The more healthy i am, the more healthy my business is.
Last week i met with my accountant and we looked at the numbers for june (and July so far).
It was notable the increase in sales (and related profitability) of the business for the past few months. Specifically the last 14 weeks.
For those of you who have been following my journey on instagram, that 14 weeks might ring a bell. You might realise that’s how long I’ve been making a concerted effort to focus on my health. (I almost typed out the phrase “health and safety” automatically there, and now that i think about it, that’s not wrong. I’ve been focusing on my personal health and safety!)
I’ve lost 22 pounds over that period of time, by:
- Walking every day
- Counting calories
- Having no sugar
That’s it. Those are the only requirements. I don’t go to a gym, I don’t work out (that may come, but for now I’m keeping it simple). I take at least one day off walking each week (sometimes two). I use the MyFitnessPal app to count calories, and I use the “I Am Sober” app to keep me motivated against my sugar addiction.
You can read all the detail on Insta (just go to the ‘health’ section of my profile), but it really is that simple.
At first I did it just to lose weight. I knew I needed to, was sort of horrified by what the scale told me on the 1st of April (no fooling), and knew I could be a healthier person all round.
I had a vague sense that I would probably feel better and have more energy too, but it was all about losing weight at the start. People said “it’s not about losing weight it’s about how you feel”, and I laughed and said “no, it’s about losing weight”.
And it was. At first.
The weight loss is nice. I like being able to just grab something from my closet and put it on and head out the door (not spend 30 minutes trying on sixteen different outfits and leave having selected the least-awful looking one, still feeling terrible about myself). I like being able to “shop my own closet” – I’ll wear a dress I haven’t worn for years and people say “is that new?”. No, but I am.
But after about the 12 week mark I started realising people were right. It isn’t, primarily, anymore about losing weight: because WOW, do I feel a lot better. I’ve got more energy. I’m walking over an hour a day when it was 20 minutes at the start. I’m happier. I feel lighter (in every possible way). I’ve got more brain power and emotional energy to work through the tough things.
I even realised this week that I watch less Netflix now. I used to watch a lot of it – almost an escape from the hard things in my life. I wouldn’t say my life has changed in terms of hard or not hard things – it’s my attitude that’s different. I don’t mind going to bed at 10 or 11pm when I’m tired, rather than staying up past midnight and then getting up late and vicious cycle. (That’s probably because I’m eating less, so I’m not adding false energy by overeating late at night.)
So even on its own, for those reasons alone, it’s been amazing.
And then I met with my accountant and realised that as a direct result of my decisions and actions relating to my physical health, my business has a better financial health.
The correlation is almost spooky. You can literally start tracking the improvements almost instantly – or at least within a few weeks of my starting this journey.
I started thinking about why that is. After all, I’ve got an auto immune disease (called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or M.E.) and it means my immune system is pretty poor generally, and tends to get everything coming down the pipeline. I’ll have low energy days and be really worn out from traveling or other high-effort things. So it was fairly normal for me to have to take a day here or there, or if I got sick it would affect me worse than most people and it would take me several days or a week to be truly better. I’d have to miss a few appointments, shift things around. My attention was a little fuzzy and I’d need to put things off.
None of that has been the case over the last 14 weeks. I’ve had a few low energy days, but it was just that – a day. And I still managed to keep my appointments or run my webinars or whatever I needed to do. I got a cold, and hay fever, and I had some weird virus thing for a few days – but it didn’t floor me the way it used to.
I’m spending more time with the team, and responding to small issues quicker. I’m thinking deeper about where this business is going and how we can be world-class, not just good. I’m facing up to some hard things but not feeling burdened by them. I’m saying no, from time to time – to myself or to my team, if need be – so we can get better. I’m saying yes, to the right things, so we can get better.
We’re focusing more on sales. We’re having trainings and evaluating our activities and talking about why this quote got accepted and that one didn’t. I’m having real honest conversations with prospects who said no, and finding out why they really didn’t choose us – and whether there was anything we could do about it, or whether they weren’t a fit.
As a specific example, there was a day a week or two ago in which I had a lot of meetings, and I was pretty worn out. I was tempted to see if the person I was meeting could move our call to Friday (three days further out). But I thought no, I’m not unwell, I’m just kind of low energy. I’ll go ahead.
The call was really encouraging (for me and, i trust, for them), and they ended up signing up for a triple workshop (to go through brand, website, and marketing plan). That’s a £1495 project with a deposit which was paid that day.
And I suddenly saw why the last 14 weeks were so much more profitable. It’s not that we’re “selling more” or we’ve added so many new products (although we have added the new Do-It-Yourself Onboarding kit which is selling really well) – but it’s more that because I’m feeling physically better, there are fewer delays. I act faster, so the team acts faster, so our clients and prospects can act faster, and everyone wins.
My personal health affects my business health.
We know it’s true, conceptually. But when you literally see it in the numbers – you actually see them going up in a direct correlated path to my physical health numbers – it’s truly mind blowing stuff.
So what I’d love to hear from you today is…
How’s your physical health?
As always, by replying you aren’t necessarily asking for an answer from me. It’s just a conversation – use me as a thought-processing-journal, for a few minutes. How’s your physical health?
It’s a question that’s really important, because the implications are massive.
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