MBA2116 What Getting Sick Taught Me As a Business Owner

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Foreign. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA Show Business insights you can count on every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and in today's episode you will learn what getting sick like taught me as a business owner. I was sick as a dog for about 10 days. If you follow me or have been following the show for some time, you probably know I don't get sick that often. I actually actively try to not get sick, to stay healthy, to eat right, to exercise constantly, to get enough sleep. But I got one of the worst infections ever and it leveled me for a good number of days. I want to share with you some of the big lessons I learned in that experience. How that period impacted me as an entrepreneur have impacted my business had me rethink a lot of things. My hope is by sharing this it'll get you to start thinking, to make a few tweaks, some changes to your lifestyle and business so that you don't experience some of the troubles or worries or anxieties I had. You've probably heard it a million times. You as the founder of the business are the Leader of the business. So who you are and how you are is really a reflection of your business, and vice versa. So let's get into it. Get down to business. Hey, Fidelity. How can I remember to invest every month? With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs. Huh. That sounds easier than I thought. You got this? Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys? You will find them where you left them. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE SIPC so for about 10 days, I was totally leveled. I had one of the worst sinus and colds. Basically, I had an infection that was like the hyperversion of a cold. I got tested for Covid. I didn't have Covid. I didn't have the flu. It was just literally. I was tested positive for what's called the rhinovirus, which is the virus that causes a cold. But it was just like a cold that was nuclear. And you probably could still hear it in my voice. I'm still not fully recovered, but for those days, I was incredibly weak. I had massive headaches, I was sneezing, I was coughing, I had major sinus pressure and runny nose, and you name it, the gamut. Where I really didn't see much progress. I went to the doctor, I got tested, they put me on antibiotics, all that kind of stuff. Nothing helped. But, hey, I knew that it wasn't a terminal disease. I was going to survive if I just gave it the time and rest it deserved. And as rough as it was to be kind of leveled, I started to take note of the things I'm learning in this experience, and I want to share with you. The first one is probably obvious, but it's worth stating. There is a lot of truth in the statement that health is wealth. Without your health, you have nothing. You can't do anything. You can't use your life, you can't use your time on this earth. You can't use your money. You can't do anything if you don't have your health. And as soon as you start feeling ill or you're unable to live your life normally because of a sickness, you start to realize, wow, I really value my health. They say a healthy person wants for thousands of things, and a sick person only wants one thing, and that's their health. Because health robs you of your time, robs you of your abilities, your choices, your options, your happiness, a lot of things. So you really should prioritize health. I'm pretty healthy Generally, I don't get sick that often. I could probably remember the last time I was this ill was maybe, you know, half a dozen years ago. So I go through long periods of time, years upon years, where I am, I'm not sick at all. And I think, and I hope it's because I try to take care of my health on a regular basis. It's an investment. It's a lot of time to actually go and exercise four to five times a week, to eat right, to shop well and shop for good food, to sleep well, to be mindful of your stress levels and reduce stress, to make time to calm your nerves, whether it's meditation or yoga or maybe reading or just enjoying nature. These things cost time, money, all that kind of stuff. But I kind of just see it as an investment because I do that. And for years I feel great and I'm okay. So for me, it's a good trade off. And I highly recommend you do that because on a personal level, your quality of life is so much higher. Now, if you get sick like I did, sometimes you just can't avoid it. I probably would chalk this up to the fact that my immune system probably wasn't as strong as it used to be, because, hey, we've been wearing masks and rubbing our hands with hand sanitizer and kind of staying away from people for the last couple of years. Not really been exposed to a lot of, you know, the normal elements that we were normally exposed to. But that's neither here nor there. Still got to learn the lessons of the value of health. The other thing is that when you feel good, you do good, you actually perform better, you come up with better ideas, you make better decisions, you're better for your team, you're a better leader, you're a better speaker, you're a better performer. There's so much that goes with it. Imagine trying to speak on stage when you're not feeling 100%. Imagine trying to rally your team in a meeting when you got a pounding headache. It's hard to pull it off. Business is hard as it is. You need to increase the likelihood of success as much as possible. And one of the ways to do that is to feel great and to be healthy. Now, I know that for some people, this is a challenge. Maybe they have an uphill climb to go. Maybe they need to lose some weight or get into shape, and everybody knows their situation. But it doesn't change the fact that we all need to make an investment in our health every single day if we want to reap the benefits. So that was takeaway number one, about how valuable health is to me and my business. Number two, so important to have some buffer in your life, in your business. Meaning if you step away from the business because you have to, like I was, can it continue to go on? Do you have a team that can carry the load? What about your content? Will it continue to get published? Are you ahead? Are you batched up? Do you have the systems in place for every everything to go smoothly without you getting involved? That was kind of reconfirmed when I was sick, but also it highlighted some cracks in our systems, cracks in our procedures, in my own production schedule. What I'm producing or how much I'm producing, it made me realize, okay, maybe we need actually more of a buffer. I was out for 10 days. It was really hard for me to be able to produce any kind of content in 10 days. But what if it was 20 days or 30 days? Would I still be able to take that time off? And I want to tell you guys, we don't like to think about these things, but this is a possibility. It's actually not unlikely, as you might think, where you need to take care of your health for 30 days, you're unable to do the work, whether you need to do surgery. Maybe you're fighting some sort of problem in your health that requires you to be in hospital. Doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter what your current health situation is. You know, you might see yourself as healthy, but you still can fall into a situation that requires you to step away from the business, and you need to make sure your business doesn't suffer in the process. That was takeaway number two. Takeaway number three. I had too much going on, period. Right. I realized how much in my life, in my business, in my extracurricular world I had going on, I had really zero slack in my schedule, Meaning I had appointments, I had meetings, I had interviews, I had meetups with friends, I had basketball. I was going to my gym appointments. I had a very full schedule, which may be a good idea when you're in top health. But when I couldn't do any of that stuff, I realized how much I had to cancel and how much I'm stretching myself to the max. There's no, you know, free time. So I thought, I need to start incorporating some free time. What can I cut out for my schedule from my recreational life, from my social life, from my business life that can allow me to just have time to do nothing? Free time. I know that sounds Crazy or sounds like a little bit out there. But I'm the kind of person that likes to be committed to things. Meaning I don't like missing my games in my basketball league, even if it's once or twice a season, I want to make sure I go to every game. If I can't make every game, I need to reconsider. If I can make this commitment, my team is relying on me and if I can't commit to that, that's a problem. I know that this is kind of a spur of the moment you got sick. It's not like predicted. And I'm not saying all the activities I canceled because of that were like superfluous. No, I'm saying that I realize how packed my schedule is when I had to cancel each thing. And I realized maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself, on my own body, on my own sanity, on my own mental health by putting too much on my calendar and just having a little bit more gap. Not saying wipe my calendar clean of all activity, saying maybe take a look and let's cut off 25% and allow a little bit of fluff time, a little room just in case. What if there's traffic? What if I'm busy? What if I get a call where I need to take because it's important, because it's my family and I can't do it? Just some wiggle room. Sometimes for the sake of productivity or feeling like we're crushing life, we just put so much on our plate and I realize I need to kick it back a little bit.

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One more big takeaway I want to share with you from my ten days of crazy illness. And that is as crazy as it was, it could be a whole lot worse. When you're sick, you just hate it. It's frustrating. You just want to get up and go and feel good again and have your normal life back. But I realized in that incapacitated state to some extent that people have it really a whole lot worse for the rest of their life. Amputees, people that have no ability to use their brain to think or not have the same abilities as you normally would because of an accident or some sort of injury. People that are sick with no in sight, chronic diseases, people that are terminally ill that the chances are so slim and that they're going to make it. And having that perspective and gratitude to some extent helps you get through tough times because you start to realize, okay, it's bad, but it could be a whole lot worse. I'd rather be doing this, this than this, but it could be a whole lot worse. And as entrepreneurs, we tend to want to demand from ourselves more. We want more from life, more from ourselves and our business. And we tend to kind of look at how could I be better? Rather than think about, well, it actually could be a whole lot worse. So it gave me pause, gave me a chance to realize, hey, this is rough and this is not great, but it's actually not that bad. And I really believe in life, you will be humbled. Okay, not once, not twice, a few times. You know, I would say even several times at different, you know, levels. And, you know, falling ill is one of those times where you start to realize, oh, wow, the abilities I had once before, I don't have now. It's, you know, very, very easy to kind of forget that sometimes when you are healthy. Well, there you have it, guys. I just wanted to share some of the things I took note of during this experience because, hey, I know that sometimes this happens. You're going to have to kind of, you know, step aside, you're not feeling well, you have a situation where you just can't go to work physically or mentally. And I'm here just to say to you guys, hey, been there, but take care of yourselves. This is important. Your health is super, super important. And it's probably the number one thing entrepreneurs neglect because they feel like, I got to work hard, I got to put in all the sacrif. And the last thing they think about is their well being, their physical well being. But this also applies to your mental, spiritual well being as well. Feeling good about what you're doing by yourself, making sure that the inputs that you're putting into your brain are all clean and positive. Thanks so much for listening to the Hunter Rambier Show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app. We're on Spotify, Stitch Radio, Apple Podcast, Overcast. You name it, we're on it. Go ahead and hit subscribe right now so you don't miss an episode and get access to over 2,000 business lessons in our archives. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the things you learn when you are sick is that, man, my business needs to be bigger than me, all right? I can't be the bottleneck. I have to be able to step away and things move just as smoothly, at least for a short period of time, right? Otherwise you don't have a business. You created a job for yourself. So take it as an opportunity to take stock of your business and see if you can step away for a week, two week, three week in case at any time and things will be smooth sailing. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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