What’s the point of getting rich, having all kinds of money and time if you aren’t going to live to enjoy it?
This is the question that I am posing to anyone out there with an insatiable thirst for wealth that has let their health go by the wayside on their rapid ascent to the top.
I can’t help but stand by in wild wonder at all of the financially successful people I know that look absolutely uncomfortable (and probably feel that way too). Just about every high level manager at the companies I used to work for were woefully overweight. For some reason, a huge gut was a ‘badge of courage’ of sorts for working all the long hours and eating all the takeout food.
Unfortunately, many of the successful entrepreneurs and business owners in the business community where I currently live (Metro Detroit) and other cities I travel to are woefully overweight and out of shape.
As I look around, it seems like there has to be an inherent tradeoff between making money and being healthy. Is this really the case? Am I really to think that the only path to wealth is a body composition that resembles that of an orca whale?
When you look at this from a high level, I can only come to the conclusion of complete insanity. It is insane to neglect your health of the sake of a more dollars. If money is simply a means to an end (time, freedom, material things, etc.) then what sense does it make to raise the odds that you won’t enjoy the end result you have created? Sounds like a bunch of work, time, money and effort for nothing to me.
I would even submit that establishing a more healthy lifestyle would be more conducive to accumulating wealth. What if you were more effective in your investing or your job? What if you just felt more energy each day when you got up? What if your body rewarded you with better performance for treating it well? I think more wealth would flow as a result of this.
If being successful is a choice (it is), then lifestyle is a choice as well. I don’t think it’s an incongruous choice, either. Success is about more than money and material wealth. It’s about contributing- leaving the earth a better place because you were on it for short speck of time.
I guess it’s all a matter of what you decide to focus on. Although I can only control myself and my own actions- I am going to monitor this trend.
More on this in future posts.
