Why your body is the foundation of your business is perhaps a different thought that you may have come across, but I would really want to get something across today which is a little different from normal, let's say business and strategic coaching thinking and comes in a more human. coaching thinking way, but utterly applied to business. Now I coach a lot of founders and business owners and they, they come in different varieties and lots of businesses, but the general theme is this. Everyone I coach, we are working through challenges, problems, stressors and things that come up for that person in their, in their life, both personally and professionally, because they get the close together, right? If you're a founder, you, you know this, how you think and how you feel. That plays out in your home life as well as your work life. So we worked through a lot of this content and material and how that affects the business, which is great. What I've seen is that a lot of founders and business owners are putting so much time and energy into the business. They don't have enough time and energy to put into their health, fitness and their body. And I was working with someone a couple of years back and, and he was in a high level business in a financial sector, running, running his own own business. And He'd worked so hard, put in all these hours and, great work ethic, but he literally did not exercise at all. And the classic getting north of 40, got some weight gain, tiredness, sleep issues, highlights and stress, heightened anxiety, all of these kinds of patterns of problems. And What happened was, is that, was trying hard to work hard, trying so hard to work on the business that actually it was becoming detrimental to his health. And in the session, I said to this guy, I'm like, okay, why are you working so hard? What are you trying to prove? And Now, of course, I'm not going to share the details with this client, but there was two big questions that made him say yeah, why? And I I said, look, if you carry on this way, your chances of being, without your business, because you're no longer here because of your health has gone quite high, which is. Crazy as a business strategy. And he was like, yeah, you know what? This is time to change it. So one of the things we looked at was this relationship with our body is secondary and our mind is primary. And, and I, and I often talk about this to all of my clients, the mind body dualism, which is rooted in Descartes. It's still prevalent in our culture. It's incorrect and it's outdated. Our mind and our body work as a system. You, you don't live in a body. You live through a body and your body and your mind are one ecosystem. So what's happening in your nervous system, your body and your brain, they're all talking and connecting with each other. Therein, if your body is functioning well, so you're sleeping well, your stress is able to be managed through good practices, that you are physically fit, like your heart works well, your lungs work well, your musculature is strong, all of those sorts of things. That all affects how your mental capacity is. Your resilience, your ability to be creative and to run a business so when I talk about the bodies, the foundation of the business, it's looking at it through this lens that everything that we do in life in work is built through our physiology and our psychology. If we only work on the mind and miss out the body. we're missing the foundation. And of course, the same goes the other way. If you only go to the gym and work out, but don't deal with your emotional stuff, don't deal with your traumas and backstory, then you are also missing the other half of the, of the pie, so to speak. So working on the body. Now, one of the things I've really wanted to share was a couple of stories. So I've worked with this. client John. So again, I'll, I'll keep their, their details alias. John was, super, super stressed. We did a load of work around moving away from burnout and making sure that they were running their business well in both strategic way and behavior way. And they said to me, that's it. I'm going to get, I'm going to get fit the classic. And, and John was around about 50. so I was like, great. I gave them some pointers. They, they seeked out a PT and off they went. And we had a coaching session, I think it was a month later, and they said, that's how is it going? And I said, yep, three times a week. I'm there every week, pushing hard, crushing it, all this, all this kind of intense stuff. A month after that, they got a massive injury and stopped all activity. So we had a debrief after that because I was only coaching them in the psychological and the emotional space at that time. And. And I said, look, what, what is this? You, you said you want to work on your body because of a lot that we've covered. You've gone at this hell for leather and you've gone at it with this, short term mentality that I'm going to be fit and fixed in three weeks or three months. And that's just not viable for someone who's 50. It's not viable for someone who's 30. You need to be looking at this as a three to 10 year program. And now people say, Oh, what, how long? Slow it down. If you look at Olympic athletes, they work on four year cycles and normally double that. So eight year cycles of training and development. So this beautiful body of ours, this very powerful system, it takes time to adapt and change and consistency is key. Short term results don't last, and problems come up. So if you go and work really hard at the gym or push it hard in high intensity or something like that and you don't have the foundational structure, strength, suppleness, whatever it is, the link is, the weakest link will kick in and you'll have a, probably an injury and fail. And the problem with that is then it confirms that you're no good at exercise and it's a waste of time. And then we're back to square one, probably even minus one. So that's a kind of, a negative story that I wanted to share about how it may not work. Let me give you another one. I was working with another client, Sarah, Sarah was running, a hospitality business and doing really well. A lot of pressure, I get to say deal, there's a lot on, right? There's a lot to do. Sarah was in hospitality, so she was, a partier, let's say, had a lot of alcohol consumption, wasn't active, so forth. And we started work together and all the things to help her be really successful as the founder of her business. And, and I called it out. I'm like, look, if you are drinking vast amounts of alcohol. You're going to be tired, fatigued. Is that going to damage your sleep and everything else that goes with it? Fair play to Sarah. She's okay, you know what? I'm just going to stop. And she made this decision because it was too easy to have it. So she just chose to stop consuming alcohol. And it's a really admirable decision. But the interesting thing was soon as she made this decision to connect with her body and, and behave differently, she chose to take out running again. And she, she told me that when she was a younger woman, she, she used to love distance running and do 10 Ks and marathons and so forth. mid forties, I think she was, she started out running. Distance running, putting in the miles. Sign up for a marathon and I've been catching her for a while and she's done I think at least two marathons now and some other things like got involved with triathlons, bike rides and really, really relish the activity of fitness and, and development. And what I've seen with Sarah is that. Not only has her fitness improved, she's a lot less stressed. She's sleeping better. She has an outlet for all those pressures that's going on in the business space. And what we find is that running a business is a bit like running a marathon. It's a long game. It takes time. you can get an injury if you don't do the right type of training and just like a business, if you don't make the right decision, you can have a problem. So there's so much that crosses over between physical fitness, the body and that relationship. And the relationship we have with our business. So when we can think about your business, your business model, and what all those foundational pieces are, your body is the prime piece. Your mind is it's other aspect and you are the fundamental piece in a whole business. So if we take that view, then you might choose a different strategy around how you exercise, how you move. Now, if you're not active right now, and you want to get into activity and movement, Then get the right guidance. So the guidance would be this. Go get a PT of some kind or a strength and conditioning trainer or whoever you want to work with in your, in your space. Get the right guidance because you need to move well to avoid injury, particularly if you're midlife. Secondly, get the right mindset. Throw away any expectations to change everything in three months. Think about this like I think about my own training. In my view, I'm an athlete and Olympian. Four years. Each four years I review the cycle. Now I'm on my second block, right? So I'm six years into this, this program I set myself and through it, I've had to deal with an autoimmune condition, which comes and goes, pandemic that came up, all sorts of hiccups and problems, but because it's such a longterm goal, because it's working over this scale where there's time for interruptions and problems and you can come back, there's no failure. If I'm trying to achieve everything in 18 months, it's a big ask. So make it a long term goal. Think of it in, four year cycles, five year cycles, and consistency is key. So intensity never comes before consistency. It's far better to do a gentle run, some weights, some plyometrics, whatever the mix you do, then crushing the runs, smashing the weights, and then suddenly being too fatigued to run your business. So go. Get the right guidance, get the right timeline and then go at this with a new fresh mindset. I'm, I'm, I'm 52 now. and I often share my podcast and to people, I do a lot of stuff. I move every day and sometimes it's gentle and sometimes it's intense. It's a range of things I do. Now it's taken a while to get here, like many years to get to this level from mid forties onwards. If I want to have a business that's going well over the next 20, 30 years. If I want to have a retirement, and my real retirement is a bit different to other people's, but if I want to be really dynamic and active in my eighties and nineties, it starts the day. You can't get it back later in life. All the research says, if, if you're in trouble in your forties, fifties is going to be tricky. Sixties is going to be a disaster and don't even talk about the rest. So not to be a naysayer negative, but it's if you don't want all that stuff, the health span of your life to degrade later in life. And why would you? Start now. It's the long game. So there are some salient points I hope to perhaps get you thinking a bit differently about how you might move, connect with your body, exercise, and, and think about that long game and perhaps even build it into your business strategy. and notice if this works for you. So if you have questions, I imagine there's many that come up and, and you've got thoughts, I'm always accessible to reach out to answer those questions. So you can reach me, via my website link is on the back end of this podcast. And, and I hope it has triggered something for you to move well, to be connected to your body and to enjoy your business at the same time. Until the next time, take care.