Just what the heck is a blog post about diet doing in the Productivity Coaching blog? Follow me for a short exercise and the answer should become clear. Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a small circle in the middle of the page. You are now going to draw 6 lines starting from the circle and radiating outward toward the edges of the page. Each line represents one of the following areas of your life:
1. Faith and Spirituality
2. Family
3. Business
4. Health
5. Personal Finances
6. Personal Relationships
Now, for each line, draw a longer line if you feel that that area of your life is really going great. If you are floundering in that area, draw a very short line. If things are just “okay”, a medium length line is fine. Have all 6 lines drawn? Good. Now, connect the ends of each line, kind of going around in a circle.
What you’ve drawn is the wheel that you roll around on every day. How round is your wheel. If you are like most of us, your alleged wheel is probably pretty out-of-round and could use some adjustment. If you follow what we’ve preached in Productivity Coaching, you should have a near bullet-proof business plan from which you’re operating.
For many though, especially right on the heels of the holidays, health may be on of your shorter spokes.
For a while now, I’ve been intrigued by the teachings of a very smart nutrition expert named Dr. John Berardi (disclaimer…I have no vested interest in Dr. Berardi or any of his products or services). What I like about his philosophy on nutrition is that it parallels what we teach about business remarkably well. To sum it up in a nutshell, keep it simple.
Berardi has developed a short list of rules which, if followed, will lead to vastly improved health and body composition for almost all of us (unless you are an advanced athlete or have been operating from an optimized fitness and nutrition regimen for a while).
Don’t let the name of his methodology, “Precision Nutrition”, scare you. It’s crazy simple. I’ll boil it down for you into just a few simple rules to follow:
- Eat every few hours…6 or 7 times/day
- Eat lean protein with every meal
- Eat veggies with every meal
- Limit heavy carbs (i.e. not fruits and veggies) to only after exercising
- Have a healthy balance of fat (saturated/monounsaturated/polyunsaturated)
- Drink only non-calorie beverages
As with business, it seems that as far as health and nutrition goes, we just have a burning need to make things complicated. And I’m convinced that that’s why there’s so much failure in both arenas. If we could just stay focused on those few key things that matter, most of us would be amazed at how well the “wheel rolls”. I also like Dr. Berardi’s philosophy that until you’ve mastered the basics above, you haven’t earned the right to get creative with stuff like nutrient timing, specific caloric intake, and other advanced stuff. It’s the same in our business. Until we’ve mastered basic relationship-building and prospecting methodologies, much of what seems to be the magic cure for our business woes needs to just be put on the back burner.
So, if your wheel is less-than-round and if your health and nutrition is one of your short spokes, you could probably do a lot worse than following a few simple rules like Dr. Berardi’s list above. Regardless what your strategy, at least have one and keep it simple. Master the basics daily and, as in business, you’ll be amazed at the results.
If you like, Dr. Berardi has VOLUMES of free information on his website at www.precisionnutrition.com.
KW Productivity Coaching 