THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

Read time - 4 minutes

The Mental Fitness Prescription

In my first issue I laid out my main content pillars:

1. Health/Wellness

2. Mindset & habits

3. Building businesses

4. Community/relationships

5. Play & self expression

And in Issue #2 I detailed my Physical Health Prescription

Today I’m going to round out the Health/Wellness pillar, and lay out my general philosophy on mental health - which I often refer to as Mental Fitness.

First, my personal mental fitness journey, which has deeply shaped my beliefs:

My Personal Mental Health Journey

We all have our gifts, and strong mental fitness has always been one of mine. I’ve always had a strong combination of traits that allowed me to thrive in any environment, pursue new challenges consistently, have strong relationships, and generally experience life in a positive way.

That disposition allowed me to have great success in life:

• Built a solid initial career foundation

• Served with distinction as a Marine Infantry Officer in combat

• Married a great partner

• Had three healthy and happy kids

• Launched successful businesses

All areas were tracking pretty well, but in 2016 the rails of the ride started to shake.

By that time the kids were 6 and 3, we’d just launched our second business and were still working on the first, and we were pushing through serious growth (we ended up #629 on the Inc 5000 list of the nation’s fastest growing companies).

I’d taken my successes, and added more and more commitments and complexities each year, to the point where I was stretched too thin.

And most importantly - I wasn’t equipped to handle the stress. I’d previously just operated based on my natural gifts, so I had zero tools to deal with things when life got too hard.

Everything started to suffer over the next year:

• My marriage fell apart

• Business got hard - as we expanded sales started sliding

• I wasn’t taking great care of myself

• I wasn’t enjoying life - it was just work and care for the kids

Things deteriorated quickly - I moved into an apartment. I started having trouble sleeping. I developed extreme anxiety so bad my body was buzzing with heat and energy. I drank alcohol to medicate myself and fall asleep. I felt hopeless and suicidal. Things spiraled.

Until one day my girlfriend at the time demanded I get help. I went to the doctor that morning - got prescribed anxiety medication, and we flew to Arizona for a weekend.

That night I took the medication (It was one you took at night and it helps sleep), and slept for 13 hours. The first full-night sleep I’d had in a month.

The next day I felt like a human again. I wasn’t the greatest company, but was able to relax, and each night I slept, I got a little better.

That weekend saved my life. It allowed my mind and body to rest, which allowed me to think strategically about how to move forward.

And move forward I did, like we all must do:

• I stopped drinking alcohol for 9 months

• I started meditating every night

• I restructured our company’s operations and SLOWLY got it back on track

• I dialed in my nutrition practices to ensure I was getting enough calories (one symptom of anxiety is losing appetite)

Life was still in a hard phase for awhile, but I started the process towards rebuilding my mental fitness.

And now four years later - I’m much more prepared. I won’t say back to my old self, because I’m a completely different person.

I’ve worked on myself every day. Learned and tinkered with tools and found what works for me.

I’m now my previous naturally durable self, armed with a slew of tools to keep me optimized. I’m off anxiety medication. I’m healthier than ever.

I’m unbreakable.

What is the definition of Mental Fitness?

Mine is this - mental fitness is an individual’s state of psychological readiness and well-being and ability to meet the demands of life.

Everyone is dealt a certain hand in life in many ways. Their mental and physical disposition are one of those hands - some people are naturally durable, others aren’t.

The problem with people like me, who are naturally durable, is that we often get by without having to put in too much work. And in my case things went south really quick without those tools.

And most of us don’t make any change until the pain of continuing is so bad that we’re forced to.

The better way to live life is to build positive mental fitness habits while things are going well - so that when they go south, and they always go south, we’re better equipped to handle them.

And that’s a primary focus of my life philosophy and writing.

Ok so what constitutes a positive mental fitness routine?

Great question.

First - the foundation is a physical fitness routine, which I laid out last week.

If you’re starting from scratch, start there. A good physical fitness routine, which includes - exercise, an active lifestyle, healthy sex life, sleep, and nutrition plan - will get most people 80% of the way there.

The remaining 20% is all the other stuff - which in my case is proof that just focusing on the physical side isn’t sufficient. We need to round ourselves out.

I’ve since learned that people like me - high-achieving entrepreneurs - lean towards addiction, anxiety, and depression. The same genes that make us good entrepreneurs, also lead us towards the darkness.

And just working out a lot and taking care of ourselves physically isn’t sufficient.

We have to build durable mental fitness practices to be healthy.

Here’s the mental practices I recommend:

-Mindfulness - Meditation is scientifically proven to change our our minds work. It’s not some woo-woo practice for yogis and buddhist monks. Mindfulness practices are the core of mental fitness. They train your brain to organize your thoughts and allow you to be present.

-Self reflection/awareness - Constant reflection and questioning ourselves is the key to growth, and also our mental fitness. The opposite is living life on auto-pilot, which is sub-optimal at best, and destructive at worst. The primary forcing function of reflection is a daily journal, and weekly/monthly/quarterly reflection practices.

-Focus and flow - The science of flow and focus must be practiced in order to have optimal minds. Especially in modern times with constant media demanding our attention. We need to train our brains and use tools to allow for focused work without multi-tasking, and use tactics and activities that allow for daily flow states in our work and leisure actitivies.

-Growth and purpose - Ongoing, lifelong commitment to learning, personal growth, and aligning our life to our purpose, is the key to optimal mental fitness. The saying “if we’re not growing we’re dying” applies to all things in life, especially our mental selves.

-Discipline - The foundation that allows us to navigate the world optimally - discipline in everything we do is required, forever. Applying discipline to our daily lives removes decisionmaking of the hundreds of daily tasks that are required to be physically, mentally, and environmentally happy. As Jocko Wilink Says, “discipline equals freedom”.

These five elements form the mental fitness philosophy I’ve developed through 44 years (my birthday is today!!!!) of consistent trial and error.

One reason I’m worth following and reading? I live everything I talk about. If it goes down in writing, it means I’ve tried many variations of it, and found it to work for me.

And I’ll never stop experimenting - I will never stop the growth and development part, ever. I think it’s the essence of being an actualized human, and our duty as people who are lucky enough to not have to worry about base survival. We get the privilege of working on ourselves, so it’s our duty to not waste our gifts.

If there’s one thing that I would stress to others? Do that too. Never stop working to grow in this life.

While these initial newsletters lay the foundation of my writing philosophy, I’ll spend most of our time together laying out actionable ideas and tools to live optimally.

The takeaway from this one? Think through the prescription for physical and mental fitness - do you have your physical health principles covered? If no, focus on them.

As soon as you’re 80% on the physical side, start digging into the mental side.

I recommend starting with a simple meditation practice - any 10 minute guided app will do to start.

If things are going well in your life, now’s the time to start. Not when things all fall apart.

Talk to you next week,

Mike