What does it take to be a success?

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Dr. G

Are you excited about the prospect of being an entrepreneur, of creating value for people based on your unique talents, knowledge, and gifts? Does the new economy and rapid technological advancements fill your heart with ambition and a vision for solving problems for people in a groundbreaking way?

Perhaps you are a member of a local or online community of like-minded people sharing knowledge and experience that can contribute to your own success and the success of others. Perhaps you have been in the entrepreneurial space for decades, and you see opportunity all around you. These are exciting times.

The list of blogs, podcasts, and books on how to succeed and make your fortune in the 21st century are endless and essentially free!

Every “successful” person will tell you that with success, there comes a cost. For every story about the dude who works 4 hours per week and makes a 7-figure income on the beach while an army of virtual assistants run his empire, there are thousands of stories of people who struggle and bust their asses “failing forward” through mistakes and sacrifice for 10 to 20 years before they become “an overnight success.” I think it’s true that success always comes with a cost. It’s your job to make sure that cost is worth it.

When the cost to your physical and mental health and close personal relationships become irreversible or unacceptable, there is no level of success worth that much. I have become somewhat of an expert in the field through academic pursuits, clinical experience, and personal situations.

I did not see the trend coming and do not know how I first started getting contacted by what has become quite a few entrepreneurial communities. I am often asked to share my knowledge about functional medicine and its role in 21st century health care to solve common problems experienced by entrepreneurs. The interest stems from the frustration people have that the medical community cannot answer their questions. The interest is usually in one of several categories:

1. Stressed-out entrepreneurs are experiencing chronic symptoms that are interfering with their work and quality of life.
2. Ambitious entrepreneurs wanting to know how to experience more creative, mental, and physical energy and are looking to “bio-hack” their way to improved performance.
3. Well-rounded, established/successful entrepreneurs wanting to stay young, fit, and energized well into their 5th, 6th, 7th decade, or beyond so they can enjoy the fruits of their labor in ways that their parents never could have dreamed. These are the people in the process of checking off items on their bucket list and do not want to slow down for a minute.

The old days of the executive going for the annual checkup to get a flu shot, blood pressure check, cholesterol screen, basic blood panel, EKG, and any other diagnostic test and being told he is healthy (because a disease has not been identified) are over. Our hypothetical executive is told year after year that he is healthy until he is not. Then our executive is stuck reacting to a diagnosis and blaming his parents because the cause is their genes, not an inept medical system that is well-equipped for crisis aversion and disease management but ill-equipped for health restoration or promotion.

During those years of “not being sick,” if our patient had symptoms such as depression, reflux, high cholesterol, blood pressure, and/or blood sugar, he would have his symptoms treated with medications that do nothing to improve health. It is this way of thinking that has created a generation of people living longer but getting diagnosed with chronic disease younger and younger, watching their quality of life decline while they live longer and longer. Just read any news story on the coming tsunami of Alzheimer’s, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and just about every chronic disease.

Who wants to live longer if it means suffering earlier and living longer? There is a better way.

I am speaking to the general public in this post, but I am targeting entrepreneurs of all ages for several reasons:

1. Most entrepreneurs cannot afford to slow down. It’s “make it or break it” (not make it and break it).
2. Entrepreneurs are acutely aware of the connection between their daily choices and habits and their productivity.
3. Entrepreneurs voluntarily put themselves into stressful situations by taking more risk than most are willing to take, resulting in increased stress, which has a direct effect on mental and physical health.
4. Entrepreneurs are more likely to be “plugged in” 24/7, resulting in prolonged states of stress physiology.
5. Entrepreneurs are our nation’s thought leaders and have the ability to think outside of the boundaries of conventional wisdom to find solutions to difficult problems.

In my opinion, there has never been a time more exciting than now to create and design your life and career as you would like to see it. Technology is changing so rapidly, and the opportunities are abundant, but that does not mean that success is any easier than it’s ever been; as a matter of fact, in many ways, it is harder. The avenues available for success are greater than anytime in the past 100 years, and the tools needed for success are at our fingertips like never before, but that doesn’t make it easy.

Technology has made it nearly impossible for people in the new economy to disconnect from work. It takes great effort to do so. Competition is fierce, and your competition is working every waking hour to get their message out.

I remember when I decided I was never going to work for someone ever again, that I was going to work for myself. I felt so liberated; I knew it was the right decision. I convinced myself that I was going to be in charge of giving myself a raise and would decide when I was going to go on vacation and for how long. It seems like a no-brainer; working for yourself is the way to go.

Well, then reality set in – my first decade in practice, I had a boss who did not give me a raise for nearly 8 years. I had a boss who did not give me a vacation longer than a 4-day weekend for almost 10 years. I had a boss who did not match my 401k contribution and gave no sick days … ever. I worked long hours and sacrificed many weekends.

I was responsible for HR, marketing, book keeping, vendor relationships, customer service, and staff training, in addition to being a full-time doctor and paying attention to the needs of my patients who were suffering and needed me to be sharp and lead by example.

That boss, of course, was me. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship: stress!

The truth is, I would not change it for anything, but those decisions have consequences. Those consequences manifest as challenges to your health, close relationships (spouse, family, friends, etc.), and of course, the more you succumb to stress, the harder it is to become successful at whatever your goals were to begin with. It happened to me, and I have been in the business of health since my early 20s; I practiced what I preached. In my early to mid-30s, I got blindsided just like everyone else.

You don’t need a doctor to tell you to eat right and exercise – you already know that and are probably doing it. People who come to see me either want to discover their current state of health and make some minor changes to their lifestyle based on their specific history or uniqueness we discover. In most cases, my patients are in bad shape and pretty beaten up without many places to turn for help.

Here are some suggestions.

To ensure your continued ability to adapt to the stress of entrepreneurship:

1. Don’t wait for symptoms: Have a functional medicine doctor order a comprehensive wellness blood panel. This is not to see if you are “normal” or “not sick.” It is to discover your existing state of health.
2. Discover hidden challenges to your ability to adapt, such as food sensitivities or chronic subclinical infections in your gut that could cause a stress response without you even knowing there is stress.
3. Make lifestyle changes that are prescribed to fit your specific lifestyle. These are changes that would address ongoing blood sugar regulation, nutrient absorption etc. One person may do better eating within the first hour of waking and then many times throughout the day and another person may want to practice intermittent fasting. These decisions are very important, and they are not the same for everyone. In addition, you could have one set of recommendations for 3 months and then change them based on reaching certain milestones.
4. Journal your journey and recognize that your degree of success and wealth is intimately related to your health. Journal and document with your provider your mental state, your energy levels, quality of sleep, mood, physical fitness, digestion, etc. See how closely it relates to your level of success.

Thanks for reading!

If you have a story that illustrates the point that improving your state of health had a direct impact on your success in business or your level of wealth, please share it with us by writing in the comment section. I hear these stories every day, and they are powerful.