This guest post was written by Greg Fisher who started Berkeley Sourcing Group eight years ago after realizing the need for efficient processes and coordination between manufacturing firms located in the US and factories in China.

Why Every Entrepreneur Should Go to the Gym

If you’re an entrepreneur and looking to improve your game, then you’ve probably been focusing a lot of time and energy on your “head game”.

Maybe you’ve been learning everything you possibly can about your topic or niche, or perhaps you’re getting lots of sleep and drinking coffee to keep your mind sharp.

That’s all good and well, but if you’re neglecting your body, then you won’t be getting as good of results as you could be.

If you want to improve your business, your lifestyle and your productivity, then hitting the gym is one of the best possible ways you can do that.

Here are just a few reasons why every entrepreneur should have a gym membership – and actually use it.

You’ll be able to focus better

The single biggest reason entrepreneurs should be hitting the gym is it can drastically help improve your ability to focus. This is because it has positive effects on your brain, your energy levels and your mood, which all contribute to greater focus and productivity.

Even Neil Strauss, Best-selling Author of ‘The Game”, says that for every hour he spends engaging in physical activity, he’ll get more than an hour of extra productivity when writing.

How does this happen? Well, through a few different processes that help prime you for productivity:

• Exercising increases your heart rate and dilates your blood vessels, helping more blood get around your body – and crucially to your brain;

• Using muscles engages areas of your brain related to fine motor control and more, which in turn drives even more oxygen and blood to your brain;

• While all of this helps wake you up, using your muscles also helps you burn off nervous energy and feel more physically relaxed, which is useful when you’re going to be spending a greater part of your day in front of a computer.

• Working out also causes the body to produce serotonin, a natural anti-depressant (this is where the “runners’ high” comes from). As every entrepreneur knows, your mood can have a huge impact on focus and performance, so this is a critical one.

It’s good for your brain

While you’ll get a lot of short-term benefits from training prior to being productive, you’ll also benefit from a number of long-term effects, which will help make you smarter and capable of more in the long run.

In particular, exercising has been shown to improve short and long term memory, as well as attention, which can definitely help you in building your business empire.

You’ll have ideas

If you’re still worried you’ll be wasting time while you’re at the gym, then bear in mind that this is a great time to generate ideas for your business.

Many great thinkers have commented about how repetitive tasks help them to come up with their best ideas (Einstein included), so what better time to come up with your next breakthrough?

It’s a chance to learn

Not buying it? Fine – then you can also use this as a great opportunity to learn.

Just download Audibles or a podcast app and plug in some headphones!

Now you can learn about the latest technologies in your industry or improve your Japanese (for those overseas clients) all while you’re running on the treadmill. And as an added bonus, the exercise will help you synthesize and remember all of that new information!

You’ll be more imposing

If you’re one of those entrepreneur who thinks they can stay hidden behind a computer for their whole career, then you’re in for a shock. If you really want to capitalize on what your company has to offer, then you need to be willing to meet people face-to-face.

All of this requires you to be confident, and it will help a great deal if you’re in good shape.

Think about who you’d be more likely to listen to: someone pasty and hunched over, or someone who has the physical appearance to backup what they’re saying? Appearances shouldn’t count this much, but they do (if for no other reason, because of all the extra confidence it will give you!)

It will give you structure

If you work from home, then you’re probably familiar with the concept of waking up at 12pm, working in your PJ’s until 4pm, having breakfast at 5pm, then going to bed at 3am.

That’s no way to live, and it’s why most people require some form of structure.

Going to the gym regularly can help provide you with structure, as well as making you tired enough to sleep at night.

Going to the gym in the morning will provide the perfect start to your day – especially if you join a class where you’ll need to be there at a certain time and where you’ll also get the benefit of social interaction (remember that?)

And drive

Meanwhile, working out will also give you something else every entrepreneur needs: the drive to keep going even when you’re tired, disheartened or unmotivated.

Progress in the gym is all about pressing through that last set, or running for those extra five minutes – which is the perfect analogy for succeeding in business. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he learned “everything he needed to succeed” from bodybuilding, and he’s a millionaire several times over… Just sayin’!

You need the exercise

Going to the gym will help you become more of a physical presence, it’s the perfect time to learn new things or come up with new ideas, and it will improve your brain and productivity far more than any brain training games will.

More to the point though, it’s also very good for you – and if you’re like most entrepreneurs, then that’s probably a key issue.

The Internet has thankfully made it possible for many people to become entrepreneurs who otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance. That’s a great thing, but it also means that a lot of people are now earning their living by sitting behind a computer and typing all day.

What this means is that they aren’t getting any exercise, they aren’t getting much sunlight, and they’re often twitchy and haunted by feelings of cabin fever.

This gets worse as you get more and more driven to grow your business, to the point where you can risk damaging your health through your passion.

Going to the gym is a great way to make sure that your muscles don’t wither and also a great way to reconnect with the real world before you turn into Howard Hughes…

So, go to the gym. It’s good for you!

Greg Fisher, the brains behind this article, started Berkeley Sourcing Group eight years ago after realizing the need for efficient processes and coordination between manufacturing firms located in the United States and factories in China. When he is not busy working, he enjoys reading books or playing a good game of chess with his friends.