Taking Control of Your Physical Health

Taking Control Of Your Physical Health If someone asked you to create a list of the most important things in your life, what would be on that list? Would it include family, friends, Love, compassion, knowledge, financial security? These things are all very important and obvious choices for many people. A “CEOWORLD” magazine readers survey asked a similar question in the following manner: “What is the most important thing in life money can't buy?” It is interesting, and somewhat surprising, to note that, “Good Health,” was NOT one of the twenty-five readers responses listed in the survey! What makes this so surprising is that good health is, arguably, one of the greatest and most valuable assets we can possess throughout our lives. Unfortunately, like many other things in life, it is also something we often take for granted. That is, until we lose it!

Mario Lemieux is, unquestionably, one of the greatest hockey players ever to play the game. He is also one of the greatest examples of a professional athlete losing his health to a potentially life-ending disease, overcoming it, and successfully returning to his sport. In January of 1993, the Pittsburgh Penguins were midway through their season and Mario was in the process of potentially manufacturing, one of the greatest individual seasons any professional hockey player had ever produced. It was also the point in time at which Mario was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease. After surgery to remove the enlarged lymph node from his neck, and over the course of the next two months, he would endure 20 days of radiation treatments. It was a very challenging time for Mario but, remarkably, on March 2, 1993, the day of his last radiation treatment, he returned to the ice and played against the Philadelphia Flyers. During the second period of that game, he would not only score his 40th goal of the season, but also garner an assist on Kevin Steven’s goal. Mario would go on to perform even better at the tail-end of the season than he did in the first half, and ultimately won both the league scoring title and MVP award. Unfortunately, by the end of the ’93-94 season, residuals from the radiation treatments, combined with a July 1993 back surgery and chronic lower back pain, caused Mario to choose to skip the ’94-95 season in order to rest and recuperate. An excerpt taken from an interview Lemieux did during the ’95-96 season with Karen Guregian, reads as follows, "If you have a second chance to do something you love, you appreciate it more," Lemieux says. "Sometimes you take it for granted, but when you miss it for a year and are able to come back, you feel different." Mario learned the hard way not to take something for granted.

In a perfect world, we would all be smart enough to recognize this and use his experience as an example to not take our own personal health for granted. Unfortunately, many of us do not! Rather than rising to become proactive individuals who take direct control of our physical health, some of us sink, and become apathetic individuals who become experts at making excuses for why we don’t. The internet is full of lists of the many excuses people use to avoid exercise. The Mayo Clinic has even produced a compilation of the top 5 fitness barriers (I still call them “excuses”) for exercise and how they can be overcome. Their list includes the following:

1. “I don't have enough time to exercise.”
2. “I think exercise is boring.”
3. “I'm self-conscious about how I look when exercising.”
4. “I'm too tired to exercise after work.”
5. “I'm too lazy to exercise.”

Unfortunately, our society has become a “You Fix Me” society. Ask any number of doctors and most will tell you that many of the patients they see want the doctors to “fix” them, by prescribing pills and medicines for all their ailments, including being overweight and out of shape, rather than taking an active role in their own health care. It might be an inconvenient truth but, the simple fact of the matter is, if you want great physical health, YOU must be willing to take control and do it yourself. No one can do it for you!

I firmly believe that elite athletes like Mario Lemieux, as well as highly successful CEO’S, business owners, coaches, musicians; ultimately, anyone who has achieved paramount success in his or her field of endeavor, have certain attributes in common. I call these attributes, “The 4 D’s of Success.” They are, in no particular order, Discipline, Dedication, Drive and Desire. These attributes function, not only as the building blocks of the foundation upon which any successful endeavor is built, but also as the components of the vehicle which carries one to that success. They are particularly important in formulating the optimal mindset and plan for taking control of your own personal physical health.

In future blogs, we will examine these attributes and learn how each one will contribute to the overall success of YOU ultimately taking control of your health.