Treat Your Health Like You Treat Your Business | Between The Builds

Chris Fay: Welcome to Built with Purpose. I am Chris Fay, and this is the show where vision meets execution and leadership leaves a legacy. From design studios to innovation hubs and product lines to skyline. We meet the people building more than great companies. They're creating culture, driving impact, and shaping what's next. These are the stories and strategies behind how the world gets built with purpose. All right, everybody, welcome to Built with Purpose. Today is a ⁓ pretty cool episode of Between the Builds. As you know, this is our chance to reflect back. But what's actually interesting is we took a month off. The month of July, I decided just to take some time off. We have a bunch of stuff going on in the business. wanting to spend some time with ⁓ family and travel a little bit and then just ⁓ really kind of reset. And so that's what we did. And I think honestly that's something that all of us should be thinking about, you know, as leader, ⁓ whether you're leading a company, teams, or whatever, are you giving yourself those intentional breaks? Are you are you taking some time to be away from the computer, to be away from work and ⁓ reflecting back on what's what's most important and then resetting yourself. For that next evolution. So, anyway, that's a bit of what we did in July. We probably should have done a better job of announcing it out to ⁓ listeners. I'm sure the thousands and thousands of you have been missing ⁓ my podcast. ⁓ just kidding. But but ⁓ no, seriously. But we're kicking ⁓ kicking back off this new season, this new ⁓ this new year, and wanted to to really just kind of start with a conversation around our health. You know, our last ⁓ guest we had was Dr. Grant Zarzer, a great buddy of mine. I've known him for a number of years now. Has started a longevity company called Sparity Health. They're doing a a really cool kind of B2B model ⁓ as far as helping executives and senior leaders and and ⁓ and individuals and employees as well really take control of their health. And so, you know, I was reflecting back on the conversation and and then honestly, we've had a couple of situations here through family and friends and even inside of our company where ⁓ where this health, this health thing becomes a much bigger. ⁓ a much bigger topic. And sometimes we all need ⁓ a little kick in the butt or or or something to call us to action to take those next steps. And so that's what I want to talk a little bit about today. You know, one of the things that that ⁓ that Grant was ⁓ Grant was saying we talk he had this quote says when you're faced with your own mortality, you tend to make ⁓ you tend to make ⁓ changes. And this is actually something that happened inside of our organization is is we have a a longtime employee, a a great member of our of our ⁓ ⁓ family and inside of the business get diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And, you know, it's a it's a it's a tough diagnosis. He just started going through ⁓ chemo. We're obviously kind of rallying around him. And but you know, when you're faced with mortal you know, this this mortality, you're faced with something that that has a that has a chance of potentially taking your life, all of a sudden you begin to reflect back on, you know, what have you done throughout your life? What could you have done differently? And what are you going to do differently going forward? Similarly, my dad, who's a who's an avid listener of Built with Purpose, so hey dad, ⁓ you know, he had esophageal cancer a number of years ⁓ ago and you know, busy, executive, traveling a lot. ⁓ you know, he was he was healthy and playing a lot of tennis, but but also, you know, staying up late at night, working, you know, ⁓ business dinners, ⁓ just all the all the things that can contribute to ⁓ you know, maybe an unhealthy lifestyle. And after his isopageal diagnosis and and treatment, and unfortunately he's 100% cured and and I think ⁓ more than five years removed from that ⁓ surgery and diagnosis, like his outlook on life is so much different. So I just wonder sometimes, why does it take, you know, facing your own mortality for us to begin making a change in our lives? And so that was one of the things I was I was coming back and thinking about here, and and one of the other quotes that that Grant said was. You know, you're making all this money, you're doing all this stuff, but but you know, what's what's it worth if you can't if you can't spend it ⁓ or enjoy it because you're you're unhealthy. And so the analogy I I didn't tend to think about and is, you know, our own businesses. Like like think about the company that you work for. ⁓ you have a game plan, you have a vision of where you want to take that business or that team or that church or that organization. ⁓ we all create visions. And then we come back down into, well, in order to achieve that vision, what do I need to be doing, you know, this year, this quarter, this week, or today in order to achieve that that vision and that mission? And so it seems so commonplace for us to think about that in the business world or in our family. Okay, my son, I want to make sure he gets in a ⁓ a good college. So in order for him to get in a good college, what does he need to be doing now or this year or this quarter or this month or this week in order to prepare himself for college? Well, we need to be reading, we need to be studying, we need to be getting our nonprofit hours in. I want him to get some work experience. It just seems so natural for us in our day-to-day lives with how we run our families and our businesses and others to have vision, plans, and to be doing things today that are ultimately going to yield that long-term success. But it surprises me how few people actually do that with their personal health. You know, nobody wants to say, I wanna die early. I want to feel like crap the last number of years of my life. I want to have cancer. I want to be in the hospital. I want to not be able to support ⁓ my family. I don't want to see my kids graduate or my grandkids ⁓ grow up. You know, nobody says that. You know, if you ask any of us today, like, what what what's like, take me to your 80th birthday? What do you what are you looking like at your 80th birthday? Everybody would say, Man, I'd love to be healthy. I'd love to, you know, be there to see my family. I'd love to. you know, be mobile, you know, I don't want to go through ⁓ you know, terminal disease. I don't want to live in the hospital. I don't want to feel like crap. I don't wanna be like be overweight. That's probably what all of us would say. But yet as we take a step back, so few of us, well, I don't say so few of us, but but many of us are unwilling to make the changes today that are ultimately gonna yield that success long term. And so I read this, ⁓ my wife and I and and family are starting to read this new ⁓ ⁓ devotional. It's a 90-day devotion. It's called Bulletproof Family by ⁓ Adam Adam Davis and and Lieutenant Colonel Dave ⁓ Grossman. And ⁓ it's been pretty cool. We've been reading it each each night. ⁓ and so I this was actually last night. So I'm preparing for today. This was this was last night. So let me let just read this to you. ⁓ so when the study when when you study elite operations in either military service or working as first responders, there's something they all have in common. They practice the fundamentals until those fundamentals become second nature. Former University of Alabama head coach Nick Sabin once said, don't practice until you get it right. Practice until you can't get it wrong. What makes championship athletes and or athletes and and the elite is that they never abandon the pursuit of excellence in the fundamentals. So you start thinking about the fundamentals. What are the fundamentals in in athletics? Well, you know, if you're playing football, right, you've got to make sure you know how to tackle or catch or run or pivot. You want to be in shape. And so those are the fundamentals that we practice every day. You know, I think about we run a sales organization. You know, what are the fundamentals of of sales? Well you've got to you've got to know what you're selling, right? So you have to have active learning and knowledge what you're selling and the market and the industry. You have to just do the activity. You got to pick up the phone. You got to go meet with people. You got to have conversations. You got to send emails. And ultimately that yields you ⁓ success in sales over time. So if you go forward and you're like, all right, well In order for me to live a great life and see my grandkids ⁓ graduate from college or get married, and in order for me to ⁓ have the highest ⁓ chances of not facing terminal illness and living my very best life, what we need to do is we need to be focused on the fundamentals today. You know, you can't live till you're 70 and then all of a sudden try and make change and decide that you're gonna now live till you're 90 years old. The best thing that we can do is start taking action on our lives today. Similarly in a business, if you lay out a new vision of where you want to go, what's the what's the first thing that you need to do to start taking action to achieve that vision today? And that's the same thing here. And it's always comes back to the fundamentals. So that devotion was talking about what are the fundamentals that we need to have in our family and how love, ⁓ the word love and the act of love is a is a foundation that we need to have inside of our families. And so if you take that same analogy over into our health. What are the fundamentals that we need to be doing today in order to set ourselves up for success long term? And so Grant was giving us some very ⁓ some very tactical advice on things that we can do. The first thing is just know where you're at, right? ⁓ pretty much all of us have health insurance. Health insurance pays for an annual physical, a preventative ⁓ care physical every year. You would be amazed at how many people don't go get their annual physical. I've had people that I know that have been diagnosed with cancer, leukemia. You know, all these diseases that have popped up. And you said, when's last time you got a physical? Well, it's been a couple of years. The physical is the number one thing that all of us can be doing in order to make sure that we're tracking our numbers, seeing where things are. And then Grant starts adding that there's a number of other markers that you can begin to start tracking. ⁓ he recommends a full body ⁓ MRI, recommends ⁓ like a clearly ⁓ exam of of your heart. And a number of things just to understand where you are today. So one fun one fundamental is just know your numbers, right? If you're trying to grow a business or trying to go a team, you got to know your numbers. All right. Well, I want to be a $100 million year firm. I'm a $20 million firm today. ⁓ you're not going to know where you're going unless you know where you are today. So that's kind of the first step is knowing where you are. And then, you know, I think one of the things that Grant talked about is, you know, you don't necessarily have to go from zero to a hundred overnight. ⁓ you know, what what happens at ⁓ at New Year's? Well, at New Year's, everybody makes these New Year's resolutions and they're so excited. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop eating fried foods, I'm gonna cut back on my complex carb or my my carbohydrates, I'm gonna work out seven days a week, I'm gonna be this perfect beacon of health. And what happens is they get into January, they start ⁓ start taking action and those habits fall off because they've tried to take too dramatic of an action. So if you come back and you start thinking about the fundamentals. If you get your if you get your numbers, you get your preventative ⁓ care physical, you go get your various markers, maybe consider a full body ⁓ MRI. I did I did one down at ⁓ Pranuvo ⁓ down in the Atlanta marketplace. It was a really cool experience for me. I've done the clearly exam of of my heart and a few other ⁓ kind of genomic testing. So once you have your foundation, what are the fundamentals? What's the just the one or two thing that you can do tomorrow or today to begin taking action? Is it one step forward in your diet? Is it getting out and walking? Is it adding a wearable so that you have some sort of insights into your sleep and your data? So I think as we start thinking about the fundamentals, we just need to boil this down. We don't need to boil the ocean at one time. We don't know need to go from zero to a hundred overnight. We just need to begin taking incremental steps to drive improvement into our lives just like we would in our businesses or our families or for our kids. And what do we know if we think about how long it takes to develop a habit? It takes 66 days for us to develop a habit. So if you start doing something today, you're more than two months away from that actually becoming a habit. So what is one or two new habits that you can build in your life to improve your health over the next 66 days? And once you develop those habits, you can then start thinking about everything else. So maybe again, it's exercising, maybe it's how you how you eat, maybe it's cutting back the number of days on alcohol, it's increasing your water intake, it's going to get your measurables. So great conversation. This is one of the most important things. We can talk about family, we can talk about fun, we can talk about business and leadership and teams. If you're not healthy and you can't enjoy it, it doesn't matter. So with that, hope you all have an awesome day. Looking forward to the season ahead and enjoy continue to build purpose. Okay, thanks for joining me on Built with Purpose. If you have enjoyed today's episode, subscribe, share, and leave us a review. It helps more bold leaders find the show. For resources and show notes, visit our website and connect with me, Chris Fay, on LinkedIn. Until next time, keep building great companies, cultures, and legacies with ERCS.