Of all the life buckets, health is the one that, at some point in your life, will demand your attention. When you're not aware of how out of balance you've become, this bucket will give you a warning. It may be that you notice a number on the scale that surprises you. Among my circle of friends and associates, I know of several who, amid intense times in their careers, gained 30 to 50 pounds, or more. At the time, they were surprised. As they began to self-reflect on their work schedules, travel, business dinners, and lack of exercise, however, they had to ask themselves the question from chapter 2, “Why am I surprised?”

You may receive another kind of warning, such as exhaustion after putting in too many all-nighters to get a project done. Sleep deprivation, as we discuss later in this chapter, is a serious health issue and not a badge of honor. Or, after your annual physical examination, your doctor may have a surprising report for you (but, again, why are you surprised?): high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, or a prediabetes warning. If you don't pay attention, you may hit the wall (as discussed in chapter 3) with something more serious, like a heart attack.

It's so easy for us to fool ourselves, at least for a little while. We tell ourselves that we can take care of our health later. When things slow down and we're not working so much, or when the children are older, we'll adopt better eating habits and exercise more. Although we acknowledge that we should stop smoking, we tell ourselves it's just too stressful to quit right now. And yes, maybe we have been drinking a little too much lately, but it's all those dinners with clients and customers. Besides, after a long day, who doesn't deserve a beer or a scotch (or two or three . . .)?

The truth is, if you don't pay attention to your health now, you'll face the consequences later. That's a price no one should have to pay. No job, no promotion, no amount of money is worth the cost to your health. This is hardly a new idea. Two thousand years ago, the Roman poet Virgil wrote, “The greatest wealth is health.”

As I reflect on health, I know what a blessing it is. Having reached an age at which friends and peers have faced serious health issues and some have passed away, I try always to be conscious about my health. I thank God (literally) every day that I wake up, put both feet on the floor, and move through the day with physical energy and mental alertness—knowing that there will be a day when that will no longer happen. Although that might sound a little morbid, it's a reminder that none of us should take our health for granted. Health is a gift, and it's up to us to decide how we're going to use it.

IN OUR YOUNGER DAYS

Health seemed much simpler when we were young. We didn't think about exercise, we just ran around outdoors. We didn't train at the gym, we played games at the park.

When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, my family's house was behind the baseball park at school. Every summer morning, 10 to 15 children from the neighborhood—anywhere from first to eighth or ninth grade—would show up at about nine o'clock in the morning for pickup games. We divided ourselves into teams and played until we had to go home for lunch, and then we returned to the park to play baseball all afternoon. After that, it was time for Little League. By the time I went to bed that night, I had played baseball for almost 12 hours.

I still played baseball in high school and started playing tennis. Both sports kept me active and allowed me to spend time with my friends. Then I got to college. Between classes and studying, there wasn't as much time for athletics. That's when, as I relate in chapter 4, my roommate and I decided to start running. From then on, jogging became my preferred way to exercise—fast, efficient, and enjoyable.

There have been times, though, when making time for exercise was challenging. After I graduated from college, I worked full-time and had frequent business travel. Plus, every other weekend, I drove up to my alma mater to visit Julie, who was then my girlfriend, and I helped my parents when they needed me. With all that going on, it seemed a little selfish to be thinking about exercise because I viewed it as something I did solely for myself. By the time I got into my thirties, however, I noticed some of my friends and associates were starting to have health issues, which sometimes caused them to miss work. This was a wake-up call for me: if I wanted to be the best I could be in every area of my life, I had to pay more attention to my health. It wasn't selfish at all. Having life balance in work, family, spirituality, and giving back would only be possible if I stayed healthy.

Health is unique among all the life buckets because it affects every other aspect of your life. To share a quote that's a favorite of my friend Kent Thiry, executive chairman and former CEO of DaVita, Inc., a leading kidney dialysis company, and an avid athlete, “One cannot pour from an empty cup.” If you don't take care of your health, how can you take care of others?

THE CORPORATE ATHLETE

I've also come to appreciate that health isn't just taking a walk or eating more vegetables. It's holistic, comprising every aspect of my life: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. I came to a deeper understanding of this concept nearly 20 years ago, when I was given the Harvard Business Review article “The Making of a Corporate Athlete” by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. It had a big impact on me then, and I continue to use it in my Kellogg classes today.

The authors' premise is that everyone in the workplace must be a “corporate athlete”; in order to be successful, they must train in “the same systematic, multilevel way that world-class athletes do.” Rather than relying on “brain power” alone, the authors explain, high performance needs to be viewed as a pyramid with four levels:

1. At the base is physical wellness, which promotes endurance and allows for mental and emotional resilience.
2. The second level is emotional, to create a more positive emotional state.
3. The third level is mental capacity, to be able to channel physical and mental energy into what needs to be done.
4. The fourth level is spiritual capacity, which reinforces motivation, determination, and endurance.

The authors' conclusion is as timely today as it was eye-opening nearly two decades ago: “On the playing field or in the boardroom, high performance depends as much on how people renew and recover energy as on how they expend it, on how they manage their lives as much as how they manage their work.”¹

I resonated with the four-level approach to health: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. I began to connect this approach to health to my practice of daily self-reflection. As I asked myself how I was living my values—with my family, in my work, in my faith, and in my interactions with others—I also needed to reflect on how I was taking care of my health with the habits and routines that make the most sense to me.

MAKING HEALTH A PRIORITY

Yes, you only have 168 hours a week, so exercising, eating more nutritiously, getting more sleep, and relaxing and recharging your energy may—once again—seem like something you can't afford to do. Where will this time come from? I can't tell you how many times people tell me, “Harry, I would exercise more, but I just don't have time.” What they're really saying is, “It's not a priority for me.” People who pursue balance in their lives know that health must be a priority, and that includes exercise. Whether it's yoga, going for a walk, taking a run, riding a bicycle, swimming, or any other physical activity, exercise is good for body, mind, and soul.

Anna Budnik (see chapters 6 and 7) has an incredibly busy work and family life, and she still devotes time to running and lifting weights. “If I have calls very early in the morning with colleagues in Europe and then a gap before my next meeting, I'll take a one-hour run,” Anna told me. “When I travel, there'd better be a gym—that's the number one criterion for any hotel. Exercising helps me relieve stress.”

I couldn't agree more. When I travel, I try to stay in hotels that have a 24-hour gym. If I arrive late or I have all-day meetings, I want at least 45 minutes on a treadmill or elliptical at night. There are times, though, when I have to make other arrangements, such as on a recent trip to New York to give a speech. I was all set to go to the fitness center when I discovered it closed at 9 p.m. Instead of giving up and going back to my room, I took a six-mile walk around Manhattan. While I was walking, I made some phone calls and caught up with a few friends. That activity helped me clear my mind and think about the next day. I returned to my room, refreshed and calm. I read and sent emails for about an hour, did my nightly self-reflection, then got ready for bed and slept soundly until it was time to get up the next morning.

And by the way, over the years I've noticed how health is one life bucket that gives dividends on the time and energy I invest in it. The healthier and more active I am, the more energy and focus I have.

SLEEP: IT'S NOT OPTIONAL

Sleep is just as crucial to your health as exercise, yet you may be tempted to convince yourself that it is not important. Maybe it's a habit you got into in high school or college, when you pulled an all-nighter to finish that term paper. (As we discussed in chapter 5, being planful probably would have helped then—and it certainly helps now.) Maybe you view lack of sleep as an indication of how busy and important you are. That kind of thinking, though, is not only unhealthy, it's also unsustainable.

A recent study, for example, found that “sleep devaluation” was shockingly common among some leaders who sent that message to their teams. As Christopher M. Barnes wrote in Harvard Business Review in 2018, “They may do this by setting an example (for instance, boasting about sleeping only four hours or sending work emails at 3 AM), or they may directly shape employees' habits by encouraging people to work during typical sleep hours (perhaps criticizing subordinates for not responding to those 3 AM emails, or praising individuals who regularly work late into the night).”²

If your job is the cause of chronic sleeplessness, then you need to address this problem before it takes a toll on your health. For example, Arianna Huffington, the founder of The Huffington Post, became a vocal sleep advocate after she admitted to collapsing from severe sleep deprivation. In an interview with CNBC, Huffington called it a “complete delusion” for someone to assume that getting little sleep and not taking care of themselves will somehow make them more productive. “You can succeed much more effectively, and much more sustainably, and with much less damage to your health and your relationships,” she said.³

If you're still telling yourself that you only need four hours (or less) of sleep (plus multiple shots of espresso each day), then consider this advice from Barnes in Harvard Business Review: better sleep contributes to success. As the article states, “It is clear that you can squeeze in more work hours if you sleep less. But remember that the quality of your work—and your leadership—inevitably declines as you do so, often in ways that are invisible to you.”⁴ Although the article focuses on leaders and their influence on teams, we can just as easily apply these findings to ourselves and our influence on family, friends, and colleagues. When we're well rested, we're more likely to be even-tempered, have more patience, listen better, and engage well with others. When we're sleep-deprived to the point of exhaustion, the opposite occurs—and everyone feels it.

Beyond the impact on your physical health, sleep deprivation can also drag on your emotions, motivation, energy level, and general outlook on life. According to the National Sleep Foundation, “If you're feeling low, you may not realize that lack of sleep is the culprit. But even small levels of sleep deprivation over time can chip away at your happiness. You might see that you're less enthusiastic, more irritable, or even have some of the symptoms of clinical depression, such as feeling persistently sad or empty.”⁵

The bottom line here is sleep is not optional. You may find that six hours is optimal for you or you may need eight hours. The more self-aware you are, the more you can gauge your health and need for sleep—and with better clarity than if you're running on fumes and caffeine.

YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

This brings up another very important issue: mental health. It's beyond the scope of this chapter to give mental health the in-depth attention it deserves. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, mental illnesses affect tens of millions of people in the US alone. Yet it is estimated that only about half of people with mental illnesses receive treatment. Within the broad category of mental illnesses, the most common are anxiety disorders, affecting about 40 million adults (age 18 and older) in the US. Although highly treatable, only a little more than one-third of those who suffer from anxiety disorders receive treatment.⁶

I share these few statistics here in hopes of joining a much broader discussion in society to normalize how we talk about and address mental illness. There has been a stigma about mental illness for far too long; yet, if we're honest with ourselves, we can admit that we or our loved ones have been affected by a mental illness such as depression, anxiety, or mood disorder.

As the discussion on the corporate athlete reminds us, emotional and mental health are key components to our overall well-being. Loehr and Schwartz observe, “Just as positive emotions ignite the energy that drives high performance, negative emotions—frustration, impatience, anger, fear, resentment, and sadness—drain energy . . . Anxious, fear-ridden athletes are far more likely to choke in competition, for example, while anger and frustration sabotage their capacity for calm focus. The impact of negative emotions on business performance is subtler but no less devastating.”⁷

Our mental health can go unchecked for a while if we aren't being self-reflective. Many mental health issues begin to develop as life becomes more complex. Job stress and family stress can trigger or contribute to episodes of depression. With daily self-reflection, you will more closely monitor your emotional and mental health, just as you become more aware of your physical health. By asking yourself questions such as “Am I really feeling my best?” and “Are there health issues I'm concerned about but not addressing?” you will begin to acknowledge what you need for support in living a more balanced life. That support may include seeing a medical doctor or psychiatrist, talking with a therapist or a counselor, seeking the advice of a clergyperson, or talking with family or friends. Meditation, prayer, and other spiritual practices, as we discuss in chapter 10, can also positively contribute to mental and emotional health.

Do not shortchange yourself on the help you need. That starts with becoming self-reflective so you can continually monitor your health: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Then, with greater self-awareness, you can identify the kinds of lifelong habits that will help you become healthier and experience more balance in your life.

CREATING LIFETIME HABITS

The earlier we build healthy habits, the better it is for us. For one, we realize the benefits of healthier living from a young age. The other reason is it's harder to build healthy habits later in life—although it's never too late. I know people who began exercising in their forties and fifties, and people in their late sixties who quit smoking after 50 years. Breaking a lifetime of poor habits may be tough, but with your health at stake, you've got a great incentive.

As I get older, I am more aware of the importance of taking care of my health and staying as active as possible. Once people hit 80 years old, the top cause of death is from a fall. This isn't because a fall is particularly deadly, but because the time spent in recovery at a hospital can lead to other complications, including pneumonia. Knowing this, I make sure that I go to the gym and do my daily stretches because I want to minimize health risks from falls and injuries as I get older.

Building habits for better health may seem daunting at first, but these habits are built slowly over a long period of time. Just as we discussed in chapter 4, we can't adopt someone else's habits for health and self-care and decide that will work for us. Some people thrive with yoga; others have no interest. Running may be exhilarating for one person and drudgery for another. I was reminded of this the other day when I was speaking with a friend of mine who works in hospice. For her, daily yoga and monthly massages are crucial elements of her self-care. For her husband, she added, “That would be torture. If you gave him a gift certificate for a massage, he wouldn't use it.”

My friend's perspective is important as we look at examples of how other people have made deep commitments to improving and sustaining their health. Their stories may resonate with you, or you may find them interesting but not directly applicable. The purpose is not to be prescriptive, but I hope to inspire you to consider how you, too, can become more engaged in your health bucket.

THE FITNESS PROJECT

I'm fortunate to know several corporate athletes who take a holistic, physical-emotional-mental-spiritual approach to health. Among them is Carter Cast, my friend and colleague whose story I shared in chapters 3 and 4. While an undergraduate student at Stanford University in the early 1980s, Carter was an All-American swimmer. However, during a period of life imbalance, as he described in chapter 3, Carter faced health issues including being 30 pounds overweight, having heart arrhythmia, and needing stomach surgery to address debilitating acid reflux. Confronted with this reality, he realized he couldn't remember the last time he exercised.

As part of his pathway back toward life balance, Carter gave himself what he called a “side project”—a phrase he picked up from his dad, who had always been engaged in projects that interested him. One of Carter's side projects was swimming across a lake in Indiana, a distance of about 10,000 yards or roughly six miles. Back in his college days, Carter would have conquered that distance with ease. After so many years, though, the lake swim was a challenge—physically, emotionally, and mentally. Recognizing the magnitude of the challenge, Carter made it a project with interim goals that he reflected on and journaled about on a regular basis.

His first training swim—on January 2, 2019—was 750 yards, after which he recorded in his journal that he “felt pretty awful.” Two weeks later, he made it 1,000 yards, and then 1,200 yards in February, after which he recorded still feeling awful, but less so than in January. Little by little, Carter increased his distance and logged his progress, keeping himself accountable to his milestones as well as his feelings.

Carter recalled an experience early on in his training, of swimming in a lane next to someone who was outpacing him. “He was killing me. When I got home, I said to my wife, ‘I don't think this is going to happen.’ It's like I have lost myself. I'm not that guy anymore.” His wife listened with compassion, then reminded him of a simple truth he'd lost sight of. She told him, “Carter, you haven't done a swim like this in 25 or 30 years. You have to be patient.”

Her feedback changed Carter's perspective. Instead of swimming on the clock, timing every lap the way he did at Stanford, he just swam. “Time-based swimming was pulling me down. I was being my harshest critic,” Carter explained. “So I stopped competing against the ‘old self’ I had been in college, and just focused on slowly increasing my distance per workout and building momentum.”

Although swimming is a solitary endeavor, Carter didn't take on this side project alone. He found two former swimmers who were triathletes—one in North Carolina and one in Chicago—to join him in the lake swim challenge. They trained separately, kept each other appraised of their progress via text messages, and committed to swim across the lake together in July 2019. When that day finally came, it started out as an amicable swim across the lake, each swimmer encouraging the others. Then as the opposite shore neared, Carter felt his old competitive spirit rekindle. With a friendly apology to his companions, Carter explained he just had to go for it. With their approval and encouragement, he raced the final mile to the other side.

Carter's sense of accomplishment reflected far more than the six miles he swam that day. The victory was channeling positive self-talk and building self-confidence during seven months of training while gradually extending his distance and increasing his endurance.

THE LIFELONG ATHLETE

Another corporate athlete I'm proud to know is Mike Zafirovski, a former executive at General Electric and Motorola, former CEO of Nortel, and an executive advisor to The Blackstone Group. A lifelong athlete, Mike has been a runner since he was a teenager and completed his first marathon at the age of 24. In 2018, at the age of 65, he completed the Kona Ironman Triathlon. An Ironman Triathlon is a series of long-distance, multisport races—each of which would be an incredible accomplishment, and combined are mind-boggling: a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, concluding with a 26.2-mile marathon.

Growing up in Macedonia, Mike played soccer as a youngster. After emigrating to the US, he took up swimming in high school (his school didn't have a soccer team) and later attended college on a swimming scholarship. These activities formed a lifelong discipline to stay physically fit and to pursue balance amid the work pressures. “I realized that, when I ran, I felt 100 times better. When I was working 12 hours a day, sports became a complement to that. I felt better and got rid of any anxiety I was feeling,” Mike recalled.

As Mike's career advanced and he became a leader, his passion for physical activity became part of his leadership—not as a competitor, but as a role model. “I used to encourage people to exercise. Over lunch, I'd go running. In time, I had 25 or more people running with me.”

This team approach extended to Mike's family life. “When my oldest son was five years old, he would come with me, riding his bike while I ran.” Later, his sons and his wife would join him on long runs. Mike competed in his first Ironman in 2002 and since then has completed three Ironman competitions.

As impressive as Mike's athletic accomplishments are, he is the first to point out that it's not necessary for someone to be an extreme athlete to be active. “Walking is the best exercise,” he said, echoing the encouragement he frequently gives to others.

His comment brings to mind my own practices when I was at Baxter, which has a beautiful corporate campus with walking paths. I noticed that few people ever took advantage of those paths. During the nice weather, instead of meeting in my office, I'd often invite colleagues to take a walk with me and discuss topics along the way. The combination of fresh air and exercise energized us and often led to more creative brainstorming. Over time, I noticed, we were setting a good example as more people began walking those paths.

Once again, it's a reminder that taking care of our health—in terms of nutrition, sleep, physical exercise, mindfulness, and spiritual practice—is not just for ourselves alone. We're role models for those around us, encouraging them to consider how they, too, might address their health. By engaging with others, it becomes a team sport—one that can enhance all our other life buckets.

HEALTH AS A TEAM SPORT

Whether at work or among family and friends, we want to engage with others in fun activities that we have in common. For example, while I was at Baxter, we created softball teams to encourage team building at all levels, from executives to summer interns. While on the baseball field, we weren't titles—we were people. I can remember showing up for a game between two Baxter teams in my jeans, T-shirt, and a baseball cap. When I'd be tagged out on a close play or run for a fly ball and someone crashed into me, I'd hear someone say, “Hey, maybe you shouldn't be so tough on the CEO.” Inevitably, a person who was new to the company would call someone else aside and ask, “That's not really the CEO, is it?” No doubt that newcomer would get clued in, but at that moment I was only Harry Kraemer, baseball team member.

Kent Thiry, whose favorite quote opened this chapter, takes a very active approach to team building. An avid hiker and biker, he embraces these activities as the center of his life and his well-being—and he regularly encourages family, friends, and team members to join him. Every year for the past ten years, Kent has taken a group from DaVita on excursions into nature. About half these events involve mountain biking, with participants who range from beginners to more experienced riders. At the end of the day, the group sits around a campfire and contemplates introspective questions.

“People open up remarkably,” Kent told me. “There are some very serious conversations. Then we switch to singing around the campfire.”

Kent has engaged in the same outings—mixing outdoor activity, introspection, and bonding—with his family members. For years, he has taken trips with his son and his son's friends, which include “office hours” he holds with each of the young people to talk about anything that's on their minds—personal or professional. For the past 24 years in a row, Kent and his siblings have gotten together for a long weekend at the family cottage in Wisconsin. “We keep notes each year of our goals so that we each have to face up to the stuff we keep saying, but never change,” he explained.

Although these activities are shared with others, they are grounded in Kent's personal practices, which include exercise, personal journaling, Buddhist readings, time spent outdoors, and periods of quiet reflection. “I am very healthy about 85 percent of the time, and unhealthy about 15 percent of the time,” Kent admitted. “So I use journaling and tracking my progress to stay objective.”

PURSUING HEALTH HOLISTICALLY

Importantly, as Kent observed, these activities are not just about physical fitness. The goal is to experience greater health holistically: addressing the four dimensions of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. “These practices are essential to me—body and soul,” he said. “For example, when I travel, the first thing that gets scheduled every day is when I will exercise. That's not an option.”

For Kent, as with so many of us, exercise and physical activity are not just habits; they are part of the rituals that touch multiple aspects of our lives. As Loehr and Schwartz described in “The Making of a Corporate Athlete,” such rituals foster better balance by allowing disengagement from work and tapping into a deeper sense of purpose and meaning: “Rituals that give people the opportunity to pause and look inside include meditation, journal writing, prayer, and service to others. Each of these activities can also serve as a source of recovery—a way to break the linearity of relentless goal-oriented activity.”⁸

For some, these rituals may involve hiking and contemplating the beauty of nature and the grandeur of creation. For others, it may be a long walk or run, combined with listening to podcasts of inspiring sermons or lectures or time for prayer and contemplation. On the surface, it may seem like multitasking, but it's deeper than that. Body, mind, and spirit are fully engaged through movement, thought, and contemplation.

THE BUCKET CONNECTION

The activities we love can be enhanced by sharing them with family and friends. I love bike riding with my family, especially in the fall when the leaves are turning. In the winter months, we go skiing together—even with a day trip to Wisconsin where the runs may be down hills instead of mountains, but there is no shortage of fun. We take walks together on a spring or summer day, just like I did as a child with my grandfather. Or, when I'm going to the gym to work out, Julie or one (or more) of the children will often join me. We'll work out together on the ellipticals, talking as we get our exercise.

Taking a walk or run by yourself can be part of your spiritual practice as it also promotes your health. Taking that same walk or run with another person can also reinforce your family and other personal relationships. Equally important, the joy you feel from whatever you're doing—walking, running, biking, swimming, or any other activity—generates a sense of fun. This is the unique gift of the health bucket: it not only enhances but also engages other aspect of our lives. Over time, we're not only healthier—we're happier.