Effortless Thursdays #19: I have a confession
E19: We are blind to what's most important
Since I started publishing Effortless Thursdays in October 2022, I've pressed send every week.
I’ve surprised myself with my adherence to the schedule. Adherence is not one of my strengths.
I appreciate each and every one of you for allowing me to sprinkle ideas that make our journeys through life feel effortless, especially when we lead other people.
One of last week’s highlights was one of my friends, Mak, who writes
. He featured my article “What’s right with you?”, as one of the top pieces he came across on the internet in March. Thank you Mak 🙏🏻
But I think I’ve got it wrong.
I’ve been blind to what’s important to me, and I’ve not been writing about that. It feels like most editions of Effortless Thursdays have been missing a key ingredient.
Perhaps you’ve noticed what it is?
Maybe when you hear about what has been missing, you’ll choose to unsubscribe. I admit, I have some fear about this happening.
But from this week onwards, I’m re-calibrating the Effortless Thursday compass.
What have I been blind to?
I’ve not been talking about health.
I tried shock tactics early on, urging you to take action now, so that health is the foundation for all the success you have and want in your life, instead of stumbling across it like most of us when it’s almost too late.
Stop Almost Dying was a precursor article to launching Effortless Thursdays.
It reflected my internal frustration with how many of us high-achievers are suffering unnecessarily with sub-optimal health. We ache. We are tired. We can’t think clearly.
We live with those things as if “it’s normal”.
Even if we’re not “suffering”, so many of us are on seemingly inevitable (yet avoidable) paths to living with one or more chronic diseases later on in our lives. I’m talking especially about the ones that affect our most important asset: our brain.
Instead, I've been sharing tips, tricks and tools about everything other than health. I know from the comments, emails and DMs I receive, many of you have found them inspirational and useful to apply in your lives.
So I wrote about focusing on what's right (rather than what's wrong), helping us realise our differences aren’t a disadvantage, about loving ourselves more and being kind at work and at home
I’ve indulged your patience and shared:
my reflections on the lessons I've learned from making 2023 my year of presence
the benefits of trusting your three brains
a suggestion to do nothing.
Many of you loved this one, which is not really surprising given so many of us are excellent at getting things done
But I haven’t been writing about how we can easily harness our health for our success so that life feels effortless.
After all, what’s the point of tips, tricks and tools if we’re waking up feeling like shit, anxious about our health, or dreading that we’re coasting?
My fear
Some of you may not know that in addition to coaching professionals and creative entrepreneurs to achieve success that feels worth it, I also coach patients on how to thrive while living with chronic conditions: cancer, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, neurological conditions, MS, ADHD, and autoimmunity.
But those two client/patient spheres are colliding: my executive coaching clients are showing up with chronic conditions.
So, in all honesty, in re-calibrating to bring back health, I’ve been fearing that you’ll switch off. Get bored. Get confused. Unsubscribe.
I’ve seen it so many times before. Highly successful individuals pay lots of attention to everything else, other than their health.
Better health is something that:
“can wait”
“I’ll focus on when I retire”
“I can’t fit in because I’m too busy”
“requires me to change too much”
“is time-consuming”
But without health as a foundation we:
embark on careers that leave us with burnout
make decisions that we regret but have to live with
find ourselves coasting in work and at home, wondering if there's more that can speak to our hearts as well as our bank balances
My hope
The truth is health unlocks success.
Health is something that I’ve struggled with, too. In my 20s, I was blissfully unaware of the anti-health measures I was taking. After all, it would be easy in the future to outsource my responsibility for my health to a pill when the time came.
But for me, the pills stopped working early on. My psoriasis - an autoimmune condition - was getting worse. Medication was not offering a solution. That was my Stop Almost Dying moment. The moment when my life spun around and I started doing things differently.
My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2019. That alone makes health even more important on a personal level. Not least because my risk of getting Parkinson’s is greater unless I take action to prevent neurological decline.
I’ve seen how quickly his mobility deteriorated, and how the usual treatments prescribed for Parkinson’s can only buy more time. But they, too, tend to stop working.
Yet I’ve also seen how he has improved since adopting a Functional Medicine and Ancestral Health approach. His condition for the past year has been stable. His walking is faster than in 2019. He no longer suffers from hay fever, gout or acid reflux (without taking the medications he used to). And he’s able to cycle five miles on the gym bike at resistance level 6 and do a 14 kg cable pull. He’s 83.
He sees the other individuals at the gym with Parkinson’s deteriorating.
Seeing again
As I wrap up the last week of my first Effortless Leadership for Lawyers programme, I’ve seen the “health”-penny drop. This was what one of the Effortless Leaders said about what was useful in one of the sessions about health-first foundations:
“[it’s] connections, self-awareness and how health leads to Effortless Leadership. If I obtain the pillars of health, I can attain everything else”.
That’s exactly it!
Next week I’m joining Write of Passage for the second time. It’s an intensive, online 5-week course that teaches writers how to write and publish online. Joining Cohort 9 last October was the reason I started writing Effortless Thursdays. I’m hoping that Cohort 10 is going to help me refocus on what’s important, again, and make Effortless Thursdays even more relevant and useful for you.
I’ve been blind to health in my writing for too long.
As I was reminded by one of my fellow Cohort 10 classmates:
"The world we believe in becomes the world we live in. Our beliefs are not only self-fulfilling, they are world-building."
– The Myth of Normal, Gabor Mate
If we believe that as we grow old we’ll succumb to “diseases of old age”, if we continue to outsource responsibility for our health to our doctor or a pill, or if we continue to think “everything in moderation”, then that’s the world we will live in.
It’s my wish to help you be successful in whatever you’re doing in life - with joy and with a brain, mind and body that surprises you with its resilience and health span. You can be successful, and live to a ripe old age with your brain, mind and body not just intact, but thriving.
I still want to be climbing these 👇 when I’m 90.
This is the world I want to help you create. This is the world that can be your normal.
Are you ready?
Over to you!
I can’t make Effortless Thursdays more relevant and useful for you without you!
This week, I would love to hear your feedback.
What do you think of the re-calibration?
What would be most helpful for you to read more about?
What is the most pressing question you have?
What would you like clarity on?
If you share what your challenges are, and your insights, I’ll be sure to include responses to them in future editions.
That’s it for this week!
As always, I appreciate your feedback on Effortless Thursdays.
If Effortless Thursdays resonated with you, I'd be grateful if you told just one friend to subscribe. They and you can always unsubscribe using the link below.
What did you think of this week’s edition? How can I make it more useful to you? Let me know in the comments, by email, on Twitter or on LinkedIn.
To your health and success!
"What would be most helpful for you to read more about?" For me the answer is in alignment with what Michelle said. I want to read things that you most care about it. If it's health, then bring it on. I find that I am at my healthiest when I am taking the risk to engage and focus on what is most important to me in life, and I get enormous benefit from anyone who is demonstrating the bravery of focusing on what they are passionate about. So I love that you're recalibrating to follow your heart signal. I'm here because I get value from the author. The subject is secondary.
4 weeks ago, I had a similar realisation that I needed to change what I was writing about. I did lose some followers over the following 2 weeks which was painful. But now, I'm happier with my content now, even if less people read it.