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Sir Richard Branson, one of the World’s Richest people, enjoys life. He owns over 400 Companies worth billions, including Virgin Airways, and Virgin Galactica,  He also administers several charities and participates actively in a number of humanitarian causes. He is also one of the World’s busiest men, but claims to have a “super secret” to his productivity. His businesses range from owning an airline to exploration of outer space, to . . . You name it.   His biography makes fascinating reading.

Richard Branson has been interviewed a zillion times and is often asked about his secret to getting so much done in a day and still be filled with so much energy and productivity. At age 68, he still has the energy of a 35 year-old — a healthy and fit 35 year old, that is.

He answers that question about his productivity the same way each time. He says his secret is: “I work out!”

But Richard Branson is not ordinary in his workouts. While weights and standard gym exercises are a more than occasional part of his everyday exercise regimen, he gets a little more into his daily routine than most of us. He starts his typical day with an ordinary set of tennis or a run, but then adds in a few other things, off and on, to his normal routine. Let’s see, he water skis, kite surfs, para-sails, runs, rides a zip line, and many other activities that are not only fitness producers, but are fun as well. Most of these he does at his Necker Island home. He spends much of his working time there and spends less and less time on the road. He doesn’t like offices or desks. He is a first class delegator and says he leaves his company leaders pretty much alone to do their jobs.

He’s not alone in crediting exercise for his exceptional productivity. Many other men and women in the top tiers of the entrepreneurial world credit much of their productivity to exercise. For example, Jesse Itzler is the co-founder of Marquis Jets, a jet aircraft leasing company that he sold several years after it’s creation to Warren Buffet, He is also current owner of the Atlanta Hawks NBA basketball team. Not only is he in the top realm of the entrepreneurial world, he also runs hundred mile races, invited a Navy Seal (David Goggins) to live with him for a year to help him get in better shape (and then wrote the bestseller, Living With a Seal about the experience). Oh, and by the way, Itzler is married to another billionaire, Sara Blakely, founder of SPANX, the undergarment that most women created in their minds, but that she invented and produced. She exercises too.

Another example is Tom Bilyeu, co-founder of Quest Nutrition, makers of the top selling  nutrition bar in the world. Bilyeu says he doesn’t particularly like to exercise but he uses the gym in his home the first thing every morning because fitness is part of his personal identity. He wants people to understand the importance of fitness and relate it to him.

Other examples of billionaires who exercise regularly as part of their daily routine include Larry Ellison — CEO of Oracle Corporation, Sergey Brin — Co-founder of Google, Elon Musk — Founder of Tesla, Mark Cuban — Investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, just to name a few.

Fitness is a normal part of an entrepreneur’s mindset. It seems to go with the territory. Reading the biographies or autobiographies of many successful entrepreneurs will easily demonstrate the importance of exercise in their productivity.

Exercise should not be drudgery. Even the gym can be fun. My wife, Edie, looks forward to her two yoga and two basic exercise classes every week. She can’t do them all every week because she substitute teaches in Elementary School at age 73. That’s after a combined teaching career of over fifty years of regular teaching and as an active substitute. Like most good teachers, she keeps moving among the kids, constantly interacting with them. She rarely sits down. That requires a lot of energy and that energy comes from somewhere.

The point is that physical exercise will increase your personal productivity. For most seniors, it can be a useful and fun experience. It doesn’t matter where you do it — just do it. Make it a regular part of your day.

And you don’t have to wait until you’re a billionaire.

Thank you for reading.

Want to drive your energy level through the roof? Try laughter. Real, down to earth belly laughter.

Laughter transforms the way you engage with life, and with other people. It wakes you up inside.

“Laugh my friend, for laughter ignites a fire within the pit of your belly and awakens your being.”  — Stella &Blake

I’ve watched Senior men and women get together informally as a group. When humor and laughter is involved, generally through stories from their lives, the energy fills the room. Their minds and bodies are physically activated and energized. Often the laughter is about their own aches and pains, and while they are together, those aches and pains disappear.

“The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a man’s pocket, because it cut down the doctor’s bills like everything.” —  “Tom Sawyer”, by Mark Twain.

There is laughter and energy at the other end of the age spectrum, too. Although my grandkids are older now with three of them in college, I can always remember the joy, laughter and high energy that came from watching and listening to them playing as kids.

Grandkids are high energy people. The joy they get from their interactions with one another would bring out the energy in a mole. And not only the joy they brought to themselves, but the energizing joy and laughter that they brought to the parents, grandparents, and others who watched them in action.

A good belly laugh can affect hormones, relieve stress and energize your body. Your diaphragm contracts and your body chemistry changes. The endorphin rush stimulates your entire system. Your blood and lymph circulation dramatically increase for a time.

“Laughter is a form of internal jogging. It moves your internal organs around. It enhances respiration. It is an igniter of great expectations.” — Norman Cousins.

So, add laughter to your day. It will energize your mind, body and soul. “Laugh and the World Laughs with You . . . “   We need a lot more of that right now.

Thank you for reading.

Sometimes people have a way with words that truly brings a message to life in such vivid, colorful, and high energy language, that it strikes a major chord within all of us who are its intended recipients.

In 1919, Bernarr Macfadden, developed a thirty-eight lesson course called Making Old Bodies Young. As I’ve mentioned several times in recent articles, Macfadden was one of the pioneers of the popularization of Health and Fitness in the United States, through his publishing empire and particularly his Magazine, Physical Culture. He was the mentor of other Health and Fitness pioneers such as Charles Atlas, Paul Bragg and Jack LaLanne.

This article consists of quotes from the Introduction to that course. Enjoy the vivid language as he presents his case.

NOTE: While the material is now in the public domain, there are numerous copies of the course online and the fair use doctrine allows me to quote from the original material, verbatim, I should point out that there is a hard copy “derivitive book” available on Amazon, published by Forgottenbooks.com and any new material in that “derivitive book”  is under copyright. But Macfadden’s original words are not.

I have quoted the following snippets from the Introduction to his course. Macfadden writes:

“Old men [and women] are not wanted. They are in the way. They are an encumbrance to themselves and every one with whom they come in contact.

“Years may have crept upon you. You may have advanced far into what is ordinarily considered old age. But do not dispair (sic). You may regain not only the spirit, but much of the vigor, of youth; and it is your duty to do so.

“Square your shoulders. Look the future square in the face. Turn the old man [or woman] out of your life.

“Act the part of youth. Cultivate and rigidly hold on to the spirit of youth. Maintain your energies at high-water mark. Keep your spine straight. Thus the old-age disease will find no opportunity to enter your life.

“If you are already in the clutches of old age, begin now to fight for the return of youth. . . .  Train your body as you would that of a race horse. . . .    Eat food that will give you strength, virility, energy, vivacity, enthusiasm . . . .

“. . . Those who live in accordance with Nature’s laws maintain that life grows more beautiful year by year, that it’s glories, its joys, its delights increase with age.”

And in the last lines to this vivid Introduction to 375 pages of instructions on how to stay young, Macfadden writes:

“Wake up the possibilities within your reach!

“Rejuvenate you body! Make your mind keen and capable. Obey the laws of Nature and you will achieve results that you now scarcely dare to dream of”.

WOW!

Macfadden dedicates the course as follows:

“To those, young or old, who desire to retain the vivacity, energy
and enthusiasm of youth and to those who would turn back
the clock of Father Time,
whose bodies are bent, whose eyes are dimmed, who walk with a
halting gait at an age when they should be buoyant with the spirit of youth,
this course is hopefully and sympathetically dedicated.”

While most of today’s Seniors don’t fit the stereotype of the early 1900s, the advice Bernarr Macfadden gives us about staving off the aging process, is as valid today as it was back when this material was written.

Thank you for reading.