 Hey guys welcome to today's podcast. I really appreciate these precious gifts of your time and attention. Thank you for spending some of it in my direction, hanging out with me for a few minutes today. Today I want to speak to you guys about an idea that I first spoke about many years ago and I framed in this title, my greatest gift to you is a healthy me. My greatest gift to you is a healthy me or your greatest gift to me is a healthy you and this idea is really coming out of this awareness I've grown into especially as I've aged and especially as I've spent many many years in investing in and bringing value to other people that ultimately the best version of me is the greatest contribution I can make to other people in my world to the world. I think I spent years of my life either either consciously or subconsciously expecting other people to change for me thinking I need to help you to fix what's wrong in your life thinking I need to keep pointing out to you where you need to change you need to grow you need to improve because until I can fix you you really know good to me. So rather than working on me I used to think that I need to work on everybody else so with my teaching my ideas it would always be this is what you should be doing this is what you should be working on rather than spending that time and energy on me and working on me because I didn't realize that actually the best relationships I had in my life the best moments of team building and working in and leading teams the most productive parts of my life when I was in the best shape of my life and rather than let that be a random thing that I would experience seasonally and not figure out why it was like that I began to double down many years ago on investing in me on developing me on becoming the best version of me I could be realizing that that automatically became became the best gift I could give to people in my own life to my family to my friends to those that I work with and to the wider world that I have a voice to that my greatest gift to you is a healthy me if that's true if you believe that's true today then it means that immediately we can let go of the effort we spend on fixing everything else and everything about everybody else and working on you now want to say a healthy me or a healthy you I don't just mean physically I spend a lot of time as some of you may know teaching on aging well I'm now 63 and aging well has been an intentional passion of mine for at least 25 years as I nudged into my late 30s early 40s where the free ride of youth was over I became intentional about aging well about being a healthy me and of course going to the gym and doing weights and cardio is easy but there is far more to being a healthy you or a healthy me than that so in aging well the online video course I've done on aging well I speak for hours about aging well of course physically but also mentally and emotionally and relationally and generationally and chemically and all the rest of it so many so many different last aging well that that I was certain I know what about aware of in my earlier years but now we are living in a time when we have so much awareness about the multiple layers to aging well to be in a healthy version of you that I think this merits a reteaching this merits me giving new attention to it here at the start of this new year because the greatest gift you can give to people in your world this year is working on being a healthy vibrant growing developing flourishing version of you you may never get thanked or celebrated for the work you put in people may never recognize or appreciate actually how much effort you put in to be in a healthy you so you've got to realize I'm not doing it for that reason it's nice to be complimented or thanked for work you have put in to become a better version of you but people who should perhaps notice it often don't people who should thank you for it and celebrate it often don't nor do we often do it to others who are putting in huge effort to being the best version of them they can be so if you're not being thanked or celebrated for it keep going don't stop because ultimately being the best version of you you can be is ultimately about and for you other people benefiting from it is secondary but you benefiting from that investment in your own internal and external health is ultimately the prize that you're after I've always been fascinated by the thing that Jesus said about this when he said love your neighbor as yourself and I think what he's saying is that it is impossible to love someone else in a way or to a degree that you don't love yourself first that to invest in you to grow you to be intentional about your own flourishing and thriving is essential and must come before passing that on to someone else that we cannot love someone else with a love we don't have for ourselves that we can't invest in someone if we're not investing in ourselves that we can't care or be concerned about how someone else is doing in life if we lack that concern for ourselves you can't you can't allow people to make withdrawals from the bank of your life if your life is lacking in deposits from you that you constantly find yourself running on empty and battling burnout and then to think that from that low place that we get to in life and many of us live on permanently we have anything of value to give to the human race and I think that's why Jesus made the connection between loving others and loving yourself I don't think we've still figured out what he said I think for many of us we have not seen that connection that he made that we're going to step into another year of trying to love our families our loved ones our spouse our partner our children those we do life with and we find ourselves exhausted with the basics of that and not realizing that what will change that dynamic isn't trying harder to love people or trying harder to love more people or trying harder to love people different to you that you don't naturally love but the key is working internally on self-love that your greatest gift to those that you want to love this year is investing in self-love self-care self-development self-thriving and flourishing and nurturing that if we will double down this year on investing in yourself in growing intentionally by reading listening watching widely by committing again to be curious to be fascinated to be interested by committing again to feeding your soul to feeding your mind to feeding your body to feeding your emotions to feeding yourself in every way that you can this year that that commitment to self-care and self-compassion and self-empathy will be your greatest gift to those that do life with you this year in whatever way that they do that is I think what I want to spend time talking to you about at the outset of this year because no one talks to us about that and I think in the year we've had 2020 in the pandemic year we've all just come through I think we have learned to our cost how little we invested in ourselves when the pandemic struck and we had to spend so much time on our own without the usual stimulus of friends and family even been forbidden to express affection and physically hugging someone or touching someone I think the isolation that we were forced into I think bumped us into how empty our bank accounts were of personal investment and I've certainly doubled down in the past year in 2020 on that in myself and then encouraging others to do that about themselves so as we step into a new year I want to remind you that it is a superpower that is hugely neglected that we have as humans to grow all of your life and never stop no other species on the planet has been enabled by our creator to grow all of your life flourish all of your life to become a bigger better version of you all of your life no other species on the planet has that god-given gift and ability and yet most of us don't use it so I want to encourage you to commit to that afresh at the outset of this year to commit to being the best version of you the healthiest version of you you can possibly be because that will become your greatest gift to me whoever me is in your life it is your greatest gift to them to become a healthy vibrant flourishing happy you all right well I hope those thoughts have helped you and added value to the beginning of your journey this year let's keep in touch hey if you've appreciated this podcast then I don't know tag me in about your favorite quote or thought or one liner or idea leave a comment tag me in please by all means leave a review on the podcast we'd love to hear from you about what you're feeling and thinking experiencing through the podcast subscribe if you don't already again thank you for your presence here thank you for your company for a few minutes I wish you well in all that's coming up for you in this brand new year of opportunity in 2021 it's going to be an outstanding year because we've decided it will your greatest gift to me is a healthy you my greatest gift to you is a healthy me love you guys speak to you later thank you