Mental Energy Will Always Be Limited By Your Physical Resilience
We’re all looking for more mental coping skills as we navigate the world today. We were used to everything being a certain way, and now most everything is not. It’s mentally exhausting. It’s harder to find the drive within sometimes when you feel you’re on your last fume. So, how do we reduce the exhaustion? Find the drive?
Mental and Physical Health are Linked
Recruiting is not easy. I’ve found that if I treat my physical self well, my mental focus follows. And with mental focus, I can drive when there seems to be no fuel in the tank.
A little background on me and where this realization came from…
I’ve been reading sales books for as long as I can remember. I first sold candy in a fundraiser when I was nine years old in my little town of 250,000 people, and this challenge to win was one I found thrilling. Especially when in fact I did sell the most and earned a free week to summer camp!
Fast forward to Colosi Associates executive search. Recruiting is about listening and then selling. First, you listen to what “product” it is that companies want to buy (hire), and then you sell. You must listen to what’s most important to a specific candidate in his or her career and then match that person’s priorities (fun, fit, family, fortune) with the hiring manager’s offer. It’s a tricky intersection to get through, and it’s why most candidates are not a match and remain at the stop light. It takes resilience to find the perfect fit!
So, where do I think my resilience and drive comes from? Partly, it’s because I am wholly self-made. But how was I wholly self-made? Or, what made that possible?
Physical activity!
Growing up, I was just moderately active. I was on a few sports teams but nothing extreme. When I arrived to college, I didn’t have a car, so I started riding a bike and running. This step up in physical activity and fitness was pivotal as a foundation for my lifelong career success.
When I think about why I’ve been successful recruiting CFOs, HR execs and other roles for nearly 20 years and evaluating talent for probably 30 years or more, it comes down to resilience and confidence that the answer (the right hire) will emerge if you focus on just a few search projects at once, and are relentless about process. My ability to have this focus is clearly linked to getting outside and moving!
Emotional Hurdles
I love the book Sales EQ by Jeb Blount, and specifically the chapter is about Sales Drive which lays out some of the emotional hurdles to Sales Drive. Whether you are in sales or not, emotional hurdles at work are a given if you want to hire the best or to grow your own career. Hiring the best and growing your career means taking risks. It involves people, and that is fundamentally emotional no matter how much objectivity you deliberately fold into your processes.
I wanted to share excerpts of about emotional hurdles and the link to physical condition, applicable in sales and all functional areas:
“When you face emotional hurdles, (sales) drive allows you to leap over them
Drive requires a tremendous amount of mental energy
Mental energy will always be limited by your physical resilience
There is mounting evidence that sitting all day is extremely hazardous to your health and impacts your mental capacity
Keeping yourself in great physical condition improves creative thinking, mental clarity and optimism...Makes you more nimble and adaptive
Helps you gain the discipline to maintain emotional self-control…boosts confidence and enthusiasm, the most important emotion in sales (and I think in the broader context of leading a company)”
Where is the Time to Get Outside?
I hear you. Paradoxically, you’ve found you have even less tome to get physical exercise when working from home. My suggestion is to not put too much pressure on yourself and realize that things will ebb and flow. 2020 was our busiest year at Colosi Associates in years. Companies realized that during times of crisis and rethinking, marginal talent was exposed and they needed to upgrade. So even for me, a lifelong casual-but-committed athlete, it was not easy to keep up the physical routines.
I changed my mentality to this: you get 50% credit for putting on clothing and shoes you could actually go outside and walk in, 25% more for just walking out the door and going around the block. You don’t have to be a competitive athlete to gain mental clarity from a few steps, but you do have to overcome all the voices in your head wanting you to stay in and check off that next item on your to-do list.
Getting started is the hardest. If you are really stuck, you can count to 100 steps then go back inside. This isn’t about being an athlete or the most fit person in the room, but just clearing you mind with a little movement and fresh air! Taking 5 minutes out of your day to circle the block will make you more productive after and will make up for that “lost” time.
A-Players always have other opportunities, so to recruit the best is challenging. You need resilience, and that comes from looking after your mental and physical self!