Two years back I quit my first big boy job. I was an embedded software engineer who used to test aircraft applications for a famous business airliner. In order to properly perform this job it required every ounce of intelligence from me. It was a really challenging job which required technical skills and lots of critical thinking.
Sometimes big influencers preach to work very hard. I see so many people who try affiliate marketing and other business models to generate income online. In the process many of them hit phases of burnout and depression because manifesting results can be really challenging. Keeping your body and mind healthy is very important in order to succeed. Businesses is all about solving problems, so it requires mental clarity and creativity. In this post I talk about some of the strategies I have used to keep myself healthy and motivated through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Sometimes it takes over 10 years and multiple failed projects along the way to finally succeed.
Up to that point in my life I had faced lots of challenges but without a doubt working on this project is where I have been mentally challenged the most. So in order to cope with the work, I adopted some strategies which have ALSO really helped me navigate the entrepreneurial journey.
Since entrepreneurship is all about lifelong learning, failing many times in order to win and expanding your comfort zone. Knowing how to take care of your mind is very important. The information in this post is not only for entrepreneurs. Students pursuing a degree or just about any people who wants to live a better and more fulfilling lifestyle can adopt the ideas and habits.
Exercise Regularly
For many years now I adopted a routine where I spent 10-12 hours of my day working Monday through Sunday. Depending on what I’m working on I can go 16 hours or more multiple days in a row. I can sustain it for two to three months before I need to cut down the hours, refresh, rest and let my body replenish with vibrant energy.
One reason I’m able to do this consistently is because I trained my body to run two miles every day no matter how tired I feel. Is hard to explain the feeling. But just the willpower to get out and run after a long day learning or working on a project will put me in a better state of mind. This video uncovers some of the science behind it:
As I sprint down with my routine and my body moves fast like Usain Bolt (so I would like to think anyway), I can feel all the stress and bad energy accumulated during the day wear out. My mind gets oxygenated with fresh blood pumped from the exercise. The sprinting speed requires all of my focus and concentration. So I can’t think of any problem during this time which is in part what clears my mind as I’m not actively thinking and consuming mental resources.
The best way I can describe is like this. Imagine you spend a whole day working non stop. You leave to run exhausted and unable to think clearly. Your mind is foggy and not worth a penny. Then you hit that high interval training routine which in my case is sprints/running and by the end of it your brain has replenished with oxygen and ready to work again at peak performance. The intensity is key to make this work.
After I’m done with my 30 minute routine running a couple miles I go straight and take a shower. This helps my body relax and all the impurities from acidic sweat get removed from my body. In this way I can maintain a healthy skin and appearance which by the way could be further improved with skin elegance products if you want to check those out.
Right after the shower I jump into my bed and let the fan push cool air on my face as I feel my lungs absorb oxygen with ease. That’s the last part of my workout which lasts 5-10 minutes. After that I feel like new and I’m ready to continue working on any task or project which I left unfinished. The fact is right after one of those running routines is when my mind feels the sharpest and ready to solve the hardest problems.
In the video below Gary V talks about switching the mindset around to living healthier and exercising.
I love my routine. I have built a habit where this routine is the prize or trophy I get to enjoy after a long day engaged working on building my goals. This is in fact how I go out the most and connect with nature and breathe pure air and the aroma of the lake that surrounds where I run.
The whole routine from beginning to end takes 30-45 minutes. I have been doing it for over 7 years now and it has really helped me keep my mind in good shape. Sometimes I abuse my mind in the sense I try to learn and absorb way too much information. If it wasn’t because I have this sort of habit in place, I would probably have gone insane by now.
Meditate Every Week
Normally I perform my running routine around 6 or 7 pm. After I’m done I continue working until past midnight. I wait until my mind once again feels foggy or exhausted. Lately it doesn’t happen as much and I go to bed with plenty of brain power as I have adapted to working like this.
That’s when the next part of my routine is made. I turn off all the lights in my room so is super dark. Then I meditate in the darkness. I make my goal not to think about a single thought for as long as I can. I let my body fall into a state where I’m still aware of everything but my mind feels relaxed and then eventually I fall asleep. This helps me once again replenish mental capacity so the next day I can be super productive.
Something which has helped improve this routine is to read just before I go to bed. If is physical books I read, it has a similar effect as meditating and I use the time learning new information. I then use all these new information and ideas and adapt it to projects I’m working on or to help others. Digital books on computer screens on the other hand make me restless but sleeping in a very dark room really helps recover.
Something interesting not many people know is that thought and emotions can affect the molecular structure of water. Since the human body is composed of water in excess of 50%, this means meditation and positive thinking not only heals the mind. It also heals the body. A famous Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto produced various experiments to understand how thought and emotion changes the crystallization of water.
He found that water can store information. Water can store consciousness. Here is a video showcasing some of the results of Dr. Masaru’s experiments. As you will realize good thoughts lead to harmonious shapes indicative of well being. Negative intent in the order hand results in distorted structures which cause harm. This is one of the reasons is so important to find a job and company culture where the environment is not stressful and toxic. Work with people that extract the best in you.
At the same time. It has also been found the way we think of stress can greatly impact how our body reacts to it. If we think stress is good as it will keep us alert and ready to be able to tackle any task or challenge. The crystals will be in harmony and we will be taping into a source of energy to be creative and productive. The same stress and anxiety thought as negative energy which is undesirable will produce unhealthy and distorted crystals.
It is no secret that one of the biggest secrets to becoming successful is how you use your mind. When there is a big problem happening, as you grow your brand and businesses it is your mindset that ultimately will manifest into positive or negative outcome. Patterns of crystallization like this happen everywhere around us. In fact many of the ancient symbols and patterns can be uncovered with frequency and resonance experiments.
As I have found meditation is a powerful exercise which will help fine tune your mind with all the abundant information floating in the universe. Some books I have read talk about actual physics experiments in which it was proved the brain is just like a radio. We can tune to different wavelengths and frequencies which result in different thoughts and inventions.
Understanding this is important because at the core of entrepreneurship is creativity, which can be tapped into by practicing meditation. A good meditation routine can also help recover from cognitive overload really quickly in fact back when I used to meditate every single day, 20 minutes of highly focused meditation felt like hours of sleep. Since I have been working so much I have lost the ability to do this.
Information is everywhere around us and it will keep growing EXPONENTIALLY. In fact, DNA will become the way we store information in the future. Allowing us to create and store near infinite amounts of information. Meditation can help cope with information overload. Is rather enlightening to think about this. But given water and DNA can store so many emotions and information. Pretty much everything we think about is stored. If we focus on fearful thoughts. Those will dominate our life. If we focus on empowering beliefs we will accomplish more of what we want.
Eat Healthy Foods
A big reason why I seem to have so much energy is because I eat healthy. I’m lucky my mom cooks and she is old fashioned in that sense. We don’t eat canned goods at home which are high in salt or sugar.
Normally I eat scrambled eggs on a daily basis. This is my go to breakfast. Other than this I also take fish oil and life force multivitamin during the morning. When I take this supplements I’m forced to drink water which is great because 70% of muscle is made of water. Back in my gym rat days I used to do a lot of research about ingredients in supplements and dosages. The actual sourcing of the products and how it actually made me feel.
So my fish oil of choice became Kirkland’s brand which is affordable and the company has many procedures in place to remove heavy metals which are toxic to health. With the pollution of the oceans fish caught these days contain more heavy metals like mercury and plutonium than before. If you read some of the articles I linked to, take into consideration Japan has some of the cleanest cities and seas. Most of the other countries are worse.
As for life force multi it just gives me a noticeable boost in energy and aids with digestion. The company puts into the multivitamin the best minerals and vitamins from the best sources, distributed in good dosing percentages which can easily be absorbed and utilized by the body.
I remember my 10th grade teacher who taught anatomy and physiology used to say buying vitamins is a waste. She would tell the class we get sufficient vitamins and minerals from the food we eat and as such the potent active ingredients in the vitamins are discarded when we pee. The reality is most of the food we eat today has been processed, sometimes to the point it doesn’t have any useful substance for the body to heal and grow. It’s like we are unconsciously eating poison, which makes us sick.
So in order to be healthy and productive I use those two staple supplements in combination with drinking plenty of water and eating as healthy as I can. For some people healthy options can be expensive. But you can’t go wrong with eggs and whole grain bread. White bread made with flour has been denatured off all it’s healthy nutrients, vitamins and minerals.
After breakfast I’m used to not eating again until the end of the day. Fasting for some periods of time can help stay in good health. In fact some cultures have a habit of fasting because this allows the body to consume bad cells which can trigger diseases. In a similar way it gives the gut a break and allows for proper digestion and nutrient absorption to take place. My body is really efficient at preserving energy, but I have a big meal to end the day.
One of the greatest benefits of running on a daily basis is that the movement of exercise shakes the intestines in such a way which makes digestion better. If you are constantly constipated and have stomach problems I recommend you to start exercising and more specifically running. You will start to notice your stomach problems going away. Even if you eat healthy, exercise is still crucial for gut health.
Among the reasons I began consuming eggs on a daily basis is because this is one of the cheapest natural protein sources. Back in the day I read a whole encyclopedia of bodybuilding. Many of the early professional bodybuilders built their physiques by consuming as many as 20 eggs every single day.
Back then the manufacturing of protein powder was more expensive. Most of these athletes make any money once they hit a certain treshold at the professional level where sponsorship deals are signed. Is the same thing as being an artist, blogger or a YouTuber. Only the people at the very top of their game make any noticeably income. Is important to build charisma, charm and expertise around a niche to make your message spread with ease.
My stance on supplements like protein powder which I consumed for years. The supplements do work for sure. The brands I recommend is Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard at the higher end and Dymatize if you want similar benefits at lower price point. When it comes to flavors Chocolate Coconut is the best for ON in my opinion. For Dymatize I liked Cookies and Cream. However, there is no better supplement than actual natural food which has been produced by the earth for thousands of years. I’m more of a paleo diet practitioner.
The problem I had with supplements like whey powder is that eventually my body would build toxicity and I would get itchy as hell. Like ants were biting my body everywhere. I’m not lactose intolerant or anything like that but milk products when taken in excess have this negative effect. Other than this I did not like how whey protein can cause both diarreah and ferocious constipation.
I remember a final’s week back when I was going to engineering school. I decided to sleep at Florida International University so I could have a few more hours of study. This was normal for me when I had multiple exams in a week since I was never smart. I just worked harder than anyone else. That’s still how I do it today. Outwork the competition.
Anyway for those days I took six different protein shakes, each was 50 grams, or two scoops in each shake. After I had consumed about 150 grams of protein that day. Comprised of a shake in the morning, a shake in the middle of the day… and one in the afternoon. I became so constipated. It’s one of the worse feelings I have ever experience in my life.
Later on I reflected. It turned out since I had spent all day sitting studying and I had consumed so much protein my intestines just could not properly handle all that protein intake without my regular running routine.
Since that day whenever I consume powdered protein I also added psyllium husk powder which is naturally rich in fiver and helps digest protein sources better. Nowadays I take protein powder few times every week to avoid getting itchy. The protein I like the most is casein since it tastes better than any other powdered protein. Casein is also made from the the best quality sources and takes longer to digest, but is more expensive. What I love about Casein is that when taken with some milk it tastes like delicious milkshake.
If you will actively add protein supplements to your diet I tested many ways to get the best results. I found the best was to take a scoop of whey protein just before starting exercise. Then another one just after ending exercise and then use casein at the end of the day when going to sleep.
Since whey protein digests really quickly it gets broken down and absorbed into the bloodstream really fast. So after you finish warming up to start intense exercise, you will have nutrients pumping through your blood stream fueling the muscles. Since your muscles will fire better, then is easier to grow stronger and bigger. This is the main reason people take pre workout other than to feel ready to workout. The problem is it builds dependence kind of like a drug.
Drinking another scoop of whey protein right after exercise helps refuel the depleted muscles with nutrients. This gets them to heal faster and recover in time for the next routine. Lastly with casein, since this is slow digesting protein your body will release and absorb nutrients into the bloodstream for longer during the night.
Normally when we wake up in the morning we are leaner. Many people lose a couple of pounds while they sleep. The act of breathing and keeping the body functioning during sleep consumes resources and water and nutrients are lost through sweat and perspiration.
Casein helps to sustain homeostasis or equilibrium within the body so it doesn’t fast or starve for longer. Which is what causes muscle tissue to be broken down into nutrients and amino acids for your body to use as energy. Interesting enough like I already said, when you fast the body also breaks down and consumes diseased and unhealthy cells. So fasting at least once a week can really help your health even though it won’t help you become a huge bodybuilder.
One other supplement most people don’t talk about but which is important if you want massive gains is cartilage supplements. It turns out is much easier for the body to build fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers but it takes much longer to repair and grow cartilage which acts as elastic bands that weld muscles and bones together. Here is one of the most popular joint support formulas.
It happens to many bodybuilders they hit a point where it seems they can’t grow anymore and in fact what is holding them back is they need some cartilage supplements to strengthen and repair the flexible connective tissue. Once this is fixed they can lift heavier which as a result often times helps them become bigger. Other times they just need to eat more and give the body bigger protein intake.
If you want to learn all of this read the encyclopedia of bodybuilding. It has a lot of useful information for people who want to become personal trainers or improve their understanding of personal fitness.
I used to be such a fitness junkie I went as far as licensing myself as personal trainer back in 2016. I never used the certification for commercial purposes. In fact it already expired but all the accumulated knowledge helped me build some awesome ecommerce campaigns to promote fitness products. I already forgot a lot of the terminology but what really matters is to have a solid understanding of the basics.
If you aspire to become very strong and need a reliable source of protein but you are in a very tight budget. Many of the bodybuilders of back then would boil the egg whites and discard the yellow part since it contains cholesterol and fat. Others would choose to eat the whole eggs and then as competition approached consume less fat to manifest a chiselled physique.
I’m not a big believer in taking expensive BCAAS (amino acids), glutamine, fat burners or pre workout. The best pre workout I used was NO XPLODE. The active ingredients niacin and beta-alanine literally made my body burn when I took it. Caffeine works just as good and is much cheaper. As it currently is my body is kind of like a battery. Sometimes I shock people when I shake hands with them.
I try to drink at least half a gallon of water every day. Sometimes when my mind feels tired but is not yet time to go running, drinking plenty of water does the trick. Is like my mind is an overclocked CPU producing lots of heat but then the water dissipates all the heat and I’m back to a good working and operational condition. All these little tricks help me keep good mental health and maximum productivity even after working on projects crazy hours.
The last big supplement I used to take was creatine. In moderation this is great and will help endure intense exercise. However, in my experience if you take the dosages recommended it will cause breathing issues. What I found to work best for me was to take a gram or two each day without any loading phase.
Looking back part of the reason creatine “caused” breathing issues is because as we add more muscle mass the muscles tighten really hard. The same happens to blood vessels which tighten and could make it harder for blood to flow. This is one of the unintended effects or consequences of lifting hard without proper conditioning. This is why stretching the muscles is so important. It helps maintain good posture and overall body health. Read the book!
Sleep 8 Hours as Recommended
When it comes to sleep I know 8 hours is the recommended amount of time. However, as I have found if you eat healthy, exercise and meditate, you can easily thrive with 4-6 hours of sleep and still feel refreshed.
The only time when I really need to sleep all 8 hours or more is when I integrate powerlifting routines to my schedule. As I have said before I used to be a gym rat. In fact, back in the day everything I used to do was around health, fitness, nutrition and lifting really heavy. I had to change it because I almost failed engineering school for spending so much time at the gym in Florida International University.
If you are also doing very intense exercise with heavy weight resting 8 hours or more is crucial because the muscles and the body will not recover easily with less time. Right now I’m starting to lift heavy again so I’m sleeping 8-9 hours every day. I will post progress pictures later to keep myself accountable!
Wear Earplugs
It will take some getting used to this one but I have found earplugs can help you become more mindful and more productive. I first started wearing earplugs 4 years ago when an old friend recommended it. Since I started using them I found it easier to memorize and learn new information. At first it will be difficult to adapt. The earplugs may even feel uncomfortable.
However, after you use them for some time you will get used to hearing a quiet signal in your mind. Is a high pitch frequency which will help you stay motivated, focused and more productive. If you are like myself noise makes it very hard to produce creative work. The essence of building a business is using your creativity to solve challenging problems or improve products and services.
If you want to improve your concentration even further try wearing earplugs while listening to white noise or binatural beats. I have become so used to wearing earplugs that when I’m listening to music or watching documentaries I still wear them. Sometimes I even wear earplugs when I go to sleep.
Watch Documentaries
I don’t watch any television. I have seen two movies in the last year both of which I watched with my grandparents. Television makes people dumber. But there is always a place for documentaries and series which teach you valuable skills. In fact, most of the technical skills I have acquired I have learned from watching videos on YouTube.
Many great concepts and ideas I learned from watching documentaries and tedx talks. In your journey as an entrepreneur is good to know about sports and other cultures. Since a great part of success comes from being social and extracting the best from the people you meet so they help you reach your goals. Documentaries and educational series will greatly help you develop that part in you.
Watching documentaries will help you relax but unlike regular TV programming which is filled with subliminal messages and horrible stories, documentaries can keep your brain active and engaged learning new concepts and ideas. An interesting fact is that newspapers and TV stations started producing news about disasters because is what gets the most engagement from the viewers.
Recently here in Miami right near were I live two suspects took hostage a young UPS driver and the truck, after a robbery of a jewelry store. It was all over the news. I prefer not to watch TV or read newspapers because negative news which are sensational make up 90% of what is featured since is what produces the biggest response from the audience.
Avoid Smartphone and Social Media
Many studies have found that social media is causing people to feel depressed. Many people have been using social media to create a superficial image of who they really are. Since many people are faking it, there is some people who feel depressed because they don’t have the same lifestyle as the influencers they follow.
On top of this, Social Media applications like Facebook and Instagram have been built to extract as much attention from the users as possible. These are like digital drugs, and create addiction just like games. In order to be able to keep your mind healthy and in good shape you should use these applications minimally.
The only time I recommend to use social media heavily is if you are a producer and you are using these channels to promote your products and services. In that case social media becomes a really powerful tool which can help you generate a lot of organic traffic if you use strategies which engage users and make the algorithms push your content higher on the feed.
Avoid Drugs and Alcohol
I have been lucky I never had any problems with drugs. But I still remember the time I went to a college party a popular fraternity was hosting. I broke under the peer pressure to drink as many tequila shots as I could and play beer pong and drink whiskey and vodka and all sort of drinks I can’t even pronounce.
Just prior to going to this party I spent two years religiously doing my sprinting sessions and eating healthy. My cardio and my mind were both on peak performance. After that day it took me two weeks to recover from all the drinking. The next day I went running and I just did not have the energy to do my normal routine. Is like my cardio was gone.
My brain felt like crap for a week after this. It was hard to think straight. Since then I drink socially but I never drink to the point the world around me starts spinning. To be successful in business you need to skew every possible advantage in your favor. The biggest advantage of all is your creativity and your ability to produce new products and ideas. Drugs and alcohol will take from your ability to create.
NOTE: Some people say DTM, Ayahuasca and mushrooms could help with creativity and understanding the world. In my personal experience the best natural drug you can use is meditation and exercise. For real the runners high can feel more powerful than lovemaking. I mean it!
Cleanse Your Body
If you already exercise frequently and eat healthy. meditate and sleep well. Drink lots of water, avoid drugs/alcohol and read regularly.
Chances are your body and mind are in good shape and your body is free from toxins which harm your mind. Either way in order to operate at the optimal level you need to clean your body from impurities. There is a big connection between the gut and the brain. So you need to clean your gut in order to enjoy the best mental health.
If you read “The Law of Success” by Napoleon Hill you will learn part of his strategy to stay healthy was to cleanse his body. Many wealthy people who are very productive and enjoy great physical and mental health have used this advice to succeed in life.
One of the best ways to learn how to cleanse your body is to read some of the books produced by medical medium. A lovely friend of mine introduced me to this content. I have learned so much great information which was not in the encyclopedia of bodybuilding or any other health and nutrition book I read. I want to note Anthony William has no medical credentials, yet evidence shows his stuff works. There are many transformation posts shown on his Instagram giving validity to what he teaches. I know for a fact we are what we eat. The man teaches to eat healthy natural products.
Do Activities Which Reduce Stress
Recently I have been consuming more information from Bryan Tracy who is one of the greatest productivity coaches who ever lived. Part of his routine to work at peak performance without suffering from burnout was to leave a full day off during the week in which he relaxed, replenished and prepared for everything he needed to do the next week.
Someone else I have been following closely is the MFCEO Mr. Andy Frisella. He did not quite said to leave a full day off, but he revealed he does the most important 3 tasks to grow his business in one day and then he relaxes. Every day he tackles those 3 most important, critical tasks no matter how difficult those may be then he goes off to have fun with his cars or hit the gym.
Charles N Go is another very successful individual and one of the best affiliate marketers. He is also an advocate of sleeping and relaxing longer hours. His focus is entirely on building systems and routines to accomplish more work in less. He is all about working smarter, not harder.
Tim Ferris who produced the “4 hour workweek” which is an amazing book, is yet another example in the pile of people who are advocates to working at peak performance during peak hours of the day and then going off and relaxing. All of them know that working too many hours reduces creativity and the quality of work. Working so hard eventually leads to burnout.
That’s why we need to work hard, but we also need to be smart about the ways we grow our online businesses and projects. We need to find the perfect balanced routine which allows maximum productivity and the best quality work from us without impacting our physical or mental health.
Back when I first started blogging I used to write a post every single day. I was following Gary V’s mindset of producing as much content as I could. Although the work I made back then did produced results, the quality of the work was becoming worse with every passing day. I found that I had run out of topics to cover so in order to make up for it I would spend 6-10 hours researching and reading topics and then two to three hours writing the content.
I was lucky my mind was like a sponge during that period. I had great neuroplasticity since I had spent so much time trying to learn programming. Eventually, after three months doing this it caught up with me and I hit a period of depression and burnout. At that point that project died and I found a full time job to invest my energy.
Months later after I had been hired I learned about how Brian Dean approaches content creation. He writes an article once about every month. This allows him plenty of time to do all the research he needs. Produce the infographics and videos. Research all the links he wants to use on the article and the actual keywords he wants to target.
Ultimately, with this strategy and by following his very own skyscraper technique he is able to produce some of the best SEO content in Google. His content ranks really easily and receives hundreds of thousands of visits in a month.
So the next time you are working on your online business venture. You feel overwhelmed and frustrated. Take a step back and relax. Analyze if what you are doing is being effective or not. Perhaps in fact you need to change your strategy or focus your energy in some of the tasks you are working on which is actually producing all the results. The 80/20 rule manifests itself everywhere.
Conclusion
In this post I told you about some of the habits I have acquired over the years which are helping me be more mindful. Among them I told you about my exercise, meditation, sleep and eating habits. I also told you about the importance of drinking plenty of water. As I have experienced, water helps cool down the brain and is one of the key ingredients to keep it working at peak performance.
Other than this I also take some supplements in the form of fish oil and multi vitamin. I wear earplugs most of the time when I’m working so noise doesn’t bother me. I stay away from drinking alcohol or consuming drugs. Something which really helps my mental health is reading personal development books.
I hope you can use some of this ideas for yourself. Building a powerful brand is all about producing the best ideas and outsmarting your competition. So if you start adopting some of the habits I shared in this post you may see great results faster! An added benefit to being kind to your physical and mental health is that you feel good and look better. This makes you better to represent your brand and build your confidence.
Hope you learned something useful.
-Rey