Find the full transcript at yourfuturerealized.com/12.
Warning: This episode may challenge your beliefs about productivity.
Recently, a client was searching for time on her calendar. She’s in New York, but the company HQ is in France, and she has teammates in California.
So, she takes meetings anytime between 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. I asked when she slept. She laughed and said:
“Oh yeah. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
She got quiet and continued:
“I don’t have the luxury of work-life balance. Somehow, I never have time for the gym, but I always have time for another meeting.”
I wonder how familiar that sounds. It’s time to turn that one on its head.
If you feel like you don't have time for fitness, then it's likely that you need it the most.
This episode is about making fitness a priority. Listen in for the benefit of your career, your team, and your quality of life.
Episode 12 – Why Fitness is Non-Negotiable for Operations Executives
Warning: This episode may challenge your beliefs about productivity.
Recently, a client was searching for time on her calendar. She’s in New York, but the company HQ is in France, and she has teammates in California.
So, she takes meetings anytime between 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. I asked when she slept. She laughed and said:
“Oh yeah. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
She got quiet and continued:
“I don’t have the luxury of work-life balance. Somehow, I never have time for the gym, but I always have time for another meeting.”
I wonder how familiar that sounds.
It’s time to turn that one on its head.
If you feel like you don't have time for fitness, then it's likely that you need it the most.
This episode is about making fitness a priority. Listen in for the benefit of your career, your team, and your quality of life.
Find the full transcript at yourfuturerealized.com/12.
The Health Paradox: Why Prioritizing Wellness Boosts Productivity
Hey Ops Execs,
It’s easy to fall into the trap of letting the demands on you take precedence over your wellness. To make decisions like:
“I was going to exercise for a half hour now, but I’ll get ahead if I clear out my inbox a bit instead.”
Sometimes it’s appropriate for the demands of your role will take priority. But you’re less productive when you neglect your physical wellness.
A healthy and fit body is like a well-oiled engine. Some benefits of regular exercise include:
- You elevate your mood: The endorphins your body releases when you exercise make you feel good and relieve stress.
- You increase your energy and stamina. And when you are operating at peak performance, it’s easier to tackle daily tasks and activities.
- You sleep better: Physical exercise tires you out so you fall asleep faster and get deeper sleep.
- You boost cognitive function and memory, which helps with focus and decision-making.
- You lower your risk of chronic disease. This builds your resilience, reduces your sick days and healthcare costs.
- You inspire a healthy culture. When you prioritize your wellness, it cascades through the org.
Why Ops Executives Struggle to Stay Fit
I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, right? So why, in the face of all these benefits, is it still such a struggle to exercise regularly?
Many of my clients come to me when they’ve been sacrificing their wellness. Working long hours is the main culprit.
But let’s be real here: It’s not just about time. It’s about your mindset. With so much responsibility, it’s hard to justify taking time to care for yourself. As a high achiever, it’s deeply ingrained in you.
Prioritizing your health can spark other challenges, depending on your beliefs and disposition. For example:
- Are you competitive? You might worry that other people are working harder when you decide to stop.
- Are you a “Ms./Mr. Yes” to everyone? You might find it hard to draw clear, appropriate boundaries that give you the time and space for fitness.
- Are you super tuned-in to what others need? You might find it hard to tune in to your own needs.
- Are you a perfectionist? Maybe you worry that you’ll be criticized for taking time for yourself.
- Do you get bored easily? You might have trouble sticking to a consistent fitness routine, needing something that excites you more.
- Are you likely to only take on things you’ll succeed at? Committing to fitness might feel risky.
- Do you like thinking more than moving? You might not even know where to start with fitness.
Noticing how you frame fitness can help you get a grasp on it and start generating better results.
How Operations Execs Can Prioritize Fitness
The first step in successfully turning over a new fitness leaf is to revolutionize your context for it. Recategorize it from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘non-negotiable’. For example, notice the fundamental difference between these two statements:
I get work done so I can integrate fitness into my life.
Vs.
I stay fit so that everything in my life works better.
Can you see how thinking the latter would have you approach fitness differently?
It’s not enough to simply make a change in your mindset. You must accompany it with a physical practice that reinforces it.
For the second step, apply the concept of Kaizen. As you likely know, Kaizen is a Japanese business philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement. You infuse small, incremental, changes into your days that lead to significant results over time.
For example, rather than taking on a whole new fitness regimen, go small but consistent every day. It’s a daily 10-minute walk or run outside. Or a 15-minute yoga video. Or 50 crunches.
Whatever you choose, make it bite-sized, relatively simple, and something that energizes you. Kaizen is not only about results, it’s about the experience. Don't just focus on the specific outcome. Pay attention to your experience of it, inside the framework that you’re making your life work better.
This might not be intuitive as you begin. Philosopher Seneca said, “We treat the body rigorously so that it will not be disobedient to the mind.”
You can train yourself differently with this discipline. You’re already super diligent and committed when it comes to leading operations, right?
Just redirect those muscles over here. Play the long game and give the habits a chance to take hold.
You can’t stop the chaos, but you can change the game.