Are you fit to lead?

Phys Ed for Managers

Posted May 26, 2015 by Safari Books Online & filed under Business, careers, health, leadership, management, managing yourself, Personal Development.

 

By Theodore Kinni

Theodore Kinni has written, ghosted, or edited more than 20 business books. He was book review editor for strategy+business for 7 years.

 

“In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together.” Plato wrote that about 400 years before the birth of Christ. I have no idea if the Greek philosopher pursued physical fitness, but it’s said that  he died peacefully in his bed at the age of 81—which I assume was considered a ripe old age in those days.

It’s not a bad life span these days either. After all, the average life expectancy in the U.S. is just under 79 years. The only problem, according the founder of The Leadership Academy of Barcelona, executive coach, and b-school professor Steven P. MacGregor, is that a career in business is not exactly conducive to a long life. “As we advance through a career, we tend to increasingly live our lives on a purely mental level, with all of our emails and strategies and meetings and metrics, forgetting we have a body until something goes wrong with it!” he explains in the opening chapter of his book, Sustaining Executive Performance: How the New Self-Management Drives Innovation, Leadership, and a More Resilient World (Pearson FT Press, 2014).

 

Happily, MacGregor has a solution—a program designed specifically to help business people become physically as well as mentally fit. Its five elements are Move, Recover, Focus, Fuel, and Train...read the rest here