My previous blog post ended with a few simple truths such as, training tough and leading easy, building a new leader’s lifestyle and securing your own mask first.

Over the next few installments, I’d like to make this a series of guided blog posts about bringing out the best in you.

We’ve established three critical success factors to an effective leader’s lifestyle:

• Personal well being  – movement, fuel and recovery
• Interactional excellence – attention, commitment and trust
• Professional transformation – purpose, growth and service

My plan is to take each factor separately and spell out what we know to be true.

The first success factor to effective leadership is personal well being — creating and balancing the healthy behavioral habits of movement (exercise), fuel (diet) and recovery (rest).

The simple truth here asks the question, if you are eating poorly, sleeping little and exercising not at all, how can you be effective with others? The answer of course is that you can’t.

As resilience goes, so goes productivity. Let me give you what we know to be true about movement, fuel and rest:

Movement

Break a light sweat everyday – the ad offering unbelievable results “in just 10 minutes, 3 times a week!” is just that – unbelievable. We are made to move, and made to burn, every day.

Movement need not kill – exercise shouldn’t physically beat you down every time you work out. Let it build you up, not wear you down (15-30 minutes is enough).

Do what you like – what works for you is repeatable. What’s repeatable becomes habit. What do you enjoy most? If you don’t know, experiment and find out.

Fuel

Eat real food – shoot for three ingredients or less in most of what you eat, and beware of sugar (stay under 10 grams per serving).

Eat 100 percent clean, 80 percent of the time – eight out of 10 meals or snacks should be clean and healthy, leaving two of 10 for a bit of a treat.

Hydration is not hypothetical – if you are thirsty you are already dehydrated. Strive for half your body weight in ounces every day.

Recovery

Live by the “80/20” rule – give 80 percent of your attention to movement and fuel, but don’t forget to focus 20 percent on rest.

Wake up with the sun – it is said that your hours of sleep before midnight are more important than those after. And naps rock, too.

No multi-tasking – rest means rest, not laying on the couch and watching TV, texting or emailing. Give recovery its due.