Healthy High Achiever Blog

I was on a coaching call this past week with a number of my associates when an idea I’ve been developing over the past several years got a major pat on the back.

It was just one of those moments in time when it was recognized by virtually all, that there is a big difference between how most fitness professionals and healthy, high achieving people live their lives and how the average person who is wanting to increase energy, lose weight or get healthier… live theirs.

This is no small difference. You can say it in a few words but the origin of this difference is BIG. Big in the sense that it is a lifestyle difference and it is powered by a "mindset", not a better workout routine or a better way of eating alone. It is a better way of thinking about how we live particularly at a time in history when the demands on our time and energy have never been greater.

It’s clear that people don’t stick with their "programs" not because they are unmotivated or lazy,  they get derailed in their plans simply because they get worn down.

The best of intentions can change when you get overwhelmed, or exhausted from working a ten-hour day or more, or when the fiscal demands in our lives force us at times to shift our priorities, even though taking care of ourselves, STILL IS our priority.

As a lifestyle Trainer and Coach, I work with people who talk about what’s really going on their lives and it’s not seen as an excuse. Understanding what’s going on is part of the solution.

What we find is that the majority of the ’solution’ is learning the skills to navigate the not so obvious aspects of our lives and lifestyle, which is the real focus. It’s a conversation that INCLUDES what you eat and activity but also includes so much more of what make the best of intentions possible and the results you want probable.  

This gets back to the original point.

What makes the real difference between those who’s lives are ‘firing on all cylinders’ without the struggle around food and fitness and those who are struggling?

That difference is in the gap between how athletes and former athletes think and live and how the person who is just trying to los.e wei.ght thinks.

The former lives a healthy lifestyle possible because they want to perform well and achieve their goals, while that later thinks their going to achieve their goals and then live a better lifestyle.  They’ve got it backwards and that’s why they struggle with food and fitness…

The former coordinates all aspect of their life and lifestyle around the personal and professional outcomes they want, including how they eat and exercise, while most other people are trying to achieve their goals with a lifestyle that promotes poor performance.

It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s how we’re trained by the very industries that purport to be solving the problem.

If your lifestyle is not healthy, it’s hard to perform well and even if you force yourself to perform at high levels in spite of a lifestyle that’s leaving you fatigued and deconditioned, the trade is health for success and that… is a bad trade.

When you are busy and facing demands that can easily ware you down, to the point that you are making poor lifestyle decisions, it’s time to shift gears and take a new approach. From living a depleting lifestyle that leads to all poor lifestyle decisions, to living "athletically". At the end of the day, this is what it comes down to.

You don’t have to be into sports or even a fitness enthusiast to live athletically, "like a pro" so to speak. All you need is to understand the mindset and the lifestyle skills that healthy high achievers know and live by and you too will get free of the struggle.
 

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals. As a a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Proä; how to look, feel and perform better optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. Achieve your goals in life, business and sport and take your life to the next level!

Learn more at www.PerformanceLifestyleSolutions.com  

You may have read about the upcoming Performance Lifestyle Training that starts off by saying the biggest difference between those healthy high achieving people we admire for how they look, feel and perform, and those who struggle with energy and weight issues, is the FACT that healthy achieving people live athletically.

I go on to say that you don’t have to be into sports or even be a fitness enthusiast to live athletically. 

How can that be possible?

After all athletics and sport are synonomous.  

That may be true, but here’s what you don’t understand. Take away the specific sport that the "athlete" is playing, like track or football, and what you have is a person or a team who is trying to achieve a goal, to cross a finish line first or score a touchdown.

To achieve those goals, athletes think, live, train and condition themselves so they remain in top shape to be able to perform at the level required to achieve the goals and stay healthy. As a result they look and feel better than most. Simply put. 

But how is that different than what most of need to do in our own lives. Maybe you are not putting a ball through the uprights, a hoop or being judged on whether you cross a finish line first, you are judged on your productivity in other ways - your sales, your support, your ability to do whatever it is that you do and I’m sure it takes a great deal of energy to do it well, amidst a relentless busy life.

The stereotypical athlete plays sports, but I’m here to suggest that you are playing your own game in life and in many cases you have a tougher playing field than most sports athletes who live a much more structured life and have more support to live the lifestyle that enables them to achieve their goals in a healthy successful way.

Are you achieving your goals with a lifestyle that’s promoting your health and success? Most people are not, thinking only those in sport need to live athletically - in a healthy, balanced, balanced high perfoming way - and the results are obvious… overwhelm, exhaustion, and overweight and for many healthy complications.

Your lifestyle is the way in which you achieve your goals. The way you achieve your goals shows up in how you look, feel and perform.  Only 3% of the population knows how to live and athletical lifestyle that maximizes their personal and professional performance and quality of life.

On the 18th, you can learn how they do it as a participant in the upcoming Performance Lifestyle Training that works for YOU and the acheivement of your goals.

NO.

Living athletically is the "mindset" that makes living a Performance Lifestyle possible. It does not mean you have to be into sports or even be a fitness enthusiast!

But did you know that the top 3% in life, sport and business, the healthy high achievers we admire for how they look, feel and perform, are either athletes or have an athletic background and understand this mindset? Did you know that your trainer or weight loss guru probably has an athletic background?

The athletic mindset is the defining difference. It’s what separates healthy high achievers from those people who suffer from energy, diet, weight, and long-term health issues. What you learn when implementing a Performance Lifestyle is not, how play a sport, it’s how to "live" athletically… successfully.

If you are into sports you’ll play better, but for most people in the 97% who are not sports athletes, let alone elite athletes, living athletically is how you live at or near your ideal weight all year round.

It’s how you achieve your goals in a healthy, balanced, high performing way.

It’s how you maintain your quality of life even in the midst of relentless demand on your time and energy.

When we don’t live in this flexible, agile, and nimble way, or understand the insights and skills that go with this more dynamic way of life to remain healthy, energetic, and strong, fit and powerful, we descend in overwhelm, fatigue and overweight. Then we have to distract ourselves from our purpose and mission in life as a business owner, professional, parent etc, to deal with weight.

Some of us don’t allow ourselves to get distracted and energy and weight issues turn into health complications.

Either way, eventually, the results of a depleting lifestyle will become a colossal distraction, maybe even deadly.

What percentage of people lives athletically? About 3%. The other 97% are the ones making up the obesity and poor health statistics.

You don’t have to be one of those people, and can live a much better quality of life, when you get the athletic experience in the Performance Lifestyle Training, starting on October 11th (bonus week for early registrants) and officially on the 18th.

When you change "Improve" how you live, life will gets better for you and so will your results. Remember, the health and performance results you are experiencing right now are the direct result of your lifestyle.

If your lifestyle is in charge of your health and performance, then imagine what that will do to you success.

What? You say? I"m not an athlete! I’m a business owner, a service professional, a parent, a student… 

Yes, and you are an athlete!

If you are facing demands on your time and energy, and achieving any goals, you are an athlete.  

If you’re reading this and you’re keeping pace in todays day and age, you are an athlete and you might want to start thinking this way. That is, if you don’t want to join the rest of the population who is driving themselves into the ground and focusing on weight loss.

In the upcoming posts we’re going to focus on this as we get ready for the next trainining. 

For starters, here’s a conversation on this very subject. A recent internview I did with Kevin Gianni of Live Awesome…

Heres the interview…:  

_____Original Message_____
From: Bethany
Date: 2007-05-21 13:26:25
Subject:

Hi, John Allen,

I have been following ETL for a while, am 25 yo, female, sedentary lifestyle, 5′ 1 1/2", 13-15% body fat (per scales at night) and 95 -98 lbs.  I have a rather busy lifestyle with a full time job and daily commute of 1.5 hours as well as studying and taking the CPA exam.  My goals are toning and strength.

I have tried various exercise programs and have not found one yet that has fitted me perfectly.  I have just visited your site and really like the articles I have seen and the fact that you are an ETLer (that’s someone who has read and likes the guidelines of teh book "Eat to Live" by Joel Fuhrman M.D) Do you have any articles or books in which you recommend specific exercises?  One of these days I plan to have the money saved for your program.

Thanks in advance!

Bethany

Hi Bethany,

Bethany the only exercise or workout program that’s going to fit you perfectly, all the time, is the one YOU design. Workout porgrams and exercise programs are just "routines" that are created, given a name and sold. They have no magic power other than the power of the principles "in effect" behind the scene and the scope of movement that’s included. That’s where you want to focus.

That said, having some experience with commercial exercise programs is great because there are some pretty well designed routines out there, by some really experience people, and you can learn alot from them whether they fit you perfectly or not. They  help you break ground into new forms of movement. Once you get grounded in experience, you’ll be able to make up routines that incorporate these forms of movement into a Personal Fitness system, perfectly suited to you and your cirumstances.  

Essentially, once you are physically active on a regular basis, the result of a well managed lifestyle, you’ll want to include stability, strength and power training (muscular endurance or "cardio" training). This way you can move powerfully, free of risk of injury with well rounded fitness. Training and conditioning, though not mandatory for a long and healthy life, helps you look, feel and perform extraordinarily.  

Certainly as an ETL’er you have the food component of the Performance Lifestyle Formula really going for you. 

Personal Energy Management is where you need to focus (since you’ve been sedentary) and as you asked, getting good at adapting or creating exercise routines to fit you, your energy level and your readiness (the recovery factor) etc, anytime and all the time, is the skill you want to build.  

You will rarely find a book on exercise that will create a routine that will meet all those criteria. That’s why one of the concepts I teach at PerformanceLifestyle.com is "The Ultimate Trainer". The ultimate trainer is YOU, as you are the only person who really knows what’s best for you at any given time, when it comes to activity and exercise. You know you’re circumstances and you need to know them if you are going to have consistency working for you.

A couple good books, Core Performance, Outside Fitness, Functional Fitness, Body of Power… an of course The Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle, to Look, Feel and Perform Better (my book due out in another 2.5 months) where you’ll discover the Performance Lifestyle Formula.

You can also learn some at www.FitforPower.com for stability strength and more. There you’ll have links to great resources for creating a personalized fitness system that works for you anytime, anywhere, inluding links to "Workout Pass"… it’s fantastic!

I look forward to your participation in the Performance Lifestyle Training and Group Coaching Course to get the lifestyle formula working for you!

All my best

JAM

You know when I promote the Performance Lifestyle; some people think that you have to be an athlete an elite athlete or some other type of high achiever to benefit.

Let me ask you a question.

If you wanted to learn, self defense, who would you want to learn from, a green belt or a black belt? I think the answer is obvious.
Why is that? Because even though you may not intend to be a black belt, the black belt has lots of experience and knows how to teach you right. He or she knows technical application, practical application, and reality!

It’s the same with the Performance Lifestyle. There are those people who are healthy high achievers in sport or in various other occupations they are like the black belts. Like black belts there aren’t that many, but they are the people you want to seek out to learn how to unleash the full potential of your lifestyle to look, feel and perform better and achieve your goals in a healthy way. Who better to learn from than those who are achieving what you want and are healthy, energetic and fit at the same time.

You certainly don’t want to learn about resolving weight issues, from someone who is significantly overweight, or how to manage your energy from a manically exhausted person. You want to learn from those who know the game.

And even though you may have no intention of being at the top of your game, have little existing interest or experience in athletics, and may not even be a fitness enthusiast, mastering your lifestyle from people who are getting the results you want is the way to go.

Of course, if you do want to be at the top of your game and you want to stay healthy at the same time, there is no other solution than the Perforamance Lifestyle Solution.

I learned this over many years. Performance Lifestyle "brought it all together" for me and it will do the same for you.

Can you imagine everything just making sense? Well when it comes to lifestyle, an otherwise fluffy subject for most people, nothing will enable you to understand lifestyle, to get healthy fit and free than learn the Performance Lifestyle Formula.

John Allen Mollenhauer, Founder of PerformanceLifestyle.com for Your Health and Success.

By John Allen Mollenhauer, Founder, Performance Lifestyle.com 

The secret is out. I’m talking about the real secret of highly attractive who look, feel and perform better than most.

You may not know this about me, I have been an amateur athlete most of my life (mainly for fun), and even though my professional life has spanned entrepreneurial interests in and out of the health and fitness industries, much of my career has had nothing to do with health or fitness other than as a means to look, feel and perform at my best.

At one point, for nearly 8 years, I worked in high tech during the Internet Revolution and lost sight of the relationship between living an athletic life, my health, performance and success, and it cost me big time. You now know that I made the connection once again and that’s why today, I own a company called Performance Lifestyle Solutions, and founded www.PerformanceLifestyle.com to help other people avoid that dreaded downward trend that can drive you into the groud, overhwhelmed, exhausted and overweight.

Many health and fitness professionals are amateur or in some rare cases, former champion athletes. That is one of the driving reasons why we are in the profession of helping others improve their lifestyle and it’s also the reason why we all admire these people. They look, feel and perform better. We know what having a healthy high performing lifestyle does for us and we’re passionate about helping others get similar results.

Performance minded, we live and work in ways that respect, maintain and promote our health, our energy and fitness, because we know that everything we do and if we are going to do it well, depends on it. This results in a high level of attractivenss. I’m not just talking about "look", I’m talking abou feel and perform. When you connect with someone who not only looks healthy, but also feels it and has high levels of energy to performs well on top of it all, their attraction factor goes UP!

• My friend and mentor Alex Mandossian, one of the true champions of business and marketing, was once a professional cyclist and a national squash champion.
• Another friend and mentor Joel Fuhrman M.D was on the world championship figure skating team.
• My friend and mentor Michael Port, is a black belt in Tae Kwan Do.

This list could go on and on…

Why am I telling you this?

I’m telling you this because life and business success, are influenced by the athletic accomplishments of yesterday. I don’t just
mean, earlier in your life, I literally mean "yesterday".

• When you challenge yourself physically, you challenge yourself mentally.
• When you condition yourself physically, you condition yourself mentally.
• When you are healthy and fit physically, you are healthier and more mentally fit!

The parallels are endless and the mindset you learn in athletics is what inspires a Performance Lifestyle.
When you have a lifestyle that promotes health and success, you’re whole way of life changes, and so do your results.  

Athletes, otherwise known as healthy high achievers, all have healthy - high Performance Lifestyles. It’s what enables them to live and work they way they do. It’s what makes them so attractive.

They are high achieving largely because of their mindset and lifestyle and that is why they are in the 3% club.  If you don’t already know, the "3%" are the most fit people with high levels of health and success. These are the people who are admired for their health, energy and fitness, their ability to perform, their confidence and accomplishments.

They are the people whom we look at and wonder "how do they do it?" Now you know, they have Performance Lifestyles, the secret is out of the bag!

If you’re living on the downward trend of overwhelm, exhaustion and overweight, its pretty hard to be healthy and successful.
As Alex Mandossian says "health and fitness, in my opinion, are two keys of winning in business", or in any area of lives.

You see, with being athletic, there comes a mindset, it is called the Performance Lifestyle mindset. Your mindset affects how you think, live and work. People with Performance Lifestyles, think and live like athletes in almost everything they do, even if it has nothing to do with sports. If it requires energy, action and performance, they see it like playing a sport.

It’s not that winning is everything to healthy high achievers, it’s just that playing to win on all fronts of your life, not only works, it’s more fun.

It is the key reason why athletes avoid driving themselves into the ground and look, feel and perform better than the rest. It’s the reasonwhy they take care of themselves at the level they do and with such passion.

Do you want that mindset? Do you want to begin to unleash the full potential of your lifestyle to achieve better results in your life
and business? You don’t have to be a champion in any sport to do it. I’m not. You’ve read my story.

I now live a Performance Lifestyle because it enables me to look, feel and perform better than when I was all caught up being a
burnt out workaholic. I’m more confident and I’m accomplishing more than ever.

The same thing will happen to you. You don’t have to be an accomplished athlete, but beginning to develop this mindest is really powerful. You can do relatively easily. I’ll show you how.

If you haven’t read the special report, here’s the link www.performancelifestyle.com.

If you want to change your lifestyle successfully, unleash it’s full potential. This is the way to go. The inspiration, education and support you need to succeed, await you.

All you have to do is participate, and play. Join me for the next Performance Lifestyle Training and group coaching.