I am lucky I work out with a personal trainer, having Complete Body & Spa as one of my clients. At first, I simply wanted to loose weight. This took 2 years of extreme sweat. While most of the workouts back then I was suffering, things got better with time and I definitely got stronger, built some muscle and lost weight. As time went by, I realized that working out on a regular basis gives you productivity boost, ability “to get through” and this incredible drive for self-development.
Another thing I have noticed was increased concentration and ability to solve problems which I would not even try to take on before. I have never dealt with Linux before, but somehow I started using Linode and got pretty good in installing stuff onto VPS box and tuning it. On my road to easier and more sophisticated frameworks I learned Grails and wrote my first serious project.
My usual routine now is gym 3x a week and cardio every day for 30 minutes. On a good day running outside with your iPod listening to the right podcast track can be quite uplifting.
I will not go in explaining here what should startups do for their employees, but look – we all work seated and rarely move. So making gym classes mandatory for everyone capable in the team is a great idea. Not paying for the gym membership, but forcing people to attend different sorts of classes and checking their attendance!
If I were to run a company, this for sure would be my first executive order.