Aligned Body · body, mind, spirit
Your body is the foundation of your P&L.
Athletes train recovery. Founders only train output. I learned the hard way that every decision I made at work was only as good as the body making it.
The truth nobody wants to hear
You're either growing or you're declining.
Up to about 25, your body is in build mode. Everything is upregulating. After 25 it quietly flips into downregulation. Nothing stays the same. If you're doing nothing to keep this body, it's going down, a little more every day you let it go.
It's October. You haven't trained since June. "I'll start Monday." A week off costs you a week. Four months off costs you a season.
So start now. Not perfectly. Just now.
Body
Train like your business depends on it.
Because it does. Three things I learned the hard way, and the science agrees.
01 · Muscle
Muscle is your longevity account.
After 30 you lose 3 to 8% of your muscle every decade unless you fight for it. Grip strength predicts heart related death better than blood pressure does. And muscle is where most of the sugar from that 3 pm pastry ends up. Lifting heavy isn't vanity. It's your retirement plan.
02 · Dopamine
Your phone spends your dopamine before you're out of bed.
Every scroll, ping and sugar hit is a cheap hit, and your brain pays it back by making normal life feel flat. Hard things work the other way. In one study, cold water lifted dopamine by 250% and it stayed up for hours. Earn it. Don't scroll for it.
03 · Mindset
Doing what you don't want to do builds the CEO.
A part of your brain called the anterior midcingulate cortex grows when you push through things you'd rather skip, and it's bigger in people who stay sharp into their 80s. The 6 am workout you didn't want is the same muscle you use for the hard conversation with your team.
Sources: Volpi et al. 2004 · Leong et al., The Lancet 2015 · Šrámek et al. 2000 · Touroutoglou et al. 2020 · Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation
Match your training to your business
Maintenance mode is still a mode.
Your business has seasons. So does your training. The goal isn't to go hard all year. It's to never hit zero.
Push mode
The business is steady.
Train hard. Lift heavy. Chase progress. This is where you build the muscle you'll lean on later.
Maintenance mode
You're in build or scale mode at work.
Three short sessions a week. Keep the muscle, protect your sleep, hold the line. You're not chasing records, you're not losing ground.
Zero
The only wrong answer.
Stopping completely is what turns a busy month into a lost season, and makes the climb back so much longer.
Spirit
Stress ages you faster than anything.
Stress is the fastest way to age a body. And energy that stays stuck in your body eventually shows up somewhere: your gut, your skin, your sleep, your health.
That includes the old relationships you've never fully detached from. You can't out train a tie you're still carrying. So the work is both: release what you're still holding, and give your body what it needs to repair.
The reset
Clean out, then heal.
- A saltwater flush to give your gut a clean slate.
- BPC-157 to help repair the gut lining.
Food does most of the work. A healthy diet is everything. Peptides help with the rest, and the right ones depend on what your body is asking for.
Affiliate link: I earn a commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. My personal experience, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before taking anything, including a saltwater flush.
Mind
The morning before the morning.
Do the most important thing for your energy first. For me, that's meditation.
- Meditate before the phone comes anywhere near you.
- No coffee for the first 30 minutes. Your cortisol is already high; caffeine on top just winds you tighter.
- Train fasted.
- Water first, lots of it, with lemon. You wake up dehydrated.
- Then my gut healing smoothie.
The full routine, the smoothie and the rest of my stack live inside the founders community on Telegram, included with the 90 Min Intensive.
See the 90 Min Intensive