In shape

When was the last time you asked yourself a hard question? Not about what to wear today or where to go on holiday in summer. These may appear hard in the moment but ultimately they are easy. A question about yourself. Are you in shape? Right now, are you physically capable, mentally sharp, emotionally stable, and metabolically healthy enough to sustain the life you’re building? It’s deep, you know I like depth! The reality here is that many of us are trying to build happy lives or high performing companies whilst living in low performing bodies. Simply put, it does not work.

There was a time when being ‘in shape’ was just normal. People ate well, moved often and looked ready. It wasn’t extreme. It wasn’t niche. It was just normal. There was even a mainstream magazine called ‘Shape’. It sat on coffee tables in homes around the world. The message was simple: take care of your body. Take care of your mind. Strive to be better. Very simple, very normal and of course ultimately very enjoyable.

How are we doing in the present day? That cultural standard seems to have shifted. The needle has moved and sadly not massively in our favour. Globally, adult obesity has more than doubled since 1990. Around 16% of adults worldwide now live with obesity, and more than 40% are overweight. In the United States alone, over two in five adults are obese.

Diabetes tells a similar story. In 1990, roughly 200 million people lived with the disease. Today, it’s over 800 million. That’s not a small demographic, it is more of a global crisis. You may be sat thinking I am referring to a cosmetic issue here. That is part of it for sure but it is way bigger. What we are facing are performance, leadership and longevity issues.

We are slowly becoming a sloth race. We sit more, move less, sleep poorly, eat for convenience and medicate stress with alcohol, drugs (both recreational and prescription) screens and distractions. We think by earning more we can buy our way out. The old adage of throwing more money at the problem does not work here. In fact quite the opposite, it accelerates decline in its pursuit. The long hours, the high pressure, constant travel and endless decision fatigue. 

People are conveniently forgetting that you can build a nine-figure company and still be metabolically fragile. You can command a boardroom and still struggle to climb stairs without losing breath. You can optimise business systems while completely neglecting your biological system. But eventually biology wins.

Think of performance as more of a biological reality.  If your sleep is compromised, your cognition drops. If your blood sugar is unstable, your focus fluctuates. If your body is inflamed, your recovery shortens. If your nervous system is fried, your leadership suffers. That is the proven science, simple physiology.

The standard intervention is more hype, trying to wring more dopamine out of an already dry towel in the hope that driving people financially will work. The solution lays elsewhere. People need structure, simplicity and above all robust systems for their body and mind like they have for their business. The formula for sustained human performance remains primarily in identity of self and optimisation of fundamentals lead to long term health and resilience. What if we focussed on nutrition, sleep, movement, recovery and mental health as workplace KPI’s or better still consistent habits that we know compound over decades.

The counter argument is interesting as life expectancy is increasing, people earn more money and generally have more things than ever before. Surely that is success you may think? The reality is we no longer die fast, we die slow. We are in decline. There are warning signs all over the place but we have developed an art of ignoring them and applying band aids of various descriptions all over the place.

Our energy dips, we have more stimulants to keep it high. We experience brain fog so we take a tablet to clear it. We are less patient with ourselves and others so we withdraw to try and deepen our focus. Our emotional regulation is reduced so we block our feelings. The list goes on and because it is a big one that slowly chips away at us we don’t feel the severity of each signal. These things erode us slowly and sometimes quietly. The changes are subtle. Nothing changes massively overnight. There is an acceptance of phrases such as “This is just what 45 feels like.” No. It’s what untrained biology feels like.

Efficiency in many areas of life has been boosted by outsourcing over the past two decades. We delegate strategy, hire a CFO, outsource marketing to an agency. All great moves to create space to do deep work in areas that we enjoy and are good at. The same equation does not work when it comes to our health, much though many would wish for it to. You cannot outsource your mitochondria. You cannot hire someone to sleep for you. You cannot delegate your daily movement. You cannot assign stress management to your assistant.

The hard truth that many know but are unwilling to act on is that if you are not in shape, you are operating below potential. At all levels of leadership, perhaps more so at the higher levels, small deficits compound into large consequences. Decision quality drops. Presence drops. Longevity drops.

Right now, truly healthy, resilient, capable humans have become the minority. Shape magazine is no longer a feature on coffee tables. It may be late in the day but if you have got this far in this piece there is hope for you I am sure. Not hope in more biohacks or transformation programs. Hope through simplicity. Daily walks, deep sleep, eating real food, training our minds, resistance training, space to recover, sitting in environments with people that are or are actually striving to stay in shape.

The six pack ads seem not to appeal to many anymore. Shelve them if you wish. Think of this more as durability, the long game. The ability to lead, a family, a company, yourself for 20-30 more years without your body becoming the limiting factor. The ability to stand up from your bed in the morning and truthfully say “I feel great”.

If you liked my sloth reference earlier let’s stay with that and think of this as a move from a sloth race back to a resilient race. Back to humans who think clearly, endure stress, recover quickly, workout, look like fit and strong humans physically and live free and happy lives.

We are on the cusp. It is not too late. The narrative of being too old, too busy or too something else are just BS narratives. The real issue is we are reconditioned and undertrained, but that can change if we want it to. First the mindset has to change, the fire has to be started, the desire has to exist, identity must be revisited.

We have the capacity to move from the minority of the population being in shape back to the majority, from decline back to prioritising health and ultimately enjoying the benefits that come with it. The time for change is now, the flame still burns but soon it will go out as the norms shift and minority continue to decline to a select bunch of freaks that actually take care of themselves.

Like everything in life, it’s a choice. I hope you make the right one.

No Weakness.
Marcus