How Exercise Can Help Grow Your Business

A few years ago, I heard Kevin Nolan (Nolan Paint­ing) give a brief talk about how a reg­u­lar exer­cise plan helped him in his busi­ness. He would go on an ear­ly morn­ing run before his morn­ing busi­ness meet­ings. Kevin explained that he was more alert, cre­ative and focused dur­ing the first few hours of those impor­tant meet­ings. By lunch time, his endor­phins were back to ​“nor­mal” lev­els. In order to get a sec­ond dose, he would have to go on a mid­day walk or run, which was not always pos­si­ble. So he deter­mined to use the morn­ings for his most pro­duc­tive times to work on grow­ing his business.

The web­MD web­site has this to say about Endorphins:

Endor­phins also trig­ger a pos­i­tive feel­ing in the body, sim­i­lar to that of mor­phine. For exam­ple, the feel­ing that fol­lows a run or work­out is often described as ​“euphor­ic.” That feel­ing, known as a ​“run­ner’s high,” can be accom­pa­nied by a pos­i­tive and ener­giz­ing out­look on life. 

Pre-Career Days

I was a pret­ty active kid that dab­bled in a num­ber of sports such as base­ball, vol­ley­ball and bas­ket­ball, to name a few. After I grad­u­at­ed high school, I remained fair­ly active dur­ing those first 4 – 5 years until I start­ed work­ing full time in my father’s paint­ing busi­ness. That’s right: until I start­ed work­ing full time! 

I nev­er thought I was a worka­holic. I felt I did a good job of bal­anc­ing work and exer­cise. I mean, I had a gym mem­ber­ship at the YMCA! Yet, the more I got caught up in my career, the eas­i­er it was for me to slip away from a con­sis­tent work­out plan.

Then I Got Married!

So now I had more things in my life to jug­gle: mar­ried life, kids, church activ­i­ties and my respon­si­bil­i­ties at work just seemed to increase! I began to jus­ti­fy that I real­ly did not have the time to exer­cise. I was too busy doing impor­tant things in life, like pro­vid­ing for my house­hold and serv­ing my customers!

It was a real bat­tle for me. On one hand, I still loved sports and the thought of being active. On the oth­er hand, I still kept gain­ing more weight every year, feel­ing slug­gish and even a bit stressed about work. I was more irri­ta­ble, not very deci­sive and even tired on a reg­u­lar basis as well. Some­thing had to change!

My Dad’s Inspiration

What changed for me? I think it was a com­bi­na­tion of things. I am blessed with a lot of great men­tors in my life. My dad is one of those guys. He inspires me in more ways than I can express in this blog post. He has been my spir­i­tu­al men­tor in his Chris­t­ian faith and my busi­ness men­tor too.

My dad was the first to inspire change in my life when it came to exer­cise. He was a worka­holic (in a good way). He ran a suc­cess­ful and qual­i­ty paint­ing busi­ness. He put in count­less hours to make Chism Broth­ers Paint­ing a great busi­ness. Yet close to a decade ago, my dad began work­ing out faith­ful­ly. He began to take time out of his day and week to focus on a con­sis­tent exer­cise pro­gram. He mix­es his activ­i­ties up with bike rid­ing, hik­ing, walks and even has a per­son­al train­er 1 to 2 times a week.

See­ing my dad’s con­sis­ten­cy and faith­ful­ness at work­ing out sparked an inter­est in me. He seemed to real­ly be more dri­ven and focused on run­ning a suc­cess­ful busi­ness. He let a lot of things roll off of him that used to both­er him! It was still a num­ber of years away before I would be as con­sis­tent as him, but again, the seed was plant­ed: I knew what I need­ed to do!

How Exer­cise Has Begun To Change My Life and Business

Fast for­ward to about 4 years ago. I was on a road trip with Bri­an Nolan, from Sum­mit Ser­vices (Kevin Nolan’s broth­er). He was anoth­er busi­ness men­tor in my life. He was a busi­ness­man who seemed to have a good bal­ance between run­ning a busi­ness and a con­sis­tent exer­cis­ing plan. He encour­aged me to look at work­ing out as a sched­uled event that does not get moved. Bri­an said, ​“Put exer­cise on your cal­en­dar, mark it as a set meet­ing time and don’t move it!” He also was the first per­son to tell me I was a worka­holic (in a nice way). He encour­aged me to make exer­cise a part of my busi­ness routine.

I did begin to make Baby Steps. I played bas­ket­ball 1 to 2 times a week before work. That was help­ful, but it still was not quite enough or what I need­ed to make a difference.

After hear­ing Kevin Nolan’s talk on how he was more focused and dri­ven after his ear­ly morn­ing runs, I deter­mined it was time to make a habit change! In the fall of 2013, I joined the Clinch Acad­e­my in my town. Clinch was not a typ­i­cal gym mem­ber­ship. It was pri­mar­i­ly a Brazil­ian Jiu Jit­su (BJJ) and Mixed Mar­tial Arts (MMA) stu­dio. It also offered intense fit­ness pro­grams that used MMA tech­niques. I joined their morn­ing work­out pro­gram and com­mit­ted to three months. I told myself that I would go to every class for those 12 weeks: 3 days a week.

As active as I was as a kid with sports, join­ing Clinch and doing the high inten­si­ty work­outs was a lot hard­er for me. In fact, it was per­haps the hard­est thing (for me any­ways) that I had done in my life. I think it was because I wait­ed so long and was not all that active. Yet, every week I came to class, the work­outs got a lit­tle bit more doable and enjoy­able. I found myself get­ting stronger, more focused, alert, dri­ven and confident.

As I write this blog this week, I am still very active at the Clinch Acad­e­my. I got through those 12 weeks and con­tin­ue to do the same work­out each week. It has become a part of my sched­ule that I can­not or will not adjust. I even added learn­ing a lit­tle bit of Brazil­ian Jiu Jit­su to my rou­tine as well!

Join­ing the Clinch Acad­e­my has real­ly made me a bet­ter busi­ness­man. The days that I work­out I feel far less tired and more con­fi­dent when I work. I find myself on busi­ness calls being a bit more assertive as well. I have also felt more deter­mined than ever before to grow my busi­ness and take more risk. I am still a cau­tious and care­ful plan­ning type of guy, but the last 18 months of my busi­ness have been the most chal­leng­ing, risk-tak­ing and reward­ing times of my career.

Your Turn

After read­ing this blog, you do not have to join an MMA stu­dio, a Cross­Fit gym or run a marathon. Per­haps you can do what I did: take baby steps. If you do not have a con­sis­tent exer­cise plan, try mak­ing a morn­ing walk part of your rou­tine. Start with just 20 – 25 min­utes a day and see how you feel. Then add some­thing else to your sched­ule to help release more endor­phins! I am curi­ous to hear if exer­cise has helped you in your busi­ness devel­op­ment as it has been invalu­able for me. Let me know on one of the social sites, email or in the com­ments below.