Leadership Is A Lifestyle
Executive wellness isn't just for health conscious leaders; it's actually an essential resource for your role and your success.
TLDR: Leadership is a performance sport that requires the same level of self-care and resourcing as professional athletes. At Congruent Leadership, we call it Executive Wellness.
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In the height of Silicon Valley, Randi Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg’s sister) tweeted an entrepreneur’s dilemma, “Maintaining friendships. Building a great company. Spending time w/family. Staying fit. Getting sleep. Pick 3.”
At the time, this statement rang true for so many people working in Silicon Valley, which was arguably one of the brightest spots in the US economy. Now more than ever, it still deeply resonates, but somehow we’ve seemed to convince ourselves that we successfully overridden this reality.
In an effort to have it all, we’re trying to do it all and we’re leveraging anything and everything give us that edge. So, we wake up at 5am for a workout. We download productivity apps, use AI to manage our calendars, and use wearables to track sleep. We rush home everyday to our the kids for an hour before they go to bed and take that vacation every year to feel like we’re working to live, not living to work. We’re all functioning in overdrive just to squeeze it all in and most of the time we’re telling ourselves it’s working. But the reality is that most of us are living in a house of cards.
Most of us are operating under the influence of some of the most dangerous hacks out there to “keep us going” like sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and all the screens. Sure, while we might be out of the 90s cocaine trend that fueled most of Wall Street, we’re still running ourselves into the ground for the promise of financial gain and entrepreneurial glory. Once we’re on the treadmill, the only thing scarier than failure is getting off the treadmill.
Leadership is a performance sport
As a leader, you’ve chosen this path. Nobody forced you, but still, the pressure is on. It’s easy to convince yourself it’s worth it because, when it works, the reward, the growth, and the pride will be everything you ever dreamed. No pain no gain, right?
There is a reason that, in business and leadership, we often look to professional sports for inspiration, coaching wisdom, and resilience. Too often we equate a “Mamba Mentality” with a total work, personal sacrifice, succeed at all costs approach, but I can promise you that even Kobe Bryant’s unapologetic drive took a village. That’s because operating at the highest level requires a very specific lifestyle to keep your mind, your body, and your performance at it’s best.
Just like professional athletes, leadership is a performance sport that requires you to be fully resourced. You’re a leader. A leader of a team and organization that is trying to innovate, create new categories, and grow at a pace that will make a mark on this world. That’s your championship and it requires some serious resourcing, and I’m not just talking about money.
What is good for you is also good for your business
At some point or another, you’ve likely heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. To do your highest level work, you must first have your essential needs met with the food, sleep, financial stability, sense of connection, and confidence to reach self-actualization.
Today, it has become incredibly hard to eat clean, sleep 8 hours a night, drink water, spend quality time with your family, get the workout in, be present for the micro-moments in life, and keep learning all while building a company. And we haven’t even mentioned the other stuff you have to manage like taxes, birthday parties, tracking investments, and caring for aging parents.
Executive wellness isn’t just a bougie nice-to-have. It’s essential to your leadership role.
A Biopsychosocial [Spiritual] Model
Unfortunately, society’s concept of wellness is still largely superficial and focused on our physiological health, but as a leader it’s critical that you think of it as more than just diet and exercise.
In psychology, we think about growth and well-being through what we call, a biopsychosocial model – a systems approach to understanding an individual holistically through three factors: biological, psychological, and social factors.
Biological factors are things like temperament, genetics, cognitive functioning and biological age (vs chronological age or the years you’ve been alive).
Our psychological wiring are things like emotion regulation, core beliefs, trauma, personality type, and attachment styles.
Social factors are things like interpersonal relationships, family circumstances, and community. We’re social beings after all.
Bonus factors. While it’s technically not part of the original model, spiritual factors like faith, ethics and values have been making their way into the approach over the last couple of decades.
Executive wellness is our approach that applied the biopsychosocial model to leadership development. It’s about helping you go the distance in your career without sacrificing your health, your family, or your ambitions. We’re not just talking about avoiding burnout, we’re talking about your maximizing your healthspan – the healthy years of your life – not just the years you’re alive.
Health is Wealth.
Too often we talk to leaders who have become fully engrossed in longevity science only after they’ve made their millions. That’s also usually when they’ve, developed a chronic condition from years of compounding inflammation in their bodies, gotten a divorce, or wished they had more time with their parents. Let me ask you, is that really a rich life?
Here are a few things I’d like you to start asking yourself:
What kind of life are you living as a leader?
How do you feel in your body? Does it feel great every day, like it is functioning optimally?
What is it like to be inside your mind? Is it calm or chaotic? Positive or negative?
How do you take care of your home environment? Is it a place that you want to come back to at the end of each day?
Do you see your friends or family members as much as you want?
What’s your relationship like with your phone, information, and social media? Do you know how to unplug?
Do you have the level of intimacy and closeness with others that you want?
How financially stable do you feel, both in your safety net and cash flow?
What is your perception of food? Do you use it for fuel or comfort? Medicine or distraction?
What if you could feel your best and show up as the leader you want to be every day. As they say, garbage in, garbage out. The same is true for your body, mind and environment. It’s time to build a more solid foundation for yourself?
Leadership isn’t a skill set, it’s a lifestyle.
We’ll often talk to clients for the first time who want to work on things like communication, time management, or building high performing teams. Yes, those are very honorable goals and critical leadership skills. But it’s actually the sleep, hydration, laughter, family, and sense of security that shape your performance just as much as any technical leadership skills.
Lifestyle is a choice. Carving out the time to do anything has less to do with having the time and more to do with what you prioritize. You have more choices than you probably believe you do. But to make the choice to prioritize your wellness is hard, takes consistency and it’s more than just a habit. It truly must be a lifestyle.
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