Do Fitter Founders Build Fitter Startups ?

Distance Makes The Heart Grow Stronger

Hold on.

Before you presume that this is a biased article towards people who are fit or saying that people who aren’t fit do not create wonderful startups…

You are wrong.

This is an element that I have debated with both sets of founders.. Ones who practice fitness of mind and body and the ones who for some reasons are lazy enough to be physically fit but are amazing, excellent champions of the business game.

I threw open this tricky yet very interesting question in the Startup Specialist Group on LinkedIn to get some views from Entrepreneurs, Experts, Mentors and some amazing set of people.

I asked the brilliant group members of Startup Specialist Group whether Fitter Founders Build Fitter Startups?

One of the serial entrepreneurs Venkatraman Pichumani whom I had the chance of meeting a couple of times, discussed in the thread, he says:

“Fitter founders are more disciplined. This is carried into the businesses that they run.

Fitter founders are happily hormonised. This happy / positive mind set gets carried into the day.”

while he also says 🙂

“Fitter founders can be sometimes vain. Demotivates the not so fit”

I personally believe what he says are both sides of the coin. Daniel Meyer in the same thread added an amazing analogy:

“Fitter founders make higher quality decisions. Think of it like the food that you choose every day. You can make choices for immediate reward at your expense in the long term, or you can make choices for long term rewards which benefit everyone around you.”

Eric Furlow added this amazing insight:

“Having a fit founder can only be a positive … sure sometimes it might just have a slightly positive affect, yet other times it could change other people’s lives for the better.

Being physically fit requires discipline … and discipline is definitely a positive force every start up needs.”

Michael Beach added this awesome and meaningful quote to the thread:

“Balance makes sense in so many ways. Founders should be wary of overworking, and should be wary of overeating, over-indulging in drink, and also over-exercising, etc. I certainly think fitter founders probably have an advantage over other founders whose balance and health are out of whack, but at the end of the day, being fit and balanced can only do so much, you still have to make great decisions and work hard/work smart.”

I think it is more of perspective based routine that is also a very very personalized style of living your life at your own terms. While it is good to be fit and make fitter decisions it also makes sense to “not demotivate or look down on peers or employees who haven’t adopted to the lifestyle that you have built for yourself.”

Having said that it is truly a viral behavior for good and to be shared and to inspire people.

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