Health, for me, is really energy…sustained energy and vitality. It’s kind of having a lot of life force energy in your body, if you want to think of it that way. It means that you’re basically disease-free. You might get a little cold or something sometimes, but very rarely, almost never. And it means that generally, all day every day, that you have a clear mind. That you have a nice high level of energy, that you feel good. Your energy is not going up and down, up and down, up and down. It’s nice and high and steady all the time. So it’s really this, this kind of inner feeling of energy and well-being. And that’s health.
Fitness is really more external. It’s what can you do, can you lift heavy weights? Can you run really fast? And that’s also great but it’s not the same. So a lot of people who are fit are not healthy. For example, there are a lot of athletes who can lift heavy weights and run really fast and do incredible things in their sport. And yet they get sick, they get injured all the time. When they get a little bit older, when they get into their late 30s or 40 years old and they retire from their sport, they start having incredible health problems. Many of them die at a fairly young age, meaning like maybe in their 60s. Instead of living a long, long time.
So it’s clear that just being fit does not mean you’re healthy, right? You might be able to do a lot of stuff but you could be harming your body internally. So we want both but health is number 1 and health is always first. Energy, vitality, well-being within our bodies, that’s always the first step. And that’s where we’re going to start today with coaching. This is what Jack LaLanne always teaches. Anybody who is very healthy is always going to tell you to focus on health first and then fitness is something you add to that later.
So why do you need to be healthy? You already know this. You need energy for everything. Now in a series of webinars I did called the 7 essential steps for change and leadership, I talked about essential step number 1 being health and energy, that it’s really the starting point for everything. Anything you want to do, any change you want to make, whether you want to do it for yourself or help someone else do it, you’ve got to have energy to do it first.
Energy is the first requirement. If you’re tired, if you’re lethargic, if you just don’t feel like doing much…it’s hard to be successful at anything. It’s hard to study English with a clear focused mind if you feel tired all the time. It’s hard to get out there and approach new people and talk to them if you’re feeling tired all the time. It’s hard to make any change if you’re feeling tired. So energy is the first step for anything.
So you’ve got to develop this internal energy that’s with you all the time. That you can get at any time you need it. That means anytime you want to study, anytime you want to learn something, anytime you want to do something physically…you have the energy to do it.