Athletes undergo rigorous training, dialed-in nutrition, mental preparation, quality supplementation, consistent bodywork, adequate hydration, rest, and recuperation to ensure they bring ALL of themselves at their optimal performance to each and every game. Over and over again, day after day, week after week, their regime yields results.
Success, traction, fruition, and top-notch delivery are the name of this game, and athletes understand their success and sustainability are directly related to their consistent Practice (regime) to unleash their fullest potential.
Where is the parallel in business? In leadership?
Who are our shining examples of Leader Athletes?
Who is bringing their ABSOLUTE BEST to the game of entrepreneurship, innovation in business, and social impact?
A comparison to Leader Athletes holds the key to the results and resilience we’re all after. The question is: How Hungry are YOU for the Win?
Rigorous Training
You may wonder how rigorous training applies to you as a leader - not professional training - physical training. Regular physical exercise makes you a more resilient leader. The discipline to get up daily and self-inflict a challenge that causes you to dig deep to complete it prepares you to be on the top of your game for the rest of your day.
Let’s face it, being a leader is tough. It starts with owning it. It’s not for the faint of heart. Start each day with a Warrior Workout, feeling strong and confident in your body and your life. It’ll carry through the rest of your day.
Dialed-In Nutrition
It boils down to this: ENERGY IN = ENERGY OUT. If you are fuelling yourself with quality fuel, your energy, performance, clarity, and aptitude will shine through in spades.
It amazes me how many professionals endeavour to rock a sales trip or land an important account heading into it with sub-quality fuel (or no fuel at all). If they are lucky, they pull it off, but it isn’t sustainable. Exhaustion, illness, cravings, and even depression set in. You fall into the hamster wheel of always playing ‘catch-up’ (coffee to wake up, sugar to ‘get’ energy).
Leader Athletes train hard, eat well, and bring it ALL to the game. It’s their Practice.
Mental Prep: Visualization, mindfulness, and presence
Our mind is completely inundated and obliterated on a daily basis with a never-ending stream of incoming messages, tough decisions, and challenging conversations.
The demands of what a leader is expected to know, do, manage, remember, and handle continue to escalate, yet most haven’t adjusted their mental Practice to meet (and crush) these increasing demands.
Athletes know the value of mental training whether it is the power of visualization, the ability to focus through regular meditation, or finding their edge and leveraging their flow through the discipline of absolute presence.
Quality Supplementation
Supplements only make sense once you have your eating where it needs to be. It doesn’t replace this important step; it ‘supplements’ it. For female Leader Athletes, three supplements that I would definitely speak to my healthcare professional about would be:
Iron. Have a read through this PowHERhouse article and video interview of Dr. Seema Kanwal.
Protein.
Moringa.
Other valuable ‘supplements‘ that I personally wouldn’t live without:
Mentors.
Workout Accountability Buddies.
Naps.
Consistent Bodywork
Our body is our vehicle for this lifetime. If it shuts down, we shut down. Leaders often ignore their bodies until the point they are forced to send a warning signal – a heart attack, fatigue, digestive health challenges…
Athletes fully appreciate the value of their bodies in their careers, but do we? Prevention is preservation and preservation is power!
Various modalities optimize our health and body care from Naturopathic Health to Massage, Acupuncture to Reflexology. Don’t wait until it becomes necessary for pain management. Be proactive with your body, energy, longevity, and performance.
Hydration
Did you know that if you are not properly hydrated, your body cannot effectively absorb the nutrients you are eating? Repeat after me: Nutrients are wasted without adequate water.
Athlete Leaders are hypersensitive to where else they may be leaking energy, spinning their wheels, and not fully getting the traction they so deserve.
Three areas come to mind:
Follow-up
Isolation, duplication, replication
Over-talking and under-listening
Recuperation
Athletes value their rest and recuperation - the body’s opportunity to repair and grow.
They understand recuperation is directly linked to their passion, sustainability, and longevity as a top performer. Self-care is a necessity, not a luxury. In a world that moves faster and faster each day, where decisions are complex and often contentious, where priorities endlessly stack up and fight for rank, Leader Athletes value the importance of leading from a grounded, positive, proactive, and creative place – a place that is nurtured through self-care.
Our best learning and greatest results will come when we stop holding our worlds apart. Integration is key. Lifestyle + Leadership, integrated.
PowHERhouse is always on standby as a real, relevant, and relatable media source, with solutions for a stronger body, business, and life for Leader Athletes.
Charlene SanJenko
Charlene is the CEO of PowHERhouse, a cross-Canada social impact women’s media organization, and a long-time friend of Admin Slayer. Through incredible events, education, mentorship, their magazine, television, and much more, Charlene supports and builds leaders. A former professional athlete, personal trainer, business owner, government leader, communications and events specialist, Charlene provides 360-degree support and opportunity for Canadian women with a desire to lead more powHERfully in their body, business, and life.