Читать книгу The 7 Minute Leadership Handbook - Paul Falavolito - Страница 6

I can't even believe I am going to write anything about this topic, but I do have a story I would love to share with all of you. I, like many of you, have yo-yo'd up and down with weight from my mid-twenties until today. The times I have been focused on fitness and nutrition were honestly the times I felt my best mentally and my best physically. I have struggled with keeping on track with this for the last decade. It is my kryptonite. I think I don't have time to work out or eat healthy, but I do. I just don't want to, because fast food tastes so much better than a bag of broccoli, and meal prepping cuts into closing my nap rings. This is the one area of my life I need to put more focus on because quite honestly, I am tired of hiding in my clothing. For any of you who know me and want to know why I wear a hoodie when it's eighty degrees out, well, there you go.

So here's my point with this one. I used to be a gym fanatic. I would wake up at 4:30 every morning, go to LA Fitness and work out for two hours, then go to work. On my lunch break, I would head up to my boxing gym and get my boxing workout in and then go back to work. In the evening, I would either jog or go to my Jiu-Jitsu class. I was in the best shape of my life until one day while I was getting ready for work, I bent over to put my boots on and I heard, pop, pop, pop, and all of a sudden, I was flat on my back screaming in pain. The ER doctor told me I had herniated three discs in my lower back and that eventually I would need surgery. Being a medic, (and medics are the worst patients), I didn't like that, and I just succumbed to the idea that I would just deal with the pain the three or four times a year I would throw my back out. This certainly put an end to my boxing and my MMA training, and I just stopped caring about working out. I ate worse than I ever had and before I knew it, I hated the person in the mirror (challenge 1). We all know what we have to do. There are too many apps that make this easy for us. For me, it was an app called MyFitnessPal. One year not too long ago, on New Year’s Day, I woke up and made the commitment to start logging everything I ate and whatever walks I would try to take. I kept my calorie intake below or close to my goal and before I knew it, forty pounds flew off my body faster than I could say, "I'll take a number one with large fries." Less than six months later, after re-discovering the real taste of pasta again, the weight was coming back on and I could not get back on track.

Fast forward to 2016 when I was creating our Tactical EMS team. I needed to get back into shape quickly. As the leader of the team, I had to be the example of fitness because I had to take the same physical fitness test as everyone else who was trying out for the team. I started walking every morning, during lunch breaks, and after work for hours, and I mean for hours, on end. For three straight months, I easily walked over a thousand miles on the streets of White Oak, often coming home with a limp. Very quickly, that limp turned into excruciating pain and I could no longer put weight on that leg. Fast forward to the MRI and they showed me that in my right knee, more than half the cartilage was missing and I had a deep bone bruise. Injured by walking? You have got to be kidding me! The truth is, I knew I was overdoing it, but I loved exercising and never imagined you could injure yourself from walking. Leave it to me to expose that nasty truth. I did manage to complete my physical fitness test. I just hid the pain and discomfort from everyone. Our Tactical EMS team is now fully operational, and we have done several missions with our local police department and a handful with our county SWAT team.

So here I am today, attempting to claim that fitness and meal planning is important for leadership. It is – I know it is – and I can openly admit to all of you that if I had to do a self-leadership evaluation of myself, this would be the area that I would score myself the lowest in. Leadership isn't about being perfect; it's about being real. I have work to do, but I might not be that much more different from many of you reading this. We can do it; we know what we have to do. It's just about finding the motivation to do so. Yes, we all have the time to commit to this. Remember, the excuses begin and end with us.