Throughout my life, I have found both success and failure at many different junctures. Whether it’s personal or professional pursuits, I’ve found one quality to be consistent when I have reached the heights of success. At the peak of the mountaintop, I know I would not have been there without mastery of self-control.
Endurance running is an exercise in patience if you truly want to master the art. Talk to any runner about their goals or motivations and you’ll get different answers every time, but at the heart of the runner’s desire is to be a better, healthier self. I know for me, running has become not only an outlet for stress relief but a way to invest in my wellness mentally and physically.
We like to believe that intention, integrity, and message mean more than appearance. However, we find fairly quickly that image matters a great deal to our professional success whether we like it or not. If we want to optimize our impact and success from networking events and boardrooms to day-to-day interactions with employees and peers alike, we have to take care to craft our image and messaging very carefully.
As professionals with ambition, we all want to strive, achieve, and accomplish. The idea of stopping, taking a break, or somehow putting things on hold seems unfathomable. However, job burnout is real even for the most ambitious among us. I know I must be on guard even in my ambition. I have a deep desire to make the most of my career, but I must guard myself that I don’t let those ambitions overtake my overall wellbeing. I have to allow myself room to enjoy my life—through my exercise, my relationships, and my hobbies.
Endurance running demands more than running shoes and a killer playlist. It's not only a dedication to getting up and running, but it is a dedication to your health and your body, inside and out. That said, I find that runners make a lot of mistakes when it comes to their health and nutrition. (I've been there!)
Most of us would probably say that we avoid conflict, particularly in the workplace. When it comes to arguments and disagreements in the office, they are more headache and hassle than anything. At times, these conflicts can seem more like petty annoyances than anything worth your time and energy to deal with.
Workplace leadership is an everyday challenge. Managers, bosses, and CEOs, whether in established firms or startups, have to deal with the task of maximizing employee productivity. We all want to excel and to see others tap into their full potential. However, there are things that hold our workers and colleagues back that we might not even be aware of.
The modern age is full of anxiety. In fact, millennials are often called the “anxious generation,” as they experience stress and anxiety at higher rates than any generation before them. However, we think it’s safe to say that people of all generations deal with anxieties about money. We all have fears—rational and irrational alike—when it comes to our bank account.
If there’s one thing we runners hate, it’s an injury. In the middle of the training season, an injury can be a massive setback, causing us to lose weeks of progress. When you’re used to high-impact exercises, like endurance running, an injury can shake things up. Not only must you wrestle with the disappointment of having your training schedule thrown off, but in many ways, it can feel like starting from square one.
In leadership, we are the last line of defense before work goes out into the world. Oftentimes, we don’t see the work cross our desks before it goes out, but we do see our colleagues and coworkers alongside us. There will be times when you see things that you know need fixing—a method that is not as efficient as it ought to be, something that habitually slips through the cracks, or a common thread of concern that bears addressing.
Out of all of the fads generating buzz among health nuts, probiotics are one of the few worth your attention. You’ll see yogurts advertising live cultures and even milk boasting probiotic benefits. Though these naturally occurring bacteria bring with them a slew of health benefits, even if in concept, the idea of ingesting live bacteria can gross us out if we think about it a little too hard.
You can have all of the accomplishments, accolades, and wealth in the world but still not feel the confidence that these things afford. It’s especially challenging when you’re rising up, trying hard to make a name for yourself, grow as an expert and successful professional, but you feel, at times, ill-equipped in the field that you’re in.
There’s an old adage that says you’re only as strong as your weakest link. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately and what it means for us in leadership. As much as we can set the standard for ourselves and for our team members, we truly have to think about how much impact those standards really have—how much weight they truly hold—when you have a weak link in the chain.
It may be showing my age to talk about the transformative nature of technology in the world, but I’m old enough to remember the pre-Internet age. I can remember the rise of email, Blackberries, then smartphones, and social media. While technological advancements have always turned the tide of the world as we know it, we’re living in an age where technological leaps are moving so quickly and condensed that just ten and twenty years can create whole shifts in our culture.
When we consider all of the ways that our health can decline, we don't usually think about cognitive function. Our minds still turn first to weight gain, arthritis, high cholesterol, or heart problems. As dementia and Alzheimer's become an increasing part of our dialog, however, the more it becomes a part of the same conversation.
I think many of us underestimate the value in a good night's sleep. Oftentimes, we'll trade a few extra hours of perceived productivity “getting ahead” rather than hitting the hay. We think back to our college days of all-nighters and getting by on only minimal hours of sleep and it leads us to believe that we can make that sacrifice.
