When a leader loses perspective for too long, it can be terminal.

So what should one do who finds themselves tired, fearful, and confused? Here are 5 suggestions for those of you who might be trapped in this very uncomfortable place right now.

1. Take some time OFF. This may feel like the last thing you can afford to do, but it could be exactly what you need right now. Don’t take a trip — take a vacation.  Unplug and rest. Take some time to sleep, read, exercise, eat right, and connect with those who encourage you. The purpose of this OFF time is to rejuvenate you, not to further drain you.

2. Protect your sacred spaces. iPhones, Blackberries and TVs are incredibly useful tools in our lives, but we must establish boundaries. If we are sitting in bed late at night or first thing in the morning checking Facebook, watching the news, and responding to email, we are living in reactive mode 24/7. We won’t get the rest we need, and we will wake up feeling further behind. Instead, make your late evenings and early mornings a reflective, restful time. Use this time for the things that refresh you. Protect your bedroom as a sacred space, and keep certain times of the day as sacred.

3. Feed the machine. Our bodies will break down over time if not properly cared for. Make your health an A-1 priority. Make healthy meals, daily exercise, plenty of sleep and lots of water a habitual part of each and every day. Don’t take your body for granted, or the machine will break down just when you need it most.

4. Spend time with your cheerleaders. Make sure you find time in your week to spend with people who love you, believe in you, and who truly want to see you at your best. Hopefully this takes place already in your home, with your close friends, and with certain team members. Be mindful of who you invest your time with, and if needed schedule extra time with those who encourage you most.

5. Consult the map daily. Look at the plans and books that guide your direction every morning. Keep your Life Plan, Business Vision, and Business Plan in front of you. If you lose sight of the big picture, the tired, mundane, confused and even fear-filled days will surely follow.

I am confident that one or more of these tactics will help you to get your perspective back. May you be fortified for the battles of your life.

Related posts:

1. I Love a Good Vacation in the Morning
2. Things Will Not Fall Apart
3. Questioners and Truth Tellers

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Today I am paying the price. I have been knee deep in email for the last three hours.

One of the email messages I just reviewed was from my wonderful teammate, Kit Johnson, who runs HR and Accounting for us at Building Champions. She sent me a report I had requested with our team’s unused vacation hours. I asked for this because I want to make sure I am encouraging my teammates to take full advantage of their vacation time.

I have coached too many leaders who told me they have not taken a full week of vacation in years — as if it were a good thing. It’s not! We do ourselves and our companies a disservice when we fail to take time to rest, explore, play and rejuvenate.

So here are my encouragements for you today.

If you are a leader and are not taking any time away, you are not bringing your best to your company nor are you setting a good example for those you lead. Take a vacation. I promise if you do, you will come back to your work with more energy, passion, and creativity.

Don’t buy the lie that things will fall apart without you. What I have observed is quite the opposite. Your team will step up and grow when you are not there. You may even be surprised at their talent and resourcefulness.

Some leaders are insecure about their team’s success without them — they’re afraid they will prove themselves to be dispensable. In reality, it is a credit to you as a leader when your team is strong enough to function without you for a week or two.

The best thing you can do for your company is to leave it every once in a while. Schedule some time away, and encourage your teammates to take their vacations as well.

You will all be refreshed and perform better when you return.

Related posts:

1. I Love a Good Vacation in the Morning
2. Questioners and Truth Tellers
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Sometimes we may use email or texting to deliver bad news or disappointment. We take the “easy way out” when we avoid sitting down face to face to work through the conflict.

Another way we avoid conflict is by allowing someone to deliver a difficult message for us, or asking them to act as our peacemaker in a hostile situation. In most cases, we could have prevented the conflict from getting to this stage if we had just taken the initiative to deal with it up front in a caring and truthful way.

Once we send someone else in to do our battle, the odds of reconciliation diminish greatly.

Last week, I was joined by four other Building Champions coaches as we walked a group of clients through a performance model on “Health.” We targeted four aspects of health – emotional, physical, relational, and professional — with the goal of helping them to identify gaps and best practices for each. These four aspects are all inextricably linked — if we take a hit in one of the four, eventually the other three will suffer.

Coach James Allison focused on Relational Health. He said that if we are to protect, improve, and maintain deep and trusting relationships at home and at work, we must master the skill of conflict resolution.

He challenged us to be “Care Fronters,” meaning that we should care as much about the relationship as we do the issue. For the sake of the relationship, we must be willing invest the time to meet with those we have conflict with in order to pursue resolution. No texting or emailing or delegating when it comes to bad news or disappointment.

Don’t ever take “the easy way out.” It will only lead to more conflict in the future.

Personally, I wish I had heard James speak (or read my own blog post) years ago. I know I could have possibly avoided an escalating conflict that I experienced in the past few weeks.

Here’s to never taking the easy way out! The alternative is often a tough, pride-swallowing road…but it leads to stronger relationships.

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1. Conflict: Friend or Foe?
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Now, I know that much has been written on the subject of health by those who are far more educated in this arena. But I thought I would share my experiences as a guy who has taken a different approach.

The problem with the “start and stop” rhythm is that this approach is never a good strategy for battle, and that is exactly what maintaining peak health is: a battle.

We can’t win this battle if we focus on it for a few weeks by eating packaged, low-fat, processed foods in pre-subscribed quantities and working out for 20 minutes three times a week….and then toss it all to the wind when our weight goal has been reached or we become frustrated.

Unless we change our thinking, we will not break out of this “start and stop” behavior.

Like my friend, we will look for the next greatest diet. It could be no carbs, just grapefruit, all meat, no meat, fist size, etc….

For any of you who have benefited from these types of diets, I am not saying they are bad. What I am saying is that our thinking must change first if we are going to see our health improve over the long haul.

So, here is a suggestion on how to go from dieting to maintaining good health as a way of life:

Change your “Why.” You may want to get to a certain weight or size, but that is usually not enough to keep you going. You need a more significant “Why.” Perhaps you would love to be able to keep up with your kids when you play together, or you want to add more pain-free years to your life. Maybe you are motivated by what you don’t want, like spending so much time in doctor’s offices, or being the one who holds your family back on vacations, or becoming a burden to those you love.

When it comes down to taking action and making better daily choices, these kinds of reasons are more likely to tug at your heart than the dream of a single-digit dress size.

Identify your Non Negotiable Disciplines. This is critical. My suggestion is that you start with disciplines you can nail at least 80% of the time. Examples of this could be to replace your soda intake with water, or to snack on veggies, fruit and nuts twice a day so you are not as hungry at lunch and dinner. Once you start to build momentum incrementally, you’ll find the bigger changes come more easily.

Find an Exercise Buddy. Who do you know that will commit to walking with you four mornings a week? Who will go for a jog with you every other day at lunch? Who can you hire to teach you how to properly lift weights and stretch? If you can afford to meet with a trainer regularly, it could be one of the greatest investments you make in your life. But whether you hire a trained professional or recruit a friend, you’ll find you have greater success when you’re accountable to another person.

Now, remember my friend who has tried every diet under the sun? His challenge isn’t to start the next great diet or quick fix exercise program to maximize the short bursts of time when he’s focused on his health. It is overcoming the daily drive-through habit and the lack of exercise when the diet stops.

He could be the world’s greatest dieter, but it won’t produce real change without a shift in thinking.

The battle is won when health becomes a lifestyle, not a task to be accomplished.

This is a rich topic, and I welcome your comments and questions!

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Waking up running is the norm for many in these crazed times. This daily routine can leave many a leader feeling overwhelmed and tired. It can cause us to live our days craving an escape.

We go about our schedule with mechanical precision, without really being present for days, weeks, or even months. We’re just waiting for the day we can board a plane to the tropics. Then, once the wheels are up and the Mai Tai is in hand, relaxation will finally set in.

It does not need to be this way.

I have a routine that I strive to sustain just about every weekday. I call it my morning vacation. It is my time alone in the early hours, before the rest of my family is awake. It usually lasts anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes and includes some time spent reading the Bible, praying, reflecting, stretching, or meditating. Many mornings, I do my reflection in the hot tub as the sun is rising.

When I follow through with my morning vacation, I find that it impacts how I go through the rest of my day. I am more present, calm, and aware. It equips me for the challenges and opportunities the next 24 hours will hold.

A day that begins well has a higher probability of finishing well.

I think it is a mistake to wake up in chase mode. Morning vacations can radically impact how you lead, serve, and love those in your office and your home. I know many leaders who have similar routines, and they swear by them.

Take a vacation. You deserve it.

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My family and I spent the last three weeks sightseeing, learning, sunning and surfing our way through this amazing yet challenged country. We were so very fortunate to join my sister, her South African husband and their three wonderful kids on this trip. My brother-in-law Mark was a fantastic tour guide.

Our schedule was action packed. We saw penguins on the beach, visited the Apartheid Museum, hiked through beautiful mountains, went zip lining over rivers, and rode Ostriches. We went on game drives where we saw lions, rhinos, elephants, and wildebeests. We learned a lot about their broken governmental system.

And yes, I finally surfed my dream wave at Jeffrey’s Bay.

The trip was filled with early mornings and late nights as the eleven of us made our way from Cape Town on the Garden Route to the Cape of St. Francis, then up to Pretoria, and finally to the Madikwe Game Reserve.
And now, we six Harks are flying home after this once in a lifetime experience.

While we were there, Mark introduced us to his cousin Kyle. Kyle has built a business taking couples on nature and self realization sails through the waters of Brazil. When he heard of our schedule, he said we needed to fit in some “unstructured down time.” This is a concept that really resonates with our family.

We had planned a wonderful trip that filled us with fantastic memories and a first rate education on everything from the wild animals of Africa to the ramifications of Apartheid.

But it was not a vacation.

As many of you may know, my idea of a vacation usually includes a warm beach, good food, siestas, and lots of surf. South Africa was a new and different type of holiday for us. It was not the type that leaves you rested and rejuvenated. It was the type that leaves you amazed, educated, inspired, and grateful.

To those of you out there whose time away from work usually involves a jam-packed schedule, my advice is to plan for a restful vacation. Fill your days with unstructured down time. Sleep late, listen to the ocean, read a non-business book. Take a vacation, not a trip.

A real vacation can be so wonderful for your health, your family, and your soul. It can also provide you with great opportunities to reflect and create.

For those of you who usually vacation with nothing but unstructured down time, try mixing it up a bit. Go somewhere that is rich in history, beauty, and wonder. Spend time learning about a different culture, a different people, and a different geography. Challenge your assumptions and your way of thinking about the world. Go on a trip.

Trips and vacations are both so good for us.

Yesterday, I was sitting with the host of a Dutch B&B in a quant little village called Hartbeespoort. This man is probably in his 70’s, and has lived a rich life with time spent in several different countries. He said that we as a people have lost our sense of adventure, and traded it in for the desire to be safe and in control. He said we all need cold showers in our lives in order to wake us up and get us out of our routines.

As we enter our summer season here in the states, what kind of cold shower are you going to take? A trip or a vacation?

Either way, I highly recommend it for your overall well-being.

A special thanks to the Goodies for such a rich time!

“Cheers,” as they say in SA,

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I’m not alone in this, either.  Many times at the beach, on the mountain, or in the streets you will find my colleagues and their kids right there with me.  Coach Barry Engelman has recently taken up snowboarding with his boys, and he also surfs with me from time to time.  Coach Steve Scanlon can often be found skating in local parking garages at 11pm, or at Mount Hood boarding with his kids.

Anyhow, our immature hobbies are not the point of this post.

So what is my point?  That I hang out with boys in men’s bodies?  Maybe so, but I believe that there is some life-giving magic to be found in playing outdoors at any age.

One mentor in my life is my great uncle, Chuck Heller.  Chuck was a very successful business owner in his day.  When I first started in business some 25 years ago, I asked him for his take on what had made him successful.  He shared a great deal with me, but the thing that really stuck with me was how he took care of himself physically, and how he played.  Chuck came home for lunch every day to swim laps, eat a healthy meal, and take a short nap.  He said this helped him mentally as well as physically.  He is 94 years old now, and still plays tennis at least 5 days a week!

I’d like to encourage you to take care of yourself this year.  Pick one health discipline to improve upon.  Do you need to work on eating better quality foods, or smaller portions?  Will you commit to exercising at lunchtime for 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week?  Have you been thinking about trying a new hobby, or finally dusting off the clubs, racket, glove, or board and getting out there to play once a week?

To keep playing like kids, we must be very intentional with how we care for ourselves.  This year, pick one aspect of your health account to improve upon.  Then, incorporate some play into your Life Plan and your calendar this year.  Not only will this allow you to make the most out of every day right now, but you’ll reap the benefits for years to come.

Do this, and you may receive one more wonderful gift:  when you play like a kid, you get to do this stuff alongside your kids!

I hope to see you on the mountain this weekend,

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