If we let ourselves, we can spend a lot of time of worrying. Worrying about finances, choices, our kids, and the list could be infinite. Unfortunately it’s highly unproductive. Worrying drains of us our time and our energy. Worry is another form of fear. We fear the unknown and the possibilities about what might happen. Worry will cloud your judgment, keep you up at night, ruin your health, and have a harmful impact on your relationships.

Truthfully most of the things we worry about will never happen and are possibilities that we have very little control over. Much of life is outside of our control. Accepting that do not have control over these things is a powerful realization. Instead focusing on what we can control and actions that we can take is significantly more productive.

A good friend of mine used to say that “Worrying is nothing more than spiritual nearsightedness.” I’ve always thought this was an incredibly profound statement.

When we have strong faith and belief, things will always work out. They might not work out the way we believe they should, but when we keep focus on what matters most we’ll always find that everything turns out the way it should. Adopting this mindset is incredibly liberating and calming.

For me, personally, my own faith gives me the ability to keep moving forward when things are difficult or I can’t see my next step clearly. It doesn’t mean that I still don’t worry. I’m human, so of course I do. But when I find myself worrying, I’m usually able to pull myself back to a calm place and trust that I am on the path I’m supposed to be.

I grew up playing sports like basketball, hockey, soccer, football, and basically every sport I could. As I’ve gotten older my fitness priorities have shifted from maximum performance to longevity fitness based solutions. I desperately want to stay in shape as long as I can, so that I can enjoy my life. It is incredibly important to maintain our fitness levels for muscular and cardiovascular health in order to live a long productive life. Obesity and life style factors all increase the risk for heart disease, cancers, and dementia.

Aging is the ultimate catch 22. Don’t work out enough, you lose fitness and gain weight. If you work out too hard, you wear out your joints ligaments, which will leave you unable to move or exercise, leading to weight gain anyway. Then it will be increasingly more difficult to get back into shape because our joints will hurt even more from the extra strain of the weight gain. Most of the times, it’s knee pain and hip pain that lead stop us from getting around.

A couple things I’m doing…
1. Longer Distance at Lower Intensity: I’ve tried to incorporate exercise into my routine that will continue to help strengthen my muscles and workout my cardiovascular system without wearing out the cartilage in my knees and hips. I’ve incorporated more long distance walking and light cardiovascular training, basing that off some of the research by Dr. Stephen Seiler. His research indicates that top performing athletes, have an understanding that it’s actually better to do light to moderate intensity work at longer intervals with the occasional high intensity training sprinkled in. This is because overtraining at high intensity really does not increase physical performance enough in relation to the increased risk for injury.

2. Non-Load Bearing Exercise: Another item I’m incorporating is trying more non-load bearing exercises as part of my routine such as bicycling or swimming. It doesn’t completely remove the risk of injury, but it does help give the joints a break from the pounding, while still improving my muscular and cardiovascular health. This isn’t 100% of my exercise routine, but it’s significantly more than when I was younger.

3. Kaatsu: Also I use KAATSU to help increase my muscular response without straining my joints. Kaatsu is a blood flow modification tool and technique that improves the cardiovascular system and builds muscle without submitting the body to high levels of exercise. I listed this technique among the tools on my profile.

4. Sauna: After my exercise, doing Sauna helps keep the heart rate elevated. Our heart pumps faster to send the blood to our organs, particiularly our skin, in order to cool the body. This can’t replace exercise but I really enjoy it, and think it may help a bit with cardiovascular health.

I’ve been following some of the health and longevity studies around heat and cold exposure. I don’t claim to be an expert on it, but the science seems to be quite compelling and worth keeping an eye on it.

1. The temperature exposure stresses the body which activates different pathways. A good analogy to this is when we stress our muscles, they tear, and grow stronger. The body and our cells seem to do the same.

2. Blood Flow- Much of our health revolves our bodies’ ability to transport nutrients throughout our body to the different cells. As we age our small blood vessels called capillaries tend not to function as well. This is important because our capillaries are where nutrients travel across the cell membranes delivering oxygen and nutrients while removing waste from our cells. If our cells cannot access the nutrients they need and remove the waste, they wither and die. There seems to be some indication that heat and cold exposure can help with this.

3. Heat Exposure causes the heart to beat faster and when done after a workout, can add a high metabolic caloric burn. The heart does this to try to circulate the blood to cool the body. In Scandinavian countries, sauna use is a normal part of life and seems to have positive health implications.

Don’t try anything reckless, but I would encourage reading into these subjects as more and more research is emerging.

When success is measured, it’s usually not the smartest or most talented people that are successful but the people that have the GRIT and fortitude to persevere when times are difficult. The combination of passion and perseverance ultimately leads to great success. This applies to everything: business, personal relationships, and life.

Most really successful entrepreneurs have stories about failing again and again until they figured the right formula. They have the grit and fortitude to continue on and look for solutions even when they’re probably facing enormous amounts of pressure and uncertainty financially and personally. The vast majority of people just don’t have the the grit it takes to soldier on through that difficult times.

Another good example is marriage and relationships. Every single relationship will face challenges and difficult times, but having the ability to continue forward committing to the relationship because it’s important is probably one of the factors that lead to long lasting, successful relationships.

When I’m building a team or bringing people into my life, this is one of the major character traits I’m looking for. I want people who will commit to getting the job done or being a good friend come what may.

If you’re looking for more scientific research on the topic, I’d recommend Angela Duckworth’s book, “GRIT”.

Trust is a difficult thing to quantify but nothing is more important. It’s the fabric that keeps teams, relationships, and societies together. In today’s world, it’s never been more difficult to build trust. We’re constantly bombarded with information, text messages, news, social media, email, ect…Even our governments and news media have never had lower trust ratings.

Here are just a few, simple principles that I have tried to identify to help build more trusting relationships with my family, friends, co-workers, and customers.

1. Consistency- Do you do what you promise again and again? There are no short cuts to building trust, but if you consistently do the right thing it will go a long way. Trust takes a long time to build, but can be broken quickly if your actions don’t match your promises.

2. Alignment of Interests- Having a conflict interest (especially financial), creates mistrust. If your family, friends, or customers do not believe that you are acting in their best interests it becomes difficult to trust.

3. Competency-Can you deliver what you promise? If you don’t have the capability to follow through, trust will be lost.

4. Own Your Mistakes- All people, companies, and even government leaders will make mistakes. Own those mistakes by acknowledging them and sharing how you’re going to do better.

Exclusivia is a big trust exercise. We are trying to transparently share ideas, tools, experiences that we think would benefit others. If we take shortcuts or break the trust of our members, Exclusivia could not exist.

One of the most powerful strategies I’ve learned for difficult decision making, is always try to think long term. Our emotions, particularly fear, can cloud our judgment. When we’re afraid, our thoughts go into the fight or flight mode and it’s easy to panic and get lost in the short term.

However, long term thinking stimulates the part of the brain associated with reason. I don’t claim to make every decision right all the time, but taking a breath and thinking about the long term impact of a decision almost always allow me to make the decision from a place of reason and logic vs a fear and panic.