Tag Archives: Health

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The choice

two_paths

Sorry but no matter how cool you are, you just can’t have it both ways.

I read an article recently by surfing legend Laird Hamilton called Laird’s Laws where he gave us some badass new rules, or as he called them, “17 commandments.”

So much of what Laird laid out was intuitive and practical. For example, his first rule is “I base everything on how I feel.” Laird’s not much for pre-packaged routines and exercise plans based on age, weight, hair color, etc. He wakes up and feels good, he hits it hard. He feels sleepy, he rests.

Cool.

“It’s really about keeping in shape for life.” Again, I agree. Laird’s analogy is that your body is like a car, keep driving it and it will keep running, but park it for a long period of time and it may not start when you need it.

Makes sense.

Then, there was commandment number 4, which is always nice for me to hear. “You eat garbage, you’re probably going to perform like garbage.” There’s never been any doubt in my mind this is true. I can think of countless times I’ve fueled wrong, or not at all, and suffered the consequences. It follows logically that the car Laird refers to needs to run on the best gasoline available. As he says, “if it’s potato chips in, it’s potato chips out.”

So far, so good.

This brings me to commandment number 10, which I will recount in its entirety:

“I have friends who eat healthier than anybody, but it takes them all day. And if they don’t have their sprouted bread, they go into a seizure. I can eat a Big Mac. I’m not going to love it, but it won’t put me into toxic shock. It’s like if a car is too high-performance, then it’s sensitive to any kind of fuel. I like being more like a truck. If a little diesel gets in there, maybe a little water, it’ll cough and burp a bit, but it’s gonna get through it and keep running.”

Hold on, now, I thought we established the ‘junk in, junk out’ premise.

This vehicle we keep talking about, whether it’s a car, truck, hybrid, or SUV, performs based on how it’s treated. Crap in, crap out sums it up perfectly. While I’ve never had a seizure over a lack of sprouted bread, I certainly have been dismayed and frustrated by the lack of healthy food choices in restaurants, especially when I’m traveling.

When I eat too much processed food, I simply feel bad.

Had Laird promoted a cheat day, fine. I get the value of comfort food. But our engines should be as ‘high-performance’ as possible, and our quest for real, healthy food should have a permanent place in our lives, overshadowing the temptation to pull into a fast food restaurant and chow down.

Recently, my friend Kristen spoke with someone whose level of nutritional understanding was most likely based on some clever company’s marketing strategy. She recounted her conversation on Facebook, saying that this person’s nutritional day consisted of a meal replacement shake for breakfast, a Lean Pocket for lunch, then a gorging at dinner because they were starving. In the end, Kristen implored that we all “just eat real food.” I agree, wholeheartedly.

We can justify all we want, but this is simply not a gray area. Eating right is just like training, it takes effort, knowledge, and discipline. And, please don’t justify bad nutrition by pretending it’s some reasonable response to a zombie apocalypse of crazed health nuts.

If you’re going to defiantly eat a Big Mac, leave me out of it. I think it’s time to put the sprouted grain freak stereotype to bed. I seek real food for the same reasons I seek physical challenges, personal fulfillment in my career, and anything else that means something to me. It’s a lifestyle.

It’s either ‘junk in, junk out’ or it’s not.

As has been said by wiser men than I, ‘yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there’s still time to change the road you’re on.’

Eat well, my friends.

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Common ground

story

One of the joys of being an athlete is telling stories.

From the everyday lessons and hilarious moments during training to epic fails and victories at races, as athletes we’re always ready to shoot the breeze about our experiences and listen to others recount their greatest hits.

These shared experiences render our differences irrelevant. Because of my athletic pursuits I’ve forged strong connections with people I would never have otherwise known. Had we met under different circumstances, we would never have connected on such a meaningful level.

Perhaps we would have been at odds on most issues and written each other off.

Endurance sports have taken me to so many venues where inevitably I meet people who share my passion. Facebook then enables us to look beyond the connection and realize the differences. Yet, our connection remains as long as there’s that passion and new stories to tell.

My recent dive into Crossfit has placed me among an amazing group of people who could be my sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, or even, dare I say, a grandkid or two.Yet, whether we’re in or out of the Box, our common love of CF breaks down generational walls, making room for everything truly important, like our distaste for burpees and thrusters.

The only time we ever diverge is when the rare 80’s tune is played to my obvious delight. \m/!

So, why doesn’t this work in the workplace? Too often factions form, controversy brews, and trouble breaks out.

This is the litmus test for shared passion and great team building.

When diverging personalities come together without a common ground, there’s potential for disaster. That’s when leaders need to act quickly to find a connection between people to build on. It can be done, but it takes hard work.

Some time ago I took over a team with a number of vacancies. Instead of merely filling these positions I created an overall strategy for building a stronger team that would connect on a deeper level than their jobs. When the team was assembled, I could tell it was successful from the outset. Lunch gatherings were as hilarious as they were instructive, conversations abounded, and the brainstorming fed a collective creativity that produced amazing ideas.

I built a team with the right people whose connection transcended the work we were doing.

Let’s face it, why would we spend our free time working out with or partying with people we didn’t connect with? Yet, so many people spend the better part of their week with strangers, and the less we have in common with them the harder it is.

As leaders it’s our responsibility to build teams, which means we must bring passion and connection into the picture before we do anything else. People will ignore a whole lot of differences between them when they are connected meaningfully. If all they have are their differences, then nature will take its course.

Step one is getting to know your people and writing down their traits, hobbies, and activities. Perhaps you could begin something extracurricular under the umbrella of your wellness program or as a conscious team building exercise. This doesn’t have to happen in secret. Your colleagues may even appreciate the effort and help out.

You must be a catalyst for change at work by drilling into what makes your people happy and resetting your team’s course, reminding them about their common passions. Along with this being great for business, it makes of one heck of a fun place to work.

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Gratitude

Vassar Farm

Year’s ago while running trails at Vassar Farm an emotional epiphany stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was November, the brilliant leaves carpeted the pastel trail ahead while several stalwarts clung to steely branches, painting defiantly bold-colored swatches against a stark, grey canvas. I stopped, engulfed in silent serenity but overwhelmed with emotion. I searched to make sense of the moment, but didn’t have to look far.

I was paralyzed by gratitude.

There was no mistaking it; appreciation had set in. It occurred to me how grateful I was to be able to do what I was doing in that moment exactly where and how I was doing it.

This perfect storm of thankfulness was inescapable. Up until that point I had been taking my opportunities and abilities to participate in athletic pursuits for granted.

To this day, Vassar Farm waits for me to return, reboot, and remember.

For 10 years, which was the length of our marriage, my wife Lisa lived with metastatic breast cancer. After her initial diagnosis and the 24-hour rule, we proceeded to live life, setting our own terms whenever and wherever possible. Every so often it occurred to us that despite her diagnosis, we had a really great life together.

And for that, we were grateful.

Even today, I realize that by circuitous routes, my girlfriend Kathy and I found each other in what otherwise may never have been the coinciding of two lives.

And for that, I am grateful.

So, let’s get to the point. When are you truly grateful at work? How hard do you have to look to stop yourself in your tracks and say, ‘yes, this is what I was meant to do’?

A friend posted recently that she was so grateful she chose the profession she had, and that she looked forward to waking up each morning. I fear that more friends, however, post the ‘can’t wait til Friday’ picture every Monday, just waiting until their time becomes theirs again.

True career gratitude has nothing to do with being thankful you’ve got a job. I hear that way too often these days, that people should feel grateful or lucky they are employed, as though a paycheck wipes out accomplishment, self worth, or peace.

In a crappy economy it is great to have a regular income, benefits, etc., but it doesn’t make everything alright.

Where is your Vassar Farm? Where is that place you go to or find yourself in that fills you with gratitude? This is a place you should seek with every ounce of energy you can muster.

Gratitude is the result of living an engaged life of purpose. One where you’re calling the shots and not paralyzed by the puppeteer’s strings.

It’s never too late to find your place in this puzzle called life friends. Get on with it.

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Make fear work for you

Fear

When you last felt fear did you use the opportunity to put it to work for you?

Fear is universal and touches each of us. At least it should, because if you’re not feeling fear on a regular basis you’re not taking any chances. Real progress happens outside our comfort zone and it’s natural, even expected, to ride that wave alongside fear.

My work environment is full of change at all levels and in every crevice of my organization. This has resulted in huge doses of fear and hope, which will battle each other if not handled properly.

Times like these expose true leaders who know fear means that something is about to happen and if you don’t turn into the wave, you’ll capsize.

Leaders use fear as a motivator to fuel a mission, describing a vision and that it will take every ounce of everyone’s effort to realize the dream.

Two years ago I entered an Xterra off road triathlon. Once on my mountain bike I knew I was in unfamiliar territory, having never done as difficult a course. There were huge rock gardens (long stretches of sharp-edged rocks) to ride over at blistering speeds. Giving into fear at that moment would have tensed my body and distracted my mind, resulting for sure in a crash.

Instead, I used the opportunity to concentrate on my breathing and melted into my bike, trusting it would work with me to conquer this challenging course.

I went with it, not against it.

Early on the course, I felt a tremendous rush of adrenaline, waking the butterflies in my stomach to an excited, anticipatory state. I began to look forward to the next rock garden.

I confronted fear, tamed it, and put it to better use.

It’s a proud moment when we realize the inevitable change we’re experiencing can be directed by us with hard work and focus.

I worked at United Way during its fundraising heyday, then in an instant the bottom fell out. The top UW exec, leader of our national organization, went down for embezzling money. In an instant, our team’s instinct was to fall back, retreat, clam up, no comment, oh no!

Then we met and talked it out, eventually coming to the conclusion we needed to be overly proactive, transparent, and honest.

  • We were outraged just like everyone else.
  • We held back our own UW’s dues to the national organization until they cleaned house.
  • We opened our books for all to see that our fundraised dollars were in fact going exactly where we said they were going.
  • And, we leaned on the organizations and individuals we had helped over the years to continue to tell our story.

The fallout was bad, but not as bad as it might have been had we cowered in fear and attempted to hide under the radar. It took vision, courage, and the conversion of fear to action. Instead of waiting for the phone calls, we made them. We wrote the letters, scheduled the meetings, and put ourselves out there. Attack versus retreat.

Decide to seek out situations that instill a healthy dose of fear in you. Train yourself to recognize fear, embrace the uncertainty it brings, and convert it to a type of energy and emotion that takes you to a new place.

Consciously work with fear, and not against it, so when it surprises you you’ll be prepared to cross the rock garden fast and unscathed.