Don’t Let A Good Catastrophe Go To Waste
Total well-being is the path to your greatest personal and professional success in any circumstance
Posted on 10-09-2019, Read Time: Min
Share:
We cringe just thinking about it: the idea that something unexpected, serious and time-consuming could happen in our personal lives that negatively affects our career lives. We imagine this catastrophe could really hurt us as we strive along, halting or even backtracking the success we have gathered in our career lives.
It’s unconventional wisdom, but have no fear, from this day forward. An unexpected event or situation can be leveraged to make you a stronger person and an even better leader. A full-blown crisis can uplevel every area of your life if you approach it with a specific, leveraged, carefully planned strategy.
Case in point: My teen daughters and I were enjoying a summer vacation dinner on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin when my cell phone rang with some shattering news: our northern California home was flooding from a broken pipe in the ceiling, and water was pouring out of our front door.
Fast forward a few weeks later and wouldn’t you know, like a cascading bad day, the flood crisis was so much worse. With the house gutted and our family exiled to a nearby hotel, my daughter, normally a touch anxious, began suffering from debilitating, collapsing panic attacks, and each night, I faced a backlog of untouched marketing items on my to-do list for the upcoming launch of my first book.
I don’t need to tell you that a personal catastrophe can come in many forms—an aging parent taking a turn for the worse, a natural disaster, or a worrisome health diagnosis. For a 12-year span of my financial career, stress, striving and bad habits crushed my health to the tune of two autoimmune diseases and kidney cancer. We have all had catastrophes, and they seem to come at the world’s worst times.
And during my 12-year hero’s journey to turn around my health, which I (successfully) did while discovering simultaneously rising business success, I learned an astonishingly leveraged strategy that I used front and center with my flood issue:
Embracing your total well-being is the most empowered, leveraged, up-leveling response to any truly difficult time. It sounds selfish to put your well-being first, it’s not. It sounds time-consuming; it saves time. It sounds illogical; it’s the most grounded, proactive thing you could do.
The truth is that total well-being is the most powerful asset we have because it is the power center from which all else flows. It’s hard to see anything when you are standing in the eye of a hurricane, but the opportunity of a truly difficult time is that you can prove to yourself (in my case, yet again) that total well-being is the path to your greatest personal and professional success in any circumstance.
Attention to total well-being—I mean your body, mind and spirit—especially when it seems like the least important task, is actually your biggest power move.
Attending to your body, mind and spirit during a personal crisis is like throwing yourself a lifeline so that you can grab on and crawl out of the muck, so rather than falling down, you rise up. Rather than burning out (at the worst time), you fire up.
Let’s be honest. Our natural instinct as humans facing a tough time is to batten down the hatches to protect ourselves. The storm hints that the body aspect of you doesn’t need that early bedtime, morning jog and healthy breakfast. The crisis will tempt you to give up your mind practices, like your morning meditation, or your well-honed focus, because shouldn’t you be thinking about the next step with the immediate crisis? The disaster will lure you away from handling your spirit well-being- whether it’s your reading at night or your personal relationships-- and make you feel selfish for attending to your soul amidst an immediate problem.
The problem with putting our well-being last and giving in to these utterly human instincts is that we are, in the end, no better for it. With well-being prioritized, we’re stronger—not weaker. We’re refreshed and ready to take on the challenges- not depleted, stressed and unfocused. This crisis needs us at our best, our highest potential.
During my dozens of interviews with CEOS and Founders, I learned that some of the greatest leaders in the world are also using well-being to address personal catastrophes head-on and to emerge on the other side the better for it.
Some leverage disasters to refine their deepest values: billionaire business disruptor and philanthropist Sir Richard Branson shares his wisdom: “from sunken houseboats to multiple house fires, I’ve known from early on that happiness doesn’t come from stuff.”1
Some leverage problems to inspire change and business ideas: Founder and CEO of Hint, Inc., Kara Goldin, faced her frustrating health issues—extra weight, adult acne and exhaustion—with a drastic change. She gave up her diet soda habit for self-created, fruit-infused water, and not only healed herself, but launched an impact company doing more than $100 million a year in revenue. She says “give me the puzzle to go solve.”2
Some leverage a difficult time to dive deep into their own truth and then emerge as a much more powerful voice. When President and CEO of the $1 billion+ California Wellness Foundation, Judy Belk, lost her beloved sister to gun violence, she turned to her writing and further clarified her vision of using her truth to help others. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, National Public Radio, The Wall St Journal, and many other publications.
Catastrophes can challenge us to choose well-being, do embrace our highest potential, and to show up, better than ever.
Notes
1 Richard Branson, Instagram, 7/29/19.
2 Megan McNealy, Reinvent the Wheel: How Top Leaders Leverage Well-Being for Success, Nicholas Brealey/ Hachette Book Group, Oct 2019, pg 45.
It’s unconventional wisdom, but have no fear, from this day forward. An unexpected event or situation can be leveraged to make you a stronger person and an even better leader. A full-blown crisis can uplevel every area of your life if you approach it with a specific, leveraged, carefully planned strategy.
Case in point: My teen daughters and I were enjoying a summer vacation dinner on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin when my cell phone rang with some shattering news: our northern California home was flooding from a broken pipe in the ceiling, and water was pouring out of our front door.
Fast forward a few weeks later and wouldn’t you know, like a cascading bad day, the flood crisis was so much worse. With the house gutted and our family exiled to a nearby hotel, my daughter, normally a touch anxious, began suffering from debilitating, collapsing panic attacks, and each night, I faced a backlog of untouched marketing items on my to-do list for the upcoming launch of my first book.
I don’t need to tell you that a personal catastrophe can come in many forms—an aging parent taking a turn for the worse, a natural disaster, or a worrisome health diagnosis. For a 12-year span of my financial career, stress, striving and bad habits crushed my health to the tune of two autoimmune diseases and kidney cancer. We have all had catastrophes, and they seem to come at the world’s worst times.
And during my 12-year hero’s journey to turn around my health, which I (successfully) did while discovering simultaneously rising business success, I learned an astonishingly leveraged strategy that I used front and center with my flood issue:
Embracing your total well-being is the most empowered, leveraged, up-leveling response to any truly difficult time. It sounds selfish to put your well-being first, it’s not. It sounds time-consuming; it saves time. It sounds illogical; it’s the most grounded, proactive thing you could do.
The truth is that total well-being is the most powerful asset we have because it is the power center from which all else flows. It’s hard to see anything when you are standing in the eye of a hurricane, but the opportunity of a truly difficult time is that you can prove to yourself (in my case, yet again) that total well-being is the path to your greatest personal and professional success in any circumstance.
Attention to total well-being—I mean your body, mind and spirit—especially when it seems like the least important task, is actually your biggest power move.
Attending to your body, mind and spirit during a personal crisis is like throwing yourself a lifeline so that you can grab on and crawl out of the muck, so rather than falling down, you rise up. Rather than burning out (at the worst time), you fire up.
Let’s be honest. Our natural instinct as humans facing a tough time is to batten down the hatches to protect ourselves. The storm hints that the body aspect of you doesn’t need that early bedtime, morning jog and healthy breakfast. The crisis will tempt you to give up your mind practices, like your morning meditation, or your well-honed focus, because shouldn’t you be thinking about the next step with the immediate crisis? The disaster will lure you away from handling your spirit well-being- whether it’s your reading at night or your personal relationships-- and make you feel selfish for attending to your soul amidst an immediate problem.
The problem with putting our well-being last and giving in to these utterly human instincts is that we are, in the end, no better for it. With well-being prioritized, we’re stronger—not weaker. We’re refreshed and ready to take on the challenges- not depleted, stressed and unfocused. This crisis needs us at our best, our highest potential.
During my dozens of interviews with CEOS and Founders, I learned that some of the greatest leaders in the world are also using well-being to address personal catastrophes head-on and to emerge on the other side the better for it.
Some leverage disasters to refine their deepest values: billionaire business disruptor and philanthropist Sir Richard Branson shares his wisdom: “from sunken houseboats to multiple house fires, I’ve known from early on that happiness doesn’t come from stuff.”1
Some leverage problems to inspire change and business ideas: Founder and CEO of Hint, Inc., Kara Goldin, faced her frustrating health issues—extra weight, adult acne and exhaustion—with a drastic change. She gave up her diet soda habit for self-created, fruit-infused water, and not only healed herself, but launched an impact company doing more than $100 million a year in revenue. She says “give me the puzzle to go solve.”2
Some leverage a difficult time to dive deep into their own truth and then emerge as a much more powerful voice. When President and CEO of the $1 billion+ California Wellness Foundation, Judy Belk, lost her beloved sister to gun violence, she turned to her writing and further clarified her vision of using her truth to help others. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, National Public Radio, The Wall St Journal, and many other publications.
Catastrophes can challenge us to choose well-being, do embrace our highest potential, and to show up, better than ever.
Notes
1 Richard Branson, Instagram, 7/29/19.
2 Megan McNealy, Reinvent the Wheel: How Top Leaders Leverage Well-Being for Success, Nicholas Brealey/ Hachette Book Group, Oct 2019, pg 45.
Author Bio
| Megan McNealy is the author of Reinvent the Wheel: How Top Leaders Leverage Well-Being for Success (2019). She is an impact entrepreneur and a prominent Well-Being Thought Leader, she founded Well-Being Drives Success, a multi-faceted platform designed to support those in our workforce who strive for exceptional wellness and extraordinary success. Simultaneously, Megan is an award-winning, 20+ year First Vice President and Wealth Management Advisor at one of the largest financial firms in the world, where she specializes in working with senior corporate executives. An inspiring keynote speaker, she has presented to thousands of people over the course of her career. Visit www.meganmcnealy.com/ Connect Megan A. McNealy Follow @megan_mcnealy |
Error: No such template "/CustomCode/topleader/category"!
