It's no secret that frequent travel can take a lot out of the executive, both physically and mentally.
But if a long day of rushing through airports for a big meeting has you making a beeline for the hotel bar instead of the gym, consider for a moment that you just might be sabotaging your career.
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"Who's going to perform better--the guy who's coming in from a transatlantic flight, goes into the hotel, orders a steak dinner and has three martinis, or the guy who comes in, eats well, has a good workout and goes to bed or has a conversation with his spouse?" asks Chris Carmichael, coach and author of the new book, 5 Essentials For A Winning Life: The Nutrition, Fitness, and Life Plan for Discovering the Champion Within.
Lesson learned
Carmichael knows something about having a successful career. He helped guide Lance Armstrong to his record-breaking seven Tour de France championships and was named the US Olympic Committee's Coach of the Year in 1999.
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But when Carmichael first went with Armstrong to the back roads of rural France to prepare for the Tour, his attention to his own diet and exercise habits fell apart. While Armstrong climbed one mountain pass after another in near-freezing temperatures, eating PowerBars and fruit, Carmichael rode in a car behind him, indulging in baguettes with Brie.
After Armstrong won his second Tour in 2000, Carmichael, who was approaching 40, felt out of shape, stressed out by his new personal training business and disconnected from his family.
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"You wouldn't think this would happen to me," Carmichael says. "But it did. It really shows that this is not an easy thing. It happens to a lot of people."
Back on track
Carmichael got back on top by applying his own training principles and figuring out how to balance what he calls life's five essentials--relationships, career, fitness, nutrition and health. Even if your job is your No. 1 focus, according to Carmichael you're not going to achieve that "winning life" until you realize all of these things are related.
"If a lot of men applied the same attributes in regards to their performance in their career to these other aspects of their life," he says, "they would be a lot healthier, a lot leaner, fitter and a lot happier too."
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