THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

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Leading by Example

This headline hit me hard this week:

“Three quarters of US adults are now obese or overweight”

It doesn’t surprise me, as I know we’ve been on this trajectory as a county since I was born.

But it saddens me. It saddens me deeply.

I’m not an overtly patriotic or nationalistic person, but I love our country. We are rebels who believe the power of the individual to stand up against tyranny, and fight for a better way of life for our families and communities.

We harnessed that rugged individualism to spread democracy through the world, and beat the nazis!

But our great country has sadly gotten soft in my lifetime. The reasons are so complex and intertwined, nobody has a good answer to our health problems. Because the issue is so complex, it’s easy to throw up our hands and just move on with our day.

Ignoring the issues won’t make them go away, so we have to think about what we can do to help things. From a macro standpoint, the answer is not much. But change won’t happen at the macro level, if it ever comes at all. It will happen from the ground up. As a movement that spreads among the people.

So what can we do to help our nation’s health crisis?

Lead by example.

I spent a decade in the fitness industry trying to help people live healthier lives. And I had a lot of success at it - the amount of complete physical transformations I saw in my clients was tremendous. Not only in how they looked, but how they carried themselves, how they interacted with the world. It was truly remarkable.

But I always new I was serving the top of the pyramid - offering physical transformation to the select few. Those among us who have chosen a different way and will always find a way to exercise, eat healthier, and stay fit.

But how do I, or they, impact the rest of the world?

Not by telling them what to do.

Not by offering incentives to get them to do what we want.

Not by begging them to do what we want.

By showing them how to do it.

By showing the people in our companies, communities, and households, what a healthy lifestyle looks like and how much better it is than the alternative.

That’s the only way to make an impact.

So what can you do? Here’s a few simple ideas:

1. Show your children - work out in front of them if they’re young, make them workout with you if they’re a bit older.

2. Show your employees - start taking workout breaks during the day and put it on your calendar. Instead of pizza at the office gathering, order salads.

I could list many examples, but the concept is simple. We are the leaders of our communities, and they reflect their leaders. We need to show our communities how to live healthier.

Talk to you next week,

Mike