I seldom write about success or health, typically favoring hotel operations, leadership, finance, marketing or forecasts. But today, I offer a summer check up on our success, health, wellness and overall fitness plan, one that I have just commenced.  Because it is May, we have a full summer ahead of us. After reading Tom Brady’s new book, The TB-12 Method, my colleague, Larry Broughton’s book, Flashpoints for achievers and a book by Bob Burg and John David Mann, called Go-Giver, I decided this was the perfect time to set up a summer program for health and success.

Brady’s book is about pliability, flexibility, fitness, nutrition and wellness. He focuses on using bands to optimize muscle strength and pliability and believes that we need to be pliable, with muscles that are soft and long, not just flexible. The bands actually work you as much as weights, with results you can feel as you stretch the band further.

Brady offers some great recipes in his book but the key is fresh, organic and locally grown vegetables and fruits, less carbs and relatively smaller portions of protein. He covers sleepwear (yes, he has TB-12 sleep apparel) and suggests this will become mainstream.  While he provides many sales pitches about his TB-12 Method and TB-12 Sports Therapy Center, he has a heck of a track record for avoiding injury and explains how he does it. I am just beginning to use his methods.

Larry Broughton’s book is about a daily journal that provides inspiring messages for you each day. Larry is a Special Forces Alum and a successful hotel CEO. Most importantly for us, he provides a very simple approach to a seven-minute daily routine. In Larry’s case, he drinks a veggie smoothie or cup of coffee, does some meditations, prayers and inspirational reading and focuses his mind and spirit on the right path every day. His book offers a daily ritual that includes meditation but focuses on goal setting. I used it for a while and then decided to create my own inspiring messages and goal-setting routine for myself.

Brady’s book is really a wellness program that you can adopt or tweak as I have. He provides his own daily routine but it’s not what the book is about. It’s about how we exercise, how and what we eat and how we keep ourselves in peak physical condition and generally remain ageless like he seems to be—over 40 and at peak condition! Larry’s book helps you create a system to jumpstart your day. Both books will turn your summer around and include some commentary about mindfulness, a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment.

The third book is not health and wellness oriented at all, rather, it is about success! Their premise is that success comes to those who give more than they get. The short story is about a sales person who learns that the best way to be successful in sales is to give back before you actually get business. In our management and consulting services, that has always been our philosophy. A client calls and the first idea we have is to help them with their hotel site or property and worry about whether or not they will become a client after we have added value. This is something that is important for us to explain to all our team members—help the guests first, don’t worry about whether or not they are a hotel or restaurant guest. That will come in time.

Personally, I am setting a few goals that include a better work/life balance and participating in the San Diego Senior Olympics this fall. I am beginning a light training regimen that includes cardio, new strength training with resistance bands and very healthy eating. I try to stay youthful by playing the sports from my youth like basketball and baseball (55+ leagues only) as well as sports I am trying to play now like golf.

My real passion this summer will be to incorporate this into our team member and guest relationships. When I visit each of our hotels, I am going to offer guests and team members to have a run with the CEO. It will be an early morning run. If I do this all summer, it will be fun, keep me in shape, give our guests and team members a training run with a Senior Olympic athlete (may or may not sound good depending on the age of the guest or team member) and most of all, it will cost nothing for anybody.

To a great, healthy, successful and fit summer! Bob

P.S. In addition to covering these three books, I reviewed the trends from the Global Wellness Institute in Miami and selected three for a quick review:

-Transformative wellness travel is one trend. Being out in nature with meditations with true unplugging is part of the definition of transformative wellness travel. This is what I really like to do. As an example, when my wife and I go on a cruise or go to a wellness resort, my cell phone goes into the safe and only comes out if we hear about a crisis from ship officials or other resort guests.

-Wellness kitchens are another trend. Fresh fruits and vegetables, not processed foods, healthier snacks for breaks and much of what Tom Brady has talked about in his TB-12 book. We all have a general idea of what we should or should not eat but just look at America. By and large, we do not pay attention to what we already should know.

-Clean air, indoor and outdoor, is another key trend. Air purification is measured by a wellness robot designed by Partnering Robotics of France. It measures air quality and certainly there are many who believe our air quality is important. As one who has allergies to dust, smoke and other air quality irritants, I actually moved to San Diego for two reasons. The first is my wife—the second is the ocean air.