I recently had the extreme pleasure of visiting with Doug Fletcher, who is the co-author of How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services. Doug was a guest on the podcast and we discussed how results-getters in business are RainMakers, and how the principles explained in his book can help you to become your own RainMaker in health, fitness, performance, and longevity.
I kinda like the way that sounds…don’t you? Who wouldn’t want to make it rain positive outcomes in workouts, meals, and happiness? For the deep dive, check out the podcast but if you are looking for the abbreviated version with powerful advice to help you achieve high results…read on.
Doug identified 3 types of business orientations: evergreen, acute, and optimization-focused. In health, think of evergreen practices as having a gym membership, or going to the clinic for your regular blood draw, etc. These are things you tend to do consistently over a lifetime to establish a positive baseline. Then look at acute interventions as the need to go to the physician’s office, or even the emergency room, to immediately address something drastic. It could be as simple as getting treated for an ear infection or as serious as you want to imagine. Acute interventions could even be a crash diet or fitness program (neither recommended by me in most cases) that you are using to get into your dress for your cousin’s wedding, or you are panic-stricken over your skyrocketing blood pressure and are pulling out all the stops. In reality we probably want to minimize our use of acute services in our wellness endeavors, i.e. eliminate the need for them by staying healthy in the first place. But working with, and being, an optimizer is where things really get interesting.
Optimizers, or optimization-focused wellness and performance providers, help us to take things from good to great. Whether you are hiring a coach or trainer, working with a functional medicine practitioner, or simply studying research journals, books, podcasts, videos, etc., using an optimization focus can make your training more productive and your health/life success better. The advice that Doug and I came up with is listed below in three simple advisements.
- Establish some beneficial evergreen practices for health maintenance.
- Use good judgement and habits to decrease acute service needs.
- Be an optimizer. Use optimization services and methods to 10x your outcomes.
When being an optimizer, one needs to go through a vetting process to make the right commitment and get the most results. The decision-making process we make in wellness/performance is actually no different than how a business client makes a buying decision. Here are the 7 key elements Doug provided, with a pearl of wellness wisdom.
- Awareness: Be aware of what is available in optimizing services that can help you with your fitness, nutrition, and other pursuits.
- Understanding: Acquire the knowledge of what a coach or program does, and what it can do for you specifically.
- Interest: Develop interest in how your goals can mesh with the offering you are considering.
- Respect: Make sure your resource has the right stuff to help you, and can earn your respect.
- Trust: You need to be able to feel that the program or professional you are intending to work with has your best interests at heart.
- Ability: Confirm to yourself that you have a budget for this intervention and you have buy-in from yourself, or family/friends if indicated.
- Readiness: Determine that the time is right for you to do this endeavor.
And last, but certainly not least, Doug and his co-author Tom McMakin offered up their vision for the future. Their advice was aimed toward helping service professionals maximize professional satisfaction by creating a life worth living. Three interrelated criteria define this vision. I’ll integrate the wellness and performance parallels.
- Your work should be challenging and stimulating. If it’s too easy it’s not worthwhile. This gets right into training program design 101. Goals and applications should challenge us and give us a sense of accomplishment when we meet them.
- Your career should also be significant, in that it contributes great value to society. With any wellness practice, there is double benefit. We gain health and fitness and this enables us to be of greater service to the world.
- Your profession uses your talents. Harnessing and leveraging gifts is much more productive than trying to improve a weakness to super-high levels. This is where making your fitness program, your diet, or your other lifestyle practices fit your unique traits, abilities, tendencies, and preferences.
So there you go. Some great motivational tips from a fabulous motivational speaker (Doug). I really enjoyed learning from Doug and I hope you have also. Cheers!