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GET READY PHYSICALLY

Health and intellect are the two blessings of life.

—MENANDER (c. 342–292 B.C.)

No matter what task you undertake, you’ll do a better job if you feel good physically. You will tackle it with greater physical energy, more emotional vigor, and greater intellectual sharpness. That doesn’t mean that only people in peak physical shape can expect to succeed in life. Stephen Hawking, the noted British physicist, achieved scientific success although he suffers from a severely debilitating physical disease. Franklin Roosevelt led the nation through two of its worst crises although he was permanently crippled by polio. Robert Louis Stevenson produced a body of literary classics while suffering from tuberculosis.

You may face health challenges that are outside your area of effective influence, but you can achieve optimum fitness within the limitations of your basic condition. Generally speaking, physical fitness will result from seeking optimum balance in:

• eating habits
• exercise
• work and relaxation
• sleep habits
• personal habits

BALANCE IN EATING HABITS

Americans tend to be well-fed and poorly nourished. Starvation is extremely rare in this country, but so is good nutrition. We eat plenty of the wrong kinds of foods. Therefore, we suffer from obesity, high cholesterol levels, and other conditions directly related to diet.

The Wall Street Journal once referred to the American consumer’s “workout, pig-out mentality.” We engage in healthy exercise, then turn around and pig out on unhealthy food. Sometimes a poor diet is the result of imbalance in other areas of life. Many people use food as an antidote for depression, but it seldom works. The self-indulgent resorting to chocolate, pizza, beer, and chips results in more weight gain, which in turn feeds the depression.

At the other extreme are people who starve themselves for fear of becoming too fat. Each of us has an optimum weight, which depends largely upon our age, sex, and height. Your doctor can quickly tell you your optimum weight and recommend a regimen for attaining it.

A balanced diet will help you maintain optimum mental and physical alertness. It will help you to maintain your optimum weight, which not only helps you feel more energetic, but also increases your self-confidence and helps you to make a good impression on others. This sense of well-being and self-confidence will give you a head start on success in whatever you undertake.

BALANCE IN PHYSICAL EXERCISE

Maintaining your optimum weight requires more than proper eating. It also requires regular exercise. The formula isn’t complicated. You eat food to provide fuel for your body’s activities. When you eat more food than your body burns, the fuel is stored away as fat, and you gain weight. When you eat less food than your body burns, the stored-up fat is consumed and you lose weight. Therefore, you can lose weight either by cutting down on your food intake or by increasing your physical activity.

I try to keep my weight close to the optimum level for my height, age, and sex. But sometimes I yield to temptation and have an extra candy bar or junk-food snack between meals. When I do that, I atone with an extra helping of exercise—a jog around the block, or perhaps a few minutes on an exercise bike. Exercise is important for reasons other than controlling weight. It is vital for keeping your muscles in optimum condition, and the best way to keep them in shape is to use them regularly.

The most important muscle of all is your heart. Physical exercise causes it to pump more rapidly, thus building up its strength. A sedentary lifestyle is one of the most common causes of cardiovascular disease. Yet some studies have indicated that fewer than 40 percent of us engage in sports or other forms of physical activity for as much as one hour a week. Not only can regular exercise be fun; it can also make you feel good. And when you’re feeling good, you’re bound to perform better in every aspect of life.

As a speaker and a consultant, I know that I’m going to be at my best when I’m in optimum physical condition. When I’m feeling good, it puts a sharp edge on my presentations, whether I’m keynoting a sales convention or counseling a top-management team. When I’m physically down, I can sometimes force myself to rise to the occasion, but I wouldn’t be able to do that consistently, week in and week out. Physical fitness is something you can’t fake for long.

Exercise is the key to fitness, and it doesn’t have to be a chore. A brisk twenty-minute stroll in the early morning or during your lunch break can make a pleasant but significant contribution to your physical health. Bicycle riding, jogging, tennis, badminton, handball, volleyball, and other physical activities can be fun and healthy at the same time.

But remember the principle of balance: The quest for physical fitness can be carried to an extreme. When physical fitness becomes the central focus of your life, when exercise becomes an end in itself rather than a means toward an end, you’re out of balance.

BALANCE IN WORK AND RELAXATION

One of the principles you learned from the cradle onward is that “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” It also makes Jill a dull girl. The converse is also true: All play and no work make Jill and Jack dull people. Balance between work and play is an important factor in your physical well-being.

The consequences of all play and no work are well known. Aesop dramatized them in his fable of the ant and the grasshopper. The grasshopper frolicked all summer and ended up with nothing to sustain it during the winter. The ant used the summer months to store up provisions.

People who spend all their time having a ball often have nothing to go home to after the ball is over. Life can’t be one continuous party. If you expect to achieve true happiness, you have to build a solid foundation for success. That means learning new things and applying the things you learn.

If you’re pursuing success in a congenial role in a compatible career, you should find learning to be stimulating and even fun. Applying the things you learn should give you great satisfaction, because it means you’re getting better and better at the things you enjoy doing.

Does that mean that all your waking hours should be spent on the job, or going to seminars and night classes? Of course not. The occasional night on the town, the weekend vacation and even a pressure-free day of goofing off (as long as you’re not goofing off on somebody else’s time) can be refreshing and beneficial. But if partying and goofing off are your normal routine, you need to look for balance. The secret of balance is knowing when to be the ant and when to be the grasshopper.

We have a name for people who never allow themselves to step out of the ant role. We call them workaholics. Workaholics believe they can achieve success by working around the clock. This would be true if our minds and bodies were capable of sustaining high-quality performance indefinitely. But they’re not. Just as a race car needs to make a pit stop at certain intervals for maintenance and repair, so your body needs regular rest to keep its components in good working order.

In most pursuits, success is not measured just by quantity. Quality is usually even more important, and this applies whether you’re laying bricks or crunching numbers. Bricklayers who work sixteen-hour days will not produce the same quality at 11 P.M. as they did at 11 A.M., especially if they repeat the routine day in and day out. Physical and mental fatigue take their toll. Accountants who bury their heads in figures in around-the-clock efforts to complete their audits will find mistakes starting to crop up as the evening wanes. Writers and artists will find their creativity dulling as fatigue sets in.

When people love their work, they’re often willing to put in more than the standard eight-hour day. One characteristic of high achievers is that they tend to show up earlier and stay later than their colleagues. But when work consistently consumes your waking hours to the near-total exclusion of recreational activities, you are courting physical and mental burnout.

I’m a hard worker. I love what I do, and I spend a lot of time at it. I often drop by my office late at night or go in for a couple of hours early in the morning. But I also make time for my family and for recreational activities. Since much of my work involves the creation and execution of ideas, I keep a notepad handy, even when I’m relaxing on the beach. But I do relax. I could not provide my clients and my business associates with my best efforts if I didn’t find some time to recharge my batteries. More important, I could not live up to my role as a devoted family man if I didn’t spend time relaxing and enjoying the company of my wife and children.

It may be necessary at times to work long hours to accomplish a specific purpose or to deal with a specific situation. If you’re in college and you have to work to support yourself, you may find yourself sacrificing play time for study and work time. But you can do this knowing that when your goal is achieved and you have a degree in hand, you can pursue a more balanced schedule.

In your work life, you may face deadlines or encounter emergencies that require you to work longer than your normal hours, and successful people are willing to do this. But if these situations become the rule rather than the exception, you need to examine your work habits or even your line of work. Neither a race car nor a human can go flat-out indefinitely without experiencing a breakdown.

Give yourself a break. Regularly. If you don’t, you’ll find your inventory of stress building up, and with stress comes physical problems. Stress breeds headaches, stomach problems, fatigue, muscular tension, and nervous irritability. It can be the underlying cause of cancer and cardiovascular ailments. It is a major enemy of optimum performance.

BALANCE IN SLEEP HABITS

Your body needs sleep. Some of us seem to be able to get by with less sleep than others, but for most adults, seven to eight hours of sleep per night is optimum. In most cases, your body can tell you when you’re getting enough sleep. If you need an alarm clock to awaken you at the proper time in the morning, you’re probably staying up too late.

When you shortchange yourself on sleep, your body shortchanges you on performance. You can’t give your optimum effort when you’re drowsy and nodding. Nor can you start your day in top form when you sleep until the last minute, throw some cold water on your face, and rush through your dressing routine. Not only will you not perform at your best; you won’t look your best either.

Getting the proper amount of sleep is usually a matter of scheduling. If your day starts early in the morning, don’t allow yourself to get hooked on the late-night television shows—unless entertainment is at the core of your value system and making a living is near the bottom of your priorities.

If you take work home with you, try to put it aside and do something relaxing an hour or two before retiring. Light reading or relaxing music can pave the way to pleasant dreams.

Don’t drink coffee, tea, or any other stimulant during the hours approaching bedtime. Midnight snacks can also keep you awake. An alcoholic nightcap may help you relax, but a second drink can keep you awake, and repeated drinks will reward you with a hangover in the morning.

If you still have trouble going to sleep at a reasonable hour, you may find it helpful to use relaxation techniques. A number of audiotapes are available to put you into a soothing, relaxed mood. You can also relax on your own by getting comfortable, closing your eyes, breathing deeply and rhythmically, and letting your imagination transport you into a quiet, beautiful, tension-free setting, such as a seashore or a mountain retreat. Visualize your surroundings as if you were actually there, letting yourself feel the wind on your skin, hear the sound of crashing waves or rippling current, and smell the fragrance of the outdoors.

Usually, if you make it a habit to retire at a reasonable hour and arise at a reasonable hour, you’ll find that sleep comes naturally and pleasantly. If none of this works for you, ask your doctor to recommend a way to get the proper amount of sleep.

Sometimes we wake up naturally after the proper amount of sleep, then turn over for one last snooze before getting up. Make it a practice to get out of bed as soon as you wake. This may take a little effort at first, but in time it will become a habit.

Get up in time to eat a nutritious breakfast. Try to have breakfast with someone—a spouse, a friend, a client, or a colleague. A pleasant, stimulating conversation over breakfast can be a good way to wake up your mental and physical faculties before you turn to your daily tasks.

BALANCE IN PERSONAL HABITS

You don’t have to give up all physical pleasures to lead a healthy lifestyle. You don’t have to eliminate meat from your diet, pass up desserts, and drink nothing but fruit juice and water.

But you do have to understand that many things that bring pleasure have expensive price tags attached. Only you can decide whether the pleasure is worth the price. Some pleasures are virtually harmless when pursued in moderation. Others are dangerous at any level.

Whether to use tobacco is one of those decisions that individuals must make for themselves. Inhaling tobacco smoke entails risks, and the more you inhale the greater the risk. Dr. Louis Sullivan, secretary of health and human services under President Bush, claimed that the yearly death toll from tobacco in the United States exceeds the death toll from all four years of American participation in World War II. Tobacco has been blamed for 90 percent of all lung cancer in males over forty-five years old. Athletic coaches recognize that smoking inhibits physical performance by cutting down on the efficiency of the lungs.

These facts have been widely publicized. But many people may be unfamiliar with other consequences of heavy smoking. For instance, studies have shown that absenteeism from the job is 40 percent higher among smokers than among nonsmokers. A study by the state of Maine showed that cigarette smokers missed more time from work because of back problems than did nonsmokers. Those who suffered injuries on the job were more likely to be smokers than those who were not injured. And the injured smokers, on average, smoked more heavily than did the uninjured smokers.

So smoking tobacco—particularly heavy smoking—can hamper physical performance and even result in physical disability.

In view of the current trend toward ever tighter restrictions on smoking in public, it’s also wise to consider the consequences of working while experiencing an unsatisfied craving for a smoke. You can’t very well concentrate your mental or physical energies on the task at hand while your mind and body are crying for a cigarette break.

Alcohol is another popular source of pleasure and trouble. Used in moderation, alcohol can be pleasant and relaxing, and some say it may actually reduce the chances of heart trouble. But alcohol abuse is one of the more widespread problems in our society. It has been blamed for a third of the traffic injuries in the United States and for nearly three out of five traffic fatalities. It is involved in one-third of the suicides, two out of five fatal industrial accidents, and seven out of ten fatalities resulting from drowning, fires, and falls.

While alcohol, in moderation, may make you more relaxed during social encounters, remember that it is a depressant. Neither your mental nor your physical capacities are at their optimum when you’re under the influence of alcohol. Alcohol is the enemy in tasks that require mental concentration or physical coordination.

Furthermore, alcohol tends to remove inhibitions. That’s why the shy introvert often relaxes and becomes more sociable after a drink. But inhibitions are control mechanisms, and when they begin to fall you begin to lose that control. In delicate negotiations or any situation that requires a calm, cool control of your reactions, leave alcohol out of the equation.

Mind-altering drugs pose another threat to success. Some people think drugs can enhance creativity and thereby increase your chances of success. But there are techniques for enhancing creativity without assaulting your brain with chemicals. Even if it were true that mind-altering drugs are the gateway to creativity, ultimately leading to success, you’d have to ask, “Success by what definition?” Too often, the drugs that accompany creative success drive the user to emotional disaster. The person whose lifetime of success is cut short by an accidental overdose or deliberate suicide is not successful by any definition.

Statistics indicate that mind-altering drugs do not promote on-the-job excellence. Quite the contrary. Herman Miller, a Michigan furniture manufacturer, instituted a policy of drug testing for new employees. The company found that those who tested positive for marijuana had medical claims ten times as high as those who tested negative. Marijuana users took 50 percent more personal time away from their jobs than nonusers did, and usually quit their jobs or were discharged more quickly.

Balanced individuals recognize that neither drugs nor alcohol are tools for success. They are more likely to lead to disaster, either through accidents or through the deterioration of body and mind. Regardless of what people tell you, you cannot function at optimum physical and mental efficiency while under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

MAKE PHYSICAL FITNESS A PLEASURE

Physical fitness is a pleasant way to prepare yourself for success. With a little imagination and experimentation, you can find delicious foods that are also healthy and nutritious. You can choose from a variety of activities that provide fun along with healthy exercise. You will learn the pleasures of rest and relaxation in preparing you for the exertions required to succeed. You will find that balancing work and recreation keeps you alert and sharp. You will discover in a life without drugs and addictive habits a new freedom to control your thoughts, your feelings, and your destiny.

Acquire physical balance. And then move on to achieve balance in your mental, spiritual, and emotional life.