Where you at?

I love when my grandkids ask me, “Where you at, Opa?! Although they’re asking for my geographical location, I, being the philosopher that I am, take the question to the next level when I make the time to think about it.

 

For decades I’ve suggested that you have to take care of you first! Yeah, that’s a seemingly selfish philosophy, but as I often say, you can’t give what you don’t have. That’s some Toltec philosophy there.

 

Basically, there are four personal domains, that we all have to balance in order to be healthy, fit, effective leaders. You know them but let me remind you. They’re physical fitness, mental fitness, relationship fitness, and spiritual fitness. You have to maintain each of those domains daily in order to be fit to fight the daily battles, not just as a leader, but as a human being. The good news is that you can do it!  The IMPORTANT news is that if you don’t take care of you, you won’t be able to take care of anyone else.

 

Eric Hoffer, known as the “longshoreman philosopher,” said, “To become different from what we are, we must have some AWARENESS of what we are.”

 

Every self-improvement process begins with self-assessment. Where you at?! You want to improve any, or all, of those fitness domains? Start by taking a minute or two and  think deeply to assess yourself in those four areas. On a scale of one to five, one being “terrible,” three being “okay,” and five being “great!”, how would you grade yourself in your physical fitness…your mental fitness…your  relationship fitness…, and your spiritual fitness. It doesn’t have to be exact, but a measure of where you are so that you can, later, assess if you’ve made any progress.

 

The next step is how are you going to improve. I’ve been around a while. One thing I’ve learned is that if you don’t write down your thoughts, you’ll lose them. I used to think that that was an old-age thing. It’s not. There’s too much information (my grandkids call it TMI) to keep it all in your brain. Write down where you’re at so that you can compare after you’ve done what you just said you’d do to improve. It seems that every improvement we make, even the small ones, will propel us to work even harder. We all like the idea of getting better, but if you don’t know where you’re at to begin with, how will you know you’re better?

 

I did what I just admonished you to do. I’m not at a five in those domains yet, but I know where I’m at and I’m working on getting better. I challenge you to do so, too. 

 

         Until next time, Be GREAT! You ARE!

 

                                        ¡HEIRPOWER!

 

bob vásquez!