206: Health and your property business
07-19-2008
Number one priority for individual investors is personal health. Without your personal physical an
d mental healthy, you will likely not be able to continue business maintenance and growth activities. If you have poor physical health, you will find it difficult to muster up energy to firstly manage day-to-day property operations, and secondly to be in any state to grow your business. You financial health will more than likely mirror you business health. This also goes for mental health. If you are mentally strong and positive, you will find it easier to manage your property portfolios and then find it a pleasure to growth – acquire, make deals, seize opportunities and prosper. Both physical health and mental health are closely related, so for a sustainable business, one needs to make sure one puts some quality time into maintaining fitness levels (keep yourself strong) and also spend quality time occasionally relaxing, enjoying life and improving your mental health. Okay, this may sound like a bit of motherhood, but from our experiences, and knowledge from other business people and successful investors – it’s an important message to get across.
Upside to health: As an example – on the upside, if you are strong, resilient and positive – problems will turn into opportunities. You’ll be able to be philosophical about difficulties and put fear aside and press forwards to grow your business, maintain your existing wealth and make sure issues don’t turn into crises.
Downside to health: On the downside, if you physical and mental health suffers, fear may get the better part of you, you’ll start to re-trench, issues will build up and ultimately, a negative attitude and thought processes may will lead to financial hardship, crisis and even ruin or brankrupcy.
Ever pulled your back and been in pain – productivity normally dips by 50%. Administration of business affairs starts suffering and you start losing money. If you keep fit, healthy and strong – your productivity and business efficiency will stay high and you’ll make more money, even during challenging times.
Some examples of what you can do to improve your health:
Eating: eat a health diet – high in fruit, vegetables, protein, low in fat and carbohydrates
(e.g. bread, potatoes, sugar, sweets). If you are overweight, best to get to your ideal weight. If you weigh say 10 kg to much, an interesting exercise is to strap 10 kg around you neck, then walk around the house – this is the burden you are carrying in your every day life! If you loose the 10 kg, you heart will work less hard, you’ll have more energy and move around with less effort. You’ll find managing your day to day business far easier.
Alcohol: If you drink excessively, reduce your intake now! If you need a drink every day – you’re probably an alcoholic! If you can cut out drinking 2-3 days a week, you can then claim you’re not an alcoholic. One or two glass of wine a day will not ruin you, but your focus, energy and motivation, plus clearness of thought will improve if you cut down alcohol intake. And you’ll probably loose some weight because of it as well – which will help you physically, mentally and business-wise.
Exercise: It’s best to get at least 10 minutes hard exercise a day. A quick run. Or 20 minutes hard walking. This should be enough. It will improve your muscle tone and size of muscles. This is very important because if your muscles increase by 10%, then you will burn off 10% more calories even when you are idle or sleeping. If you love eating and cannot stop, at least build some muscle mass to try and burn it off. This can just been improving the tone and size of your leg muscles - by walking - you will notice the difference if you do little walk now and start walking places. If you don’t excerise and eat too much, you will always pile on the weight. Then your health problems will likely start and back problems - this will almost certainly effect your business.
Blame Game: 
Okay, we’re not writing this Special Report to make friends. We believe this is important, and we don’t expect everyone to agree to the priniples. But we think it’s so important to highlight the business and financial risks in not looking after ones-self and letting poor physical and mental health get in the way of making serious money. It requires discipline, a good routine and personal commitment. No excuses or blame on other people. No Blame Game. No – it’s not because of the kids, the husband or wife, work (if you are an employee), business (if you are a sole trader) or any other person or thing you can blame or hide behind. It’s you! You have a responsibility to both yourself and your family to stay healthy – and this will positively impact your business in almost all cases.
Only 1.2% of your time: If you take 2 hours in a week to get some good exercise, whilst making sure you eat properly and don't drink to excess – this is 1.2% of the number of hours in a week. Anyone that says they cannot spare 1.2% of their time to stay fit is more than likely making excuses and blaming others for their lack of discipline and commitment! Cut out that boring 2 hours business meal with people that bore you - and spend it on your fitness!
Enjoy it! And when you are getting exercise, DON’T feel guilty. Enjoy it. Savour it. Enjoy the scenery and the weather if it’s outside. Statistically, you will find if you get 2 hours exercise, it will add 4 hours to your life expectancy! So it’s time well spent. At any good opportunity, you should be heading out to get your weekly two hours of exercise. Any more than this, it’s not statistically proven to add to your life expectancy to any great extent. But no exercise at all, and being overweight is a recipe for ill health in future years. You’re delaying the day it will catch up with you.
Cost: Most exercise only costs time. If you cancel that boring business lunch and save £50, then you'll save money. You gain the time back in life expectancy. So overall - you'll it will be value creating! Overall though, it will reduce your business risk and make you feel better - this is the real value.
Be careful – safety first: But – be careful with the exercise you do. Don’t strain yourself, break bones, injure muscles. Try "low impact" sports – walking is probably the safest pursuit. Jogging and running are also good, but one can sprain ankles and fall. Cycling is great, but wear a crash helmet. Swimming is very good excerise in a pool - be careful swimming in the sea though. Avoid skiing, hang gliding, motorbikes, rugby and high risk sports. Watch out for soccer as well – easy to break bones with this sport. The message is – don’t go out and injure yourself in the process of getting fit – otherwise you’ll take a big step back. For example, we know a property investor that sold up at 50 years of age because of a bad skiing accident.
Business impact: When times get tough – as they currently are in many property investment areas in Europe and
We wrote this to try and help. It’s common sense we think, but of course we are open to your feedback and thought, which can be added to this article. If you have any strong views on this Special Report, please contact us on enquiries@propertyinvesting.net.