Tag: nutrition

8 Ways to reload your spring every day.

A good day is full of actions. Some physical. Some mental. Some social. But the progress you make each day is a result of the actions you take. But one good day is not enough. To live a good, good life you need to create good day after good day, mate.

However, a day full of action depletes your resources. That’s why it is important to reload your spring. (#snickering) Whether you are focused on your career, caring for your family, or training for competition, it’s important to come back day after day with great energy and effort.

To create a long chain of great days of action and progress you have to reload your spring.

8 Ways To Reload Your Spring

1. Sleep: A great night of sleep is the best thing you can do to reload. After a long day of activity, your spring is fully uncoiled. Your energy is expended. Like The Giving Tree, you have nothing left to give. No leaves. No branches. No apples. But overnight something magical happens. A full night of sleep reloads and resets your spring. It makes you ready to uncoil on another day of important actions, Jackson.

2. Eating: All that work you are doing burns calories. When you feel like a hangry, hangry hippo, it’s a sign that your spring is fully uncoiled. When you eat you are putting calories back in your system. You are refueling. As you reload energy into your system with great nutrition you are resetting your spring. Also, make sure to hydrate.

3. Hydrate: Make sure you are drinking plenty of water. Humans are basically walking bags of water. So rehydrate early and often to keep your spring at full hydraulic power. Start your day with a tall drink of water to make sure you hit the day fully recoiled.

4. Exercise When you exercise you are creating a better spring. You are putting more power into it. You are enabling it to uncoil over a longer period without losing strength. Plus, it makes you look more springy.

5. Socializing: If you have extroverted tendencies, you reload by spending time with others. For extroverts, socializing is like Gatorade. (But instead of replacing your electrolytes, it replaces your socialytes.) Make sure to add social activities to your calendar to regain what you have lost.

6. Solitude: If you have introverted tendencies, you reload in your quiet time alone. Don’t neglect this time. It will help you reset and prepare for another day among the Yappers.

7. Reading: Reading reloads your spring through education, inspiration and motivation. (Basically all the ations.) Learning new things helps you find new and better approaches to add to your weaponry. Reading exposes you to people who have done great things and inspires you to do more. Plus, reading provides motivation and reminds you of the reasons you are taking all those actions.

8. Faith: Faith isn’t just for George Michael and Tim McGraw. Tapping into and practicing your faith has the power to reload like nothing else can. Don’t miss out on its power to re-energize your system and bolster your resilience day after day.

Key Takeaway

Success is a result of putting your all into each day and then reloading. The better you are at reloading your spring daily the easier it is to sustain progress and deliver results. Whether you are the CEO of the world’s biggest company or the head of your household, make sure to reload your spring. It’s the key to bringing your best to each day.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

10 things to do to increase your personal energy.

There is one thing about me that people comment on all the time. It’s not my very subtle good looks. Or my intelligence. Or my sense of humor. It’s not even about my hair.

I get a lot of comments about my energy. In fact, recently, in a 24-hour span, I was asked where my energy comes from, I was told that my energy is even more noticeable in person than on the phone, and that my energy is just what my fellow elevator passenger needed that day.

Last week as the keynote speaker at an energy symposium in Dallas (thanks to David and Molly Sengstock), I gave a talk on how to energize your life. After my talk, the entire audience stuck around for 20 minutes asking more questions. This was despite the fact that my talk ended at 6pm and there was free alcohol and appetizers awaiting them just outside the room.

What makes this energy thing even more exciting to me is that I am in the last 10 days of my 40s. So as I approach my 50th birthday with energy that makes people comment I expect I am doing something worth knowing.

So lately I have been evaluating my personal energy inputs. I have collected a list of 10 things I do that contribute to my energy. But before we get into them it may also be worth noting that I don’t drink coffee or energy drinks. And I have never drunk alcohol. I don’t know the actual effect of the things I don’t do. So the rest of this is focused on things I do do. (I just dropped a do-do…)

10 Ways To Increase Your Personal Energy.

  1. Sleep. I make sleep a priority. I think of sleep like stopping at a gas station to fill your car with gas. Your sleep is doing the same thing for your body. (Except you can’t grab a Slim Jim and a 64-ounce Bladder Buster soda pop in bed.) Every night you should fill your body with as much sleep fuel as you can. Note: I also like to nap. Especially on the weekends. And when talking to boring people.

2. Eating. I make sure to eat 3 good meals a day. I prefer not to snack. But I have snacks around in between meals to keep me going. Together, sleeping and eating provides a great foundation for my energy. But I have also implemented a policy of only eating until just-full. This helps prevent me from feeling sluggish and chunky. I have lost 16 pounds over the past year with this approach. Being less fat is definitely more good for my energy.

3. Exercise. I exercise about 5 days each week. Exercising for energy is a paradox. Because while it is easy to feel like you are too tired to exercise, the exercise itself is energizing and ultimately increases your go. Within the past year, I have added significant exercise resources to my home gym. This includes a treadmill, elliptical trainer, Rogue Monster rack, bench, and about 600 pounds of free weights, and dumbells up to 90 pounds. I found that I had plenty of will to workout, but often lacked the time to get to the gym during normal operations. So the home setup has helped me get my workout on. And all that weight and equipment in my basement should make my house less likely to get sucked up in a tornado.

4. Work I Love. Your work is a major part of your life. Finding work you love adds significantly to your daily energy. When you look forward to going to work, performing the tasks required of your day, and when you are challenged in a healthy and enjoyable way, it fuels you. Rather than dreading work, your work becomes exciting and interesting. You start loving Mondays the way other people love Fridays. Or Applebees on a date night, eating Bourbon Street steak with the Oreo shake.

5. Smiling. The smile is like the pilot light of the human body. When you put a smile on your face, everything seems to catch fire. Your body feels the energy and responds appropriately. The people around you smile back and add their energy to yours. It’s remarkable. And overlooked. I smile a lot. Smiling is my favorite.

6. Goals: I have a lot of goals. Both having goals and making progress toward your goals are energizing. They excite, inspire and encourage you to bring more to every day. My goals keep me busy and focused. I suspect that my goals are one of the greatest sources of energy that I tap into that others don’t. So get yourself some goals that you really, really want. Like a Spice Girl.

7. Surround Yourself With Great People. We feed off the energy of others. I am no different. I love to be around ambitious, energetic, and successful people. I am inspired by the success and undertakings of others. They push me to do and accomplish more. I am always seeking more world-beaters to spend time with. Their appetite for work, accomplishment, and adventure is like positive peer pressure. Which is better than an appetite for destruction, Axl.

8. Time Scarcity: The lack of time I have left to achieve my goals and experience all that I want provides a great source of energy. It creates urgency in each day. That urgency makes me go. I know that time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future. Which means it is always go-time.

9. Optimism: If nothing else, I am optimistic. I believe that good things are coming. And I can’t wait to greet them. Or make them happen. I believe both me and the world around me will be better tomorrow. That belief is exciting. And energizing. I believe that hard work pays off. I believe I will reach my goals if I just keep working toward them, and I don’t get hit by a bus or a mosquito carrying malaria. I believe that new friends are around every corner. And I believe my friendships are getting better and deeper all the time. Those are great reasons to get out of bed every morning.

10. A Healthy Home Life: I really enjoy my home. I enjoy my relationships with my children Ava, Johann and Magnus. I am blessed with a wife I love talking to and spending time with, even after 23 years of togetherness. A healthy, happy and supportive home life helps feed and reinvigorates you.

Key Takeaway

Tap into your own energy sources. Start with the basics of sleep, food and exercise. Then discover the people, situations and activities that energize you. Set goals you really want to achieve. Work toward them every day. Smile. Believe in yourself, in others, and in the world. Share your energy with others. When you do, it will multiply and come back to you.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

3 ways to use sleep for more success.

If you want to climb a mountain you have to take all the steps to get to the top. There is no way around that. The higher and steeper the mountain, the more effort is required. There is no elevator, escalator, or Wonavator to the summit. Sorry, Charlie.

To make sure you are prepared to do the work you need to take care of your personal machinery. That means getting good exercise and eating well. But there is a third pillar of hard work that is not to be ignored, like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

Sleep

Getting good sleep is one of the most underrated ingredients of success. A good night of sleep is the first step to preparing for a day of hard work, be it mental or physical, like Olivia Newton-John, or Dua Lipa.

It is valuable to run your own sleep experiments to determine 3-important numbers in your personal sleep arsenal.

  1. Your optimal amount of sleep. This is your perfect night of sleep for optimal performance. Which means you wake up fully refreshed and energized. For most people, this is 6 to 9 hours. I insist on getting my optimal amount of sleep on Sunday nights in order to start my work week at full charge.
  2. Your working minimum. This is your sustainable nightly sleep total that will enable you to function at a high level.  This could be a couple of hours less than your optimal sleep. For example, my optimal sleep is 7.5 hours. I can’t remember the last year I slept a night longer than that. But my working minimum is 5 hours. I can crush it for several days on 5 nightly hours of sleep.
  3. Your absolute minimum. This is the minimum amount of sleep you must-have to be able to put in a full day of work. It is useful to know this number for times when you really need to push yourself because of extreme demands or massive opportunities. My number is 4 hours. But there were times when I was first launching my business (The Weaponry) as a night and weekend project that I was sleeping for only 2 or 3 hours at night. I was loving the business progress and the results. While the absolute minimum pace is not sustainable, it is good to know you can do it if you need to.

Sleep-Food Substitution

Sleep is like food for your mind and body. A night of sleep or a nap refreshes and energizes you as if you were eating a meal. In fact, I consider food and sleep interchangeable. In situations where I am tired and can’t sleep, I eat. In situations where I am low on energy but can’t or don’t want to eat, I sleep to reenergize. This simple substitution has helped me recharge and power through many a low-energy crisis. I encourage you to add this technique to your personal energy policy.

Key Takeaway:

Serious achievement requires serious work. Keep your mind, body and spirit strong through regular exercise, nutrition and sleep. Understand your own personal sleep/performance needs. Then prioritize your sleep accordingly. Because every great day starts the night before.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my new book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

Are you listening to the right people right now?

When we were young we learned about proper nutrition in school. We learned about nutrients like vitamins, proteins and calcium. Foods were sorted into cliques called food groups. We discovered that our favorite foods like cotton candy, donuts and Cheez Whiz were nutritional ghost towns. While spinach, which was among the un-coolest foods, were the nutritional equivalent to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Cue the Mariah Carey meltdown.

Eating the right things has a major impact on how we feel. As adults we know which foods we should and shouldn’t eat. We know which foods help us feel good, and which ones make us feel bad. #waferthinmint

But it is just as important to recognize the nutritional value of what you listen to. The music you listen to while lying in a hammock is different from the music on your workout playlist. Because what you listen to has a major impact on how you feel.

We all get to choose what we listen to. And who we listen to. And how much we consume.

Take a moment to evaluate your listening habits.

  • Are you listening to the right things right now?
  • Are you listening to the right people?
  • Are you hearing things that make you feel better or worse?
  • Is it helping or hurting your fortitude?
  • Is it positively impacting your mood?
  • Is it making you want to charge the hill or crawl in hole?
  • It is providing answers?
  • Is it inspiring good ideas?
  • Is it calming?
  • It is me you’re looking for? (Lionel Richie wants to know)

Selective Hearing

I have developed highly selective hearing. I have a hard time hearing that which doesn’t help. That which doesn’t get me closer to the answers, make me feel better, or give me something actionable to do. You can do the same thing. And it extremely helpful during challenging times like these.

Key Takeaway

Pay close attention to what you are listening to right now. And who you are listening to. Become a picky listener. Listen to learn. Listen to become energized and inspired. Listen for the good stories. Listen for the positive outlook and the great advice. Remember, You get to choose what you tune in and what you tune out. And the results are significant.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.