It's not about more effort, better to do lists, or clever accountability matrices.
When someone asks me what I do I smile and say, many things.
I am a father, husband, a son, a brother, and many other roles. Those are who I am and the most important for all of us.
What I do is also complicated. I am the Founder of Dignity Integrative Health and Wellness. I am a Board member for US Acute Care Solutions. I am a co-owner, with my wife Amy, of Bella Vita Farm. I am also a speaker for the leadership development organization Vistage, where last year I gave more than 40 workshops focused on longevity and how to stay as healthy as long as possible.
At Vistage, I usually speak with 10-20 senior leaders and founders from businesses across the United States. I greatly enjoy this opportunity because of the interactions and questions which arise, not only during the three-hour workshop but just as often in the conversations that happen one on one at breaks and after the presentation.
It is said that speakers come in one of three "flavors"—they are either selling a service, pushing a book or giving back. Having been blessed in my life, I like to think I am, mostly, in the give back phase.
I begin my presentation asking a simple question: what would be most helpful to clarify in the area of health and longevity? It may be about a particular diet, fitness regimen, supplement, brain health, something heard from a podcast or simply "asking for a friend."
Having done over 100 of these presentations there are certain patterns of questions which arise. The top four that are always asked are:
How do you balance stress and find calmness in a busy day?
How do you get better sleep?
How do you maintain fitness as you age?
What’s the right "diet"?
As I travel and hear similar questions and glance around the room I am always struck by a simple fact—we are all the same. We worry about the same things. It doesn’t matter if you are just starting a small, two-person company or running a $100 million dollar organization. We worry about being successful in our chosen endeavor. We worry about our families and making sure they are safe, provided and cared for. We worry about finding time for our health and wellness amid the always competing priorities of time and deadlines.
When talking through these questions, I say what needs to be done is simple, but that doesn’t mean easy. The simple part is….simple. The not so easy part is made harder because this is actually not about more effort, better to do lists, clearer goals or accountability matrices. There is, and always will be, more to do. It is an old cliché but true. The man (or woman) on their death bed never regrets that they should have spent more time at work.
At some point we need to pause and make room for ourselves. The whole concept of self-care has been evoked as the way to address the overindulgence in work which is how many of us define ourselves. What I am saying is actually quite different. We need to give ourselves a bit of grace and space.
One definition of grace is to give undeserved kindness, love, and mercy. Grace to me is allowing love of who you are; the imperfections, struggles, successes and failures. Acknowledging that squeezing that last drop of "productivity" out of yourself may work in the short term but rarely in the long term. The world is littered with the broken bodies, minds and spirits of many who have given every last drop to a company, sometimes their company, only to turn around and find when they leave, either through change in employment or having sold their part of the organization, that all those human connections and relationships are no longer there, or never were.
The space part of the equation refers to room to do those things that nourish and energize your body and spirit. It is in that space that you have the time to cook dinner for the kids, take a walk in the park, hike in the mountains, sit quietly with yourself and take a few breaths of calmness. That space allows you to balance the productive energy with restorative peace. Both are critical for long term health.
We live in a society that admires those who are able to do it all. The truth is no one does it all. And those who appear to do so often pay a steep price in their mental and physical health. I have seen it in the faces of the people I have treated throughout many years of being a physician. The executive suffering a heart attack or paralyzed by anxiety. The young woman with unrelenting abdominal pain due to overwhelming stress. The body really does keep the score of how we live our life.
Where and how do you start to change this dynamic? First, by realizing that grace and space are not a luxury but a requirement for long term health and wellness. Next, to understand that regardless of your status in life grace and space are attainable for anyone. Every person can find ten minutes to do something for themselves, be it breath work, meditation, a gratitude practice or watching the wind blow through the trees. We can all get off our damn phones. We can all go for a walk. Thirty minutes a day, that’s all it takes.
Lest you think I have mastered these, I have not. I still have my days when I forget or am too busy. The odd thing is the more you make these a priority the more you build the habits. One good habit leads to another providing that grace and space we all need.
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