How often do you sharpen your saw?

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“I don’t have time to eat.”

“I’ll just finish this (report, opt-in, Facebook post, funnel, meeting) then I’ll take a break.”

“I’ll relax when I’m on vacation in six months.”

“I can’t meditate – my brain is way too busy for that.”

Secretly: “I need a fucking break.” BOOM: Flu.

Stephen R. Covey, writer of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change said you need to “sharpen your saw”…ie take time away from work. You have to recharge and refresh. Operating at a high level can’t happen if you’re working 100% of the time – you lose creativity and focus and show up at 50% your normal.

The recipe for living a full, delicious life (and performing at a high level) includes taking some time off. Yes, it means going balls to the wall when you need to, but also finding calm in the chaos – keeping yourself a stealthy machine and focused even when you’re full out revved.

It also includes taking care of your physical body, emotional body, mental and spiritual sides of you. You’re not a machine, you are a multi-faceted human who truly needs to have all areas in some sort of balance.

In Launch by Jeff Walker, he references a racehorse. If you had a million-dollar race horse you would not push it until it broke. You would “feed it well, make sure it was well-rested, carefully monitor its workouts, give it a clean, comfortable stable, and schedule regular checkups with a vet.”

Yet I see it time and time again, entrepreneurs and executives pushing themselves. Eating shitty food, never slowing down (unless it’s collapsing on the sofa with wine or a beer), pushing their bodies to the point of disease like heart attacks, diabetes, high cholesterol (or all three!).

You are a million dollar racehorse. Start acting like one.

It seriously doesn’t take much to include healthier habits and a healthy mindset to your day. You don’t have to switch sides from A-type to B-type cause I know that sounds like torture. But you can be an A-Type with B-Type kick ass tendencies. MASTER the B-Type qualities that will have you outshine the competition because you’re not as “fat, sick and nearly dead” as they are.

How?

Find one thing, just one, that you can do every day that will calm your mind. I don’t care what it is. Meditate, go for a walk, hug a tree, have sex, play with your pets. It doesn’t matter. Play roulette with this until you find THE thing that works for you.
Start crowding out the crap. Bring in healthier options such as better snacks, more green stuff to your day (salad instead of fries for example), no coffee past noon.
Prioritize your sleep. Go to bed by 10pm (otherwise, you get a second wind), set up a sleep routine so that your brain knows it’s time to shut down – have a shower or bath, make sure your room is cool and dark, have tea.
Download my free guide which walks you through 7 things you can start doing today to increase your productivity, energy and help you to lose weight.

Don’t be the victim, the guy or gal who dies of a heart attack or cancer because you didn’t sit up and take notice of your body. Be the million dollar racehorse I know you are.