Let’s take back control of the really important activities
3 May 2021
What makes the work difficult?
9 June 2021
1983. Giosuè Carducci School of Bari. 80-meter race. Because the outdoor spaces were not enough, we had to cover the first 40 meters, touch the wall of the gymnasium and go back. “Ninni,” the fastest of all of us kids started off strong, touched first at the halfway point, and was about to go on to win easily.
I had never let up and was tailing him at a short distance, yet never bothering him, but suddenly the twist: Ninni stumbles over a patch of uneven pavement, loses his footing for a split second. It was enough for me to cross the finish line before him under the incredulous gazes of friends and professors! I became the fastest kid in the school year and went to the Youth Games!
At the age of 13, I thus learned from sports the first 2 lessons for my future as a man and a manager:
- Words and theories before a race do not count, what you have done in the past does not count, only the results you get at the time of the race count.
- As long as you are in the game, never give up for any reason and never stop believing, because something favorable to you can always happen, and if you are ready to seize the opportunity, you can overturn a prediction initially unfavorable to you.
Through sports, I became aware that staying true to one’s commitments and persevering in practice and continuous improvement leads us to reach our fullest potential.
When it came to transferring these skills to the world of work and management, I must confess that it was a piece of cake, because I came from years of mental, even before physical, training. And it is for this reason, in addition to the unquestionable impact on my state of well-being, that training plays an important role in my Lean Lifestyle, with 5-6 sessions per week, divided between running, biking, free body, weights, mobility and yoga.
Sports practice forces you to become more efficient and effective
When people, perhaps weighed down and definitely drained of energy, tell me that their problem is time I always get the opposite thought: but how much time and energy would you gain from doing sports and fitness!
When a person says he or she has no time for fitness-with or without competitive purposes-I think the problem is much more serious. This is a cultural legacy and unfortunately established bad habits. A day consists of 24 hours and a week of 168 hours. If you exercise 1 hour for 5 days a week, you will have committed only 5 hours out of 168, or less than 3 percent of your total time to the “maintenance” and care of the most important person in the world: yourself. Do you also want to add half an hour to get ready and shower after each session? You will get to just over 4 percent of the total time you have available.
Many researches state that at least 3-4 hours every day, or more than 10-15% of the total time, are thrown away due to multitasking, improper use of the web and social media, and mismanagement of emails and meetings. We often have a hard time admitting the weight of this reality, but this is unfortunately becoming a common evil: we are immersed in e-mails, meetings and remain eternally connected to a world of distractions and constant media attractions all day long. If instead of the total available time we considered only the active time, removing from the calculation the nightly rest time and the time needed for eating, the burden of mismanagement would become more and more cumbersome: 20-30% of the active time available. The comparison does not hold up.
So we cannot complain about not having a few hours weekly for our well-being and then unknowingly throw away precious hours and hours.
Sports practice forces you to become more efficient and effective in everything you do. You don’t waste time dragging yourself through long office marathons or endless meetings in front of a screen, perhaps even assuming posture that is deleterious to your back and joints. But you try to cut to the chase, effectively finish what you started, leave out the minor things, and focus on what is most important to yourself, your work group, and your business. It makes you more toned and sharp not only in your physique, but especially in your mind and in the way you handle stress and emotions, actually making you more resilient toward external adversity. You gain in effectiveness, efficiency, and most importantly, well-being.
Scientific research shows an enormity of well-established data to support what I claim and provides the biological explanations of how our neuro-endocrine-immune system adapts for the better when subjected to the right level of sport, giving us psycho-physical-emotional energy, longevity and natural defense against numerous diseases.
It is for this reason that when I plan my weeks, workouts and moments for myself are as important as any other strategy meeting, with clients and co-workers. And I am not fooled by the traditional cliché we are used to, which sees us working throughout the day and then with little time in the evening to spare. I place my training sessions either in the morning or just before lunch or in the late afternoon. And I frame everything else around it. Flexibility and true smart working should accustom us to harmoniously manage our entire lives by abolishing paradigms of a past that are no longer relevant.
Beyond the type of work done and the boundary conditions everyone can find the right space to do physical activity and/or sports. And if you still have any doubts ask yourself this question: do you feel better after a long day spent mostly sitting cooped up in your home or office, perhaps in front of a screen, or after a long, brisk walk, alone or with company?
