Page 51 - Benjamin Franklin\'s The Way to Wealth: A 52 brilliant ideas interpretation - PDFDrive.com
P. 51
21 BE PHYSICALY FIT ENOUGH TO EARN A
FORTUNE
When Franklin tells us that ‘sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely
shortens life’ he’s not referring to upside-down South American
mammals—he means that couch potatoes will vacate their seats on the
board earlier than their more active colleagues.
DEFINING IDEA…
A country can truly call itself sporting when the majority of its people
feel a personal need for sport.
~ PIERRE DE COUBERTIN, FATHER OF THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES
If physical fitness was the key to wealth then Bill Gates would be taking
investment advice from Chuck Norris and FTSE 100 boardrooms would be
filled with ripped, lean torsos and buttocks of steel. If you snorted milk out
of your nose on reading that then you’ve seen the kind of people who sit in
FTSE 100 boardrooms. Clearly physical fitness isn’t a necessity for earning
a fortune, and the truly wealthy are more likely to look like The Simpsons’
Montgomery Burns than David Beckham, but that doesn’t mean that fitness
is unimportant to success.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade you already
know that you should be exercising for half an hour or more at least three
times a week. What you might have missed was that this does more than
trim your waistline and give grown men an excuse to wear tights in public.
In addition to improving lung and heart capacity which, in themselves, may
add years to your life and improve your daily lot, exercise has a number of
benefits that affect wealth as well as health.
Physical fitness is proven to help cope with stress. Left untreated, extreme
stress can bring on anxiety, tense muscles, high blood pressure and low
resistance to illness. Non-competitive sports help counter all of the above as
well as boosting your immune system to make you more resilient to illness.
By releasing endorphins in the body, exercise also makes you feel good; it’s
