PPI #31: Achieve your Best in Your Health, Wealth and Relationships

Do you ever feel like things are quite imbalanced in life? That all of your progress and attention and effort feels like it's too much on work or your career or wealth creation? And maybe your relationships are feeling kind of hurt or neglected, or maybe your health is completely off and you feel like, I'll get around to it someday, but now is just not the right moment. And that story keeps going over and over and over. Well, here's the thing. Unless you make a correction to this, your whole life is going to pass you by and you're going to just be focused on work. Your relationships will suffer and ultimately you neglecting your health will not lead to a vibrant life or a long or very fulfilling life in the worst case. And that's something that I've directly experienced myself. My name is Eric Partaker and I help CEOs, entrepreneurs and individuals just close that gap between who they are and who they're capable of being. But not just on the work front, also on the health and the home fronts, not just on that wealth front, but also on the health and the relationship front. And I learned this the hard way because I used to be absolutely obsessed with achievement, working 100 plus hour work weeks at McKinsey & Co. Helping scale up Skype before we sold it to eBay for $4 billion back in 2004. And then while building several of my own businesses and it culminated for me in a near heart attack and, and it was a real wake up call, right. I realized that.

I had to do something differently. I had to make sure that I wasn't just all pedal to the metal on the work front, that I was also prioritizing those most important to me, that I was also looking after my health. And I know what you might be saying right now, you might be saying, yeah, but the time isn't right. And that's exactly what I felt too. And the time almost ended for me. So I don't want you to make the same, to make the same mistake that I made and wait too long thinking that the time must just be exactly right for you to start working on creating a more balanced, satisfied life across multiple dimensions. So today I want to give you a few tips for how you can do exactly that. Bring a lot more balance to your life, show up as your best. Not just on the work or the wealth fronts, let's call it, but also on your own personal health, also on the relationship home fronts. Because when I work with high performing leaders, when I dig deep down, they just don't want to Be high performing leaders or entrepreneurs or managers or business people or career people. Deep down, they also want to be fit and healthy. Right? They also want to be great spouses and parents or friends. And that's normal, right? Because our life is multifaceted. Sigmund Freud, he said that as human beings, we seek to improve or constantly optimize two things in life, our work and our love. And to that though, we need to add our health. Right? Right. There's a reason why health, wealth and relationships. If you didn't know this, there's a reason why they're the three most searched topics on the Internet. Because these are the things that consume us the most. These are the things that we most want to optimize in life. So I'm going to take you through a simple framework today that's going to help you do exactly that. That's going to help you set powerful goals in the areas of life that matter most. So you can close that gap between who you are and who you're capable of being, not just with your work, but also with your health and with your home. And the first step is making sure that we're considering things from the right vantage point. What I mean by that is when we typically set goals across our health, wealth or home or relationship fronts.

We often don't conjure up the best version of us. Right. We often think of setting those goals as we are today. And what I would encourage you to do first is to really think, what does the very best version of you look like on the work front? Give that version of you a name. You know, what's the phrase? You know? For me, it's world's best coach. That's who I think of myself on the work front. Also on the health front, what does the very best version of you look like? Give that version of you a name. For me, it's World Fitness Champion. And then on the home or the relationship front, what does that version of you look like? You know, how does that version of you behave? Give it a name, give it a phrase. For me, it's world's best husband and father. You can see a theme here. I'm going for world's best. Now, do I truly believe that I'm a World Fitness champion, World's best coach, World's best husband and father. As if I'm going to get a trophy from planet Earth being awarded as literally the, the best on the planet in those areas? No, of course not. That's not the point though. Point is, is that unless I have something high to shoot for. I won't be setting the right goals. I won't set my goals from the right vantage point. And what I'm trying to drill into you here is that when it comes to setting goals in the areas of life that are most important to us, we must first begin by defining, well, what does the best version of us look like in each of those areas? That's the starting point.

Second thing is make sure, as I've been saying, that you're doing it across all three areas. We tend to, if, you know, set our goals just focused on work, or we might read some tips and tools and techniques out there that encourage us to define all the roles and various responsibilities in life, which can be nearly endless, and set goals across all of those categories. So on the one side, just thinking about goal setting from a work point of view is quite limiting, right? It's going to lead to burnout and a sense of you won't be fulfilled and your health might be sacrificed, as will your relationship, but on the other hand, you're trying to do too much.

Health, wealth and relationships, or thinking about your health, or you can call it work and home front. Those three areas, it really is like the 8020 of life improvement. It's focusing on 20% of all the areas you could focus on that will create 80% of the benefit in your life.

So first point is, what's the correct vantage point to be setting goals from? And as I said, it's to think of what does the very best version of me look like in life. Second point is think of that very best version of you and give it a name in the three most critical areas of life. The 8020 for life improvement, which is the health, work and home fronts, or health, wealth and relationship fronts. And let me give you an example of how I've recently done this with myself, so you can see how to apply this. So on the health front, my identity there is World Fitness Champion. I have a goal. In the next year, I'd like to get down to 10% body fat and weigh about 190 pounds for multiple reasons. When I was younger, you know, 20 years ago, it used to be because I wanted to, you know, look great with a pair of swimming trunks on. Honestly, that's not the objective right now. It's because I know that there are so many health benefits with having your body fat under control and, you know, having that weight, weight to height ratio under control. And for me, that's about £190. Now, what I would encourage you to do Is once you have your identity in each area, health, have that version of you decide, well, what could you achieve in a year's time? So working back to what I just said, that version of me, I asked that version of me, world fitness champion, what could you achieve in the health department? And it was that version of me that said 10% body fat, 190 pounds. It wasn't me, it was that higher, better version of me. Within health, the next thing that you do is ask yourself, what's the number one thing that you can start doing and the number one thing that you can stop doing to help you achieve that goal? What the best version of you would achieve in that area? The number one thing I could start doing is reinstall my five times a week workout routine. And the number one thing I can stop doing is stop eating sugar. Next thing on the wealth front, or the work front, if you want to call it that, I set my identity. What's my identity? World's best coach, I asked that version of me, what could you achieve in a year's time if you were the world's best coach, what would that version of me achieve? That's very, very different than if I just went straight into the goal setting as me, myself, that version of me said, well, we've created a coaching business that got to a million dollars a year. Now let's create a general thought leadership business that can get to a million dollars a year. What do I mean by thought leadership? A business that doesn't just rely on one on one coaching, a business that has digital courses, membership programs, other products that can be purchased. Now, I know that if I'm operating and behaving from the vantage point of that best self, world's best coach, that that goal is certainly achievable. And then I ask again, that identity, well, what's the number one thing that I should start doing and what's the number one thing that I should stop doing? And the number one thing that I should start doing is create content as I'm doing right now. And the number one thing I should stop doing, I realized, was taking meetings in the morning. Why? Because it actually, actually relates to the start doing thing as well. When I take meetings in the morning, it gets in the way of my ability to both consume and create valuable content. Last but not least, on the relationship front, what's my world, you know, what's my identity? There it's world's best husband and father. And I asked that version of me, what would you create in a year's time. What could you achieve? And that version of me said well, without any issue or problem, I could make our dream home kind of family living situation come true. What's the number one thing to start doing on that front? It's to make sure that we're installing as like a bit of a team meeting me and my wife on a weekly basis time where we're regularly working against that dream. And then the number one thing to stop doing is just a typical habit we've been in lately where we kind of deal with that dream seeking and the goals associated with that in spurts and chunks and not making regular progress and then sometimes falling behind.

The point here is that if you really think about the vantage point of your best self across the areas of life that matter most, ask that version of you to set goals. What that version of you could achieve in 12 months time, ask that version of you in each of those areas. What's the number one thing to start doing? What's the number one thing to stop doing? If you pursue life in this way, you won't play or live a small life. You will be playing into and stepping into a much bigger life and going back to the balance point. You won't feel that it's all about work. You'll feel that you're also doing your best, showing up and behaving as you know. You could be also on the health and the relationship fronts, or the health and the home fronts if you want to call it that.

You really can take your life to the next level. It's just about getting it up here and using the right tips, techniques and tools to help you think about things a bit differently. I hope you enjoyed this and if you want to head over to my website@ericpartaker.com you can also subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Thank you.