The Power of Ownership summary

So many things and events affect your well-being that it’s easy to get lost on the journey to extraordinary health. But what if you had a guiding compass that indicated which direction you were heading? Fortunately, one exists! That compass is called heart rate variability – or HRV for short.

HRV is essentially the time between each of your heartbeats. It’s the language your body uses to communicate how it’s responding to the stresses and strains of daily life. That’s why understanding HRV can help you optimize your health and performance. Since it can be measured, it’s your built-in feedback mechanism. A high HRV indicates your body is resilient and coping well, while a low HRV signals you’re pushing yourself too hard.

With an overload of information available about what you should and shouldn’t consume, how can you fuel your body to yield the best HRV outcome?

Start by breaking down the pillar – fuel – into two foundational principles: nutrition and hydration.

Like the vast majority of people, you might not be able to spend millions on fitness and personal trainers like LeBron James does. Yet to achieve extraordinary health, you do need to focus on purposeful training, movement, and cultivating an empowered mindset. This is the second pillar – build.

For training and movement, it goes beyond just exercising sporadically. It’s about adding intention to your physical activity to increase measures like VO2 max – your body’s ability to utilize oxygen efficiently. The more efficient your cardiovascular system, the more energy you’ll have for daily peak performance.

Imagine your body as the pivot of a seesaw, with a hormone called cortisol going up as you become more active during the day and another called melatonin taking over as you begin the process of shutting down, eventually lulling you to sleep.

That seesaw is called the circadian rhythm. It’s your body’s natural way of telling you when to work and when to rest. Disrupting this rhythm harms your health while adhering to it improves sleep and immune function, the foundational areas of the third pillar – repair.

Ava runs an international firm that involves travel from her base in Japan. She’s gaining weight and losing sleep from working across different time zones. After attending a life by design workshop she reorganizes travel, work, and her environment to match her sleep, nutrition, and the way her body recovers. After just a month, she starts losing weight and finds renewed vigor for her work.

As Ava’s story shows, living or working in a space that drains your energy makes it difficult to thrive.

The aim of this Blink is to help you avoid living life by default by intentionally living according to your own terms. It won’t always be easy, but understanding the four-pillar framework is a great place to start.

So, where do you go from here?