Healthy High Achiever Blog

Part 1 

Are you combating the negative effects of your lifestyle by eating less and exercising more? Or, are you addressing the lifestyle that is promoting over eating and inactivity…?

You can only deal with the primary causes of weight gain at the level of lifestyle. Everything else is an attempt at manipulating your current condition for a short term gain and the results of this approach are well documented.

Do you ever wonder why diets and fad exercise programs don’t work for you? Do you wonder why you start off good for a week or so but then the big plan fails and you feel even worse than you did before?

The high protein/low carbohydrate fad was the classic example of manipulation. Millions of overweight people, addicted to super stimulating junk foods, stopped eating refined carbohydrate and started eating no-carb animal protein to manipulate the storage of carbohydrate in their body to lose weight.

This so-called “solution”, while beneficial in the sense that less junk food was being consumed, replaced an already unhealthy way of life with another (consuming large amounts of high fat, nutrient poor animal protein) to lose weight. In the end, this does not lead to a healthier person. You are replacing one bad habit with another and this doesn’t really get you anywhere further into the downward trend.

Where in this grand misdirected project was there any talk of the lifestyle that was giving rise to the consumption of junk food to begin with? Or talk about food quality? The discussion was about weight loss and was non-existent. Meanwhile millions of people struggled, got sick, including Atkins himself (who died) and gave up. This is discouraging to anyone who hopes they can break free of this downward trend. But there is hope out there- once you discover the real problem.

Part 3: The real Problem 

How do you view your lifestyle?

Is it simply an aspect of your life? Or do you see it as the way in which you achieve your goals?

Are you achieving your goals with your health and well being in tact or are you driving yourself down?

These are fundamental questions that Healthy High Achievers have asked themselves, though not necessarily in that way.

When it comes to lifestyle your frame of mind is everything, it starts with how you look at it.

I’m perplexed when I here people say something like, "I’ve got my finances in order or my business in order and now it’s time to take care of myself more, or now I’ve got to eat better, or exercise", as if heath and fitness was a slice of your life. It’s not, it’s the core. Every thing else you do, depends on it.

Health High Achievers, those people who achieve their goals with their health and wellbeing intact looking, feeling and performing better than the rest see things differently than the rest.

John Allen Mollenhauer

You’ll notice at the top of the brower it says, the Lifestyle that works for YOU, the achievement of your goals and thew world around you. There are many reasons why we describe Performance Lifestyle this way, but one of them really hit me square in the face this morning as I kick off the New Year.

For one, having reviewed the new video - the Story of Stuff, I am remined how many times each day I talk with people who, for purposes of weight loss for example, are being told to eat foods that literally rape our planet of its resources. They think the foods they are eating are helping them, but really, all they are doing is "losing weight" and ultimately their plan does not work for the achievement of their goals.

You can just imagine what I’m talking about.

When it comes to how we live and how we achieve our goals there is usually a way that is great for you, the achievement of your goal and those around you, including the planet we live on. It’s usually the right way. But so many of us are caught up in a system that keeps us stuck, and compromises our health… chaising our tale in a world designed to keep us consuming.

To learn more about what I’m talking about watch this video.  Beyond managing your energy, eating and exercise and all other aspects of a Performance Lifestyle, this video will give you an understanding of the bigger picture. 

First, yes you can have a 4 hour workweek. It’s all how you set it up!  

The funny thing about this conversation between Tim Ferris and Donny Deutsch is that it really didn’t get to the point. Both realities from Tim and Donny were true. It’s not that one is right and the other is wrong, or that Tim’s any smarter than Donny, for only working "4 hours" a week (which I don’t think is true a good portion of the time, especially now that there’s a book in play that’s changing the world), or that Donny is smarter than Tim for working 70.

Tim’s learned how to set his lifestyle up so that he can be mobile and balanced. Tim has a unique business. It’s a fully automated product business (I believe its nutritional supplements) and he’s leveraged outside service providers to enable him to get free of his business’s day to day grind. A bunch of other saps, NOT living a 4-hour work week are doing all the work. And honestly, it took Tim Ferris more than 4 hours a week to set it all up. So you have to keep this in mind.

Is it a multi-bullion dollar company? No. It’s an automated business selling stuff. Yes. Donny’s not doing that, he’s running a multi billion dollar ad agency and a TV show and that takes more than 4 hours per week run that kind of business.

Is Tim’s core business changing the world? No. But I can tell you writing the 4 Hour Work Week, which is changing the world, and doing media takes more than 4 hours per week. But he says that in the book! And I paraphrase…if you’re going to change the world, it will likely take you more than 4 hours per week.

Tim’s talking about creating businesses that sell stuff that you can fully automate to free up space and time to experiment with living your life the way you want. And, you can apply these principles whether you work only 4 hours per week or not, to simply live a better quality life.

Most people wouldn’t know what to do with the other 56 or so hours a week. It would fill up quickly; with other life and business pursuits as Donny talked about. But I don’t think that’s the point of the Four Hour Work Week book, or Tim’s pure and powerful message. He’s showing people how to experiment with a better lifestyle design leveraging a certain kind of business model.

Streamlining and Simplifying is a big part of a Performance Lifestyle that works for you AND the achievement of your goals. But the objective is to free up as much space and time as you need, to take care of yourself at the level you need, perform at your best and have the quality of life you want.

If you want to work 60-hours a week and you love it, Rock and Roll! There’s nothing wrong with that. 

Everyone’s life and lifestyle is going to be different and only a certain number of people are going to be successful or even able to realize a “4-hour” workweek let alone something close to that. After all, who’s going to be left to support your 4-hour workweek if everyone’s working a 4 hour work week? Eventually we’d all have to say "*&^%$#-" it, I’m not working!

I personally don’t think I’ll ever work only 4 hours per week, or that I have a business where that’s even possible. But the idea has gotten me to think differently, and I’m already minded this way. I’m taking my Performance lifestyle design to new levels!

After all that’s what Healthy High Achievers do.