn't an easy pill to swallow, but swallow it I did, and I took it personal, so personal so that now I I prioritize my health over everything. I understand a very simple rule everything's important until your health is in jeopardy. Everything matters until they tell you that you are sick and are not gonna be healing anytime soon. And now, those are the times when people start having the conversations of man, I should have gone to the gym, man. I really should have stopped eating like that, man. And the thing is that you knew this all along. In today's world, I'm certain it's not just my social media. You log in and you see influencers working out all the time. It's almost like this positive change that's happening in the world where people are realizing the importance of physical health, the understanding, right? Because this is the beauty of it, right? Because it all connects, it it begins with a foundation of gratitude, right? That's what I always begin my day with gratitude. I'm grateful for what I have, even if it's not exactly what I wanted. That's how I begin my day, and then I understand that with gratitude, I get to be grateful for my body, and then how do I express gratitude towards my body? Well, of course, by feeding it the foods that fuel it, by making sure that it's getting enough energy out so that I can rest easier at night to ensure that over time it is getting stronger because of the difficulties that I purposely placed in front of it in order to overcome obstacles that will no doubt be in my way as I continue to pursue my goals, right? So gratitude and then the understanding that I physically I have a responsibility to take care of my vessel, right? And and now that I'm sitting here understanding, like, okay, well, uh why am I struggling to create a strong body? I don't understand. This was Fat Miguel talking to me, right? Talking to himself. Fat Miguel was having that conversation. I I I get it that I I I need to physically have a better body, but time and time, year after year, I gain weight, I get grosser, something has to change. What is it? Well, guess what needed to change? The conversation happening internally. The conversation happening internally was only one of hate towards myself, one full of excuses, one always justifying why a lack of effort was acceptable in my life. And I realized that as long as I kept having that conversation, my physical body, my physical appearance was not going to change because in the conversation I was having with myself, I was justifying why I wasn't going to do it, why I couldn't do it. So I had to start changing the conversation. How did I do that? I started reading books, I started learning from the greats, I started going down the the TED Talks rabbit hole, just learning. Uh I I became a sponge. I wanted to absorb everything and anything that I could get my hands on in order to start clarifying the the the fogginess that was covering my eyes, and that fogginess was the the justification that I was using to to explain to the world why I was fat. Well, my my family's fat. What do you want from me? Well, we all have diabetes. What do you want from me? I'm just, you know, a replica of where I come from. You can't be mad at me. Be mad at them for not taking care of themselves to then turn into not taking care of me properly. And I was just full of shit. You could hear it in everything that I was saying. I was simply just full of shit. And then I realized it. And then I understood, wow, if I want a healthy body, I need to have a healthy conversation with myself. If I want to have a healthy conversation with myself, I need to realize why the conversation is negative in the first place. And then I realized for years, for years, I've been domesticating myself to accept lies as truth, to to justify everything with excuses. Something had to change. I needed to change. And this isn't a hey, look at me and look at what I've done. As we speak, I'm not happy with where I am physically. I know I've neglected my body in the past few months. I got married, I got the highlight of my life so far. You know, I went on a little honeymoon, I came back and I started a business, you know, so it's easy and I could be here. Well, you know, now that I'm so busy with everything, I don't have time to take care of myself. No longer do I have that conversation. No longer do I lie to myself like that. Because I know if a good business is to be built, if my marriage is going to thrive, if my relationship with my friends are are to be expected to create wonderful memories, then physically my health needs to be there in order to create those things, in order to maintain those things, in order to experience the most that life has prepared for me. Health is my number one priority. I used to say, Man, I want to be rich one day. I can't wait to be rich one day, and all I was talking about was money. All I was talking about was my bank account. I just want a nice bank account so I could not worry about anything because money fixes all your problems, does it? Because last I remembered, I promise you the wealthy would trade in all their money for a little bit more time on earth. They would trade in all their money to get rid of that sickness in their heart. An example, but you understand what I'm saying. It really paints the the the emphasis of the importance, the understanding that all all of these problems matter until the one problem you have is your health. So why wait till health is a problem to worry about it? Why not prioritize your health? So health is the least of your concerns. Because listen, there's nothing, there's nothing more wonderful. And I've said this to to friends before, I've said this to co-workers before. When people ask me, dude, why do you go to the gym so much? Why do you work out so much? Why are you so strict with your health? My response is have you ever experienced your body at the best that it could be? And they're like, uh no. And I'm like, so how aren't you curious? Aren't you curious to know what it would feel like to run up the stairs and not be out of breath at the top of the stairs? Aren't you curious to find out what it's like to be able to squat and pick up something heavy without straining your back or buckling at the knees? Aren't you curious if you're a parent, how wonderful it would feel to not say, wow, my kid's draining my energy, and instead you say, Wow, I have so much energy for my kid. Because those are the thoughts that I have. I don't even have a kid, and I'm preparing myself for that. Understanding that my health is my way of showing to the people that I care, that I care for them by taking care of me. Because this past week was uh, you know, a realization of how fast it can be stripped away. Here I am, the strong one in the household. Here I am going out and and and getting my hands dirty and doing all this work and everything, and all of a sudden, my wife is putting a blanket over me. I could barely walk. Next to me is a trash bag for the throw up, and my wife literally had to take care of me for literally seven days in a row. It puts things into perspective for me. And you know, despite how shitty I felt, despite the flu being there, you know what I thought to myself? Imagine if I was still fat Miguel. How would this experience be? This flu probably would be a thousand times worse. I'd probably be in a hospital strapped up to machines, wondering why am I here at 30 years old? I don't get it, while the nurses and doctors looked at me confused because they're looking at an obese person asking stupid questions. Why am I here? Because I neglected myself. That's why. But instead, I got the flu, and seven days later, I'm recovered, back in the gym, back at training jujitsu, back out at work, lifting heavy, doing the things that I love, with the reminder man, make sure you always prioritize your health, Miguel, because at any second it could be taken away. I don't care what anybody says, I don't care what experiences they have, what materialistic things they have. I'm here to tell you one thing today and one thing only. Health is wealth. And it's a wealth that most people neglect. Most people worry about the financial benefits first, about the materialistic things first. But what about the one body you're you're only ever going to get? What about that vessel that you wake up to and look at every day? Why aren't you treating it like the machine it is, right? Because the body is a machine and it's a reflection of the thoughts that you consistently have, and physically it's a reflection of the things that you feed it. If you aren't happy with your health, chances are you're far from wealth. I'm gonna leave it with that because that's what I call a little gold nugget. If you are far from wealth, chances are you are lacking in health. Become better. You only get one body, treated like the tempo it's meant to be treated as, treated as a gift because that is what it is. A gift that most diminish, a gift that most throw away by just feeding poison into it. If you are far from wealth, the chances are you are far from health. Think about that. And until next time.