Hi, I’m John Allen Mollenhauer, my friends call me John Allen or by my initials JAM, and I hope you will too. I am a lifestyle coach (you can find me at LifestyleCoach.com) and the founder of Performance Lifestyle® Inc.
As an entrepreneur, performance trainer, and coach, I mostly serve the one population with the greatest need to change, improve snd optimize the way they live, especially if they want to have a breakthrough year. It’s not necessarily the athletes, though many of the people I work with have some athletic experience or the younger generation who hasn’t yet experienced the gravity of a fully engaged or over-engaged life just yet; even though today many younger people are over-stressed early in life. That’s something I can personally relate to in my own experience.
The people I work with are the 35-40-50, and over people like me. They are the driven business professionals—the entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, managers, and sales pros; many of whom are working parents to boot who slog it out 6 -7 days a week all year long, living what amounts to the disaster scene for today’s professional.
I’m not talking about what we achieve, can afford, wear, and travel to alone (the typical materialistic definition of lifestyle) but more about how we take care of ourselves, our bodies, and our lives amidst relentless demand on our time and energy so that we can achieve our goals free of the enormous toll overexertion can take on our bodies and our souls.
I know; I lived it for decades as an entrepreneur for over 30 years, who was prematurely tiring out, burning out and wearing out, and essentially trading my health for success, despite being highly adept in nutrition and fitness.
Most of us have so much going on we’re nearly hanging on.
We are coping with stress in ways that create more stress, looking to the outside for solutions that never solve the real problem that compounds over time into vicious cycles; which, when combined, create a premature downward spiral.
Is the answer a better diet, a more regimented exercise program, and more sleep? Probably, at least in part, but in a nonstop performance culture, we need something more. I assert that it’s a high-performance lifestyle that is both balanced and healthy.
If we are going to have a breakthrough year– achieve our goals and realize the visions we have for our lives, living with quality of life; anything less may improve things, but it won’t deliver that breakthrough Year, which requires you to go all in.
If you don’t have a lifestyle that fully supports you, and what you are up to in the world, what happens is that you eventually fall back into your performance gaps that crush your health and productivity
And there goes your breakthrough year.
Here at the start of 2021, I want to talk about what it will take to have a breakthrough year. Many thought 2020 would be that breakthrough year, but it turned out to be both the worst and best of times that set us up for where we are today.
I say “worst and best” because it was indeed a tragic year, from adored celebrity deaths to mass passing from COVID 19 to the economic impact of a shutdown. At the same time, it was a break in the usual routine for so many of us. The world slowed down, and we got a chance to taste what life was like again, getting rid of the unessential from long commutes and unnecessary meetings to experiencing a simplified life and seeing our families more than we had in years.
We had time to focus on more of what matters to us.
In 2020, despite all the talk of people gaining the “quarantine 15,” we walked, we talked, thought about our futures, and took on projects that we’re just waiting for some time and attention. And so much more.
I’m 52, I have a 14-year-old and a 3-year-old, and I got to see her grow up during the most formative years of her life. I’m profoundly grateful.
I also used the time to bring to fruition what I have been developing for more than 20 years. That is a blueprint for how we can achieve even our most ambitious goals while living in balance with vibrant health and peace of mind regardless of how challenging the world is.
You see, the pandemic of 2020 and 2021 is helping give rise to a new lifestyle that doesn’t have to stop. This year can be just the start of something great as we learn what most of us never learned in the first half, to have a breakthrough year and win the second half of our lives; and that is —how to live.
“JAM, what?
Of course, I know how to live.”
Well, given a) we have a pandemic that has largely ended the lives of 300,000+ people because of pre-existing conditions, b) over 80% of the population is overweight, c) 1.2 million people this year will just drop dead from a heart attack, and succumb to cancer. d) Every year, stress and fatigue are the number one reasons people go to the doctor. e) Prescription medications from opioids to Ambien to Prozac are epidemic in our society; that’s debatable.
You see, most of us seek to achieve our goals to live a better lifestyle when we first need to live a better lifestyle to achieve our goals with our health and wellbeing intact. And that is not what’s happening.
If we live in a way that crushes our energy, health, and performance because overwhelm and overstimulation leaves us under recovered and dealing with excess stress while combating constant tiredness, bouts of exhaustion, and for some chronic fatigue; we have a problem.
In that state, it’s almost inevitable you will respond to stress in ways that create more stress, not more energy; and this is where a depleting, unhealthy, and performance-crushing lifestyle begins, even if you know better.
Before you know it, you’re overeating, unhealthy (undernourishing) food, super busy but physically deconditioned, and you don’t have the energy to invest beyond making a living. And frankly, you are too tired at the end of the day to sleep well.
Enter those vicious cycles mentioned earlier.
In that lifestyle, inevitably, fatigue, weight issues, and both mental and physical health complications will arise, distract and hold you back not only from living at your potential but reaching the level of success that’s possible for you.
But it doesn’t need to be that way.
Suppose you want to have a breakthrough year, a year where you truly breakthrough to your next level of energy, health, and performance, and the success that will naturally follow when you’re lifestyle is directly linked to the goals you want to achieve. In that case, it must not be that way anymore.
You see, most of us never learned the fundamentals of healthy and prosperous living, let alone how to tie both together in one across-the-board holistic way of life. It’s either live healthily or be successful, and that way does not work for long; you can’t trade one for the other and expect to live the absolute best you, period.
So go for both in 2021. You do that by no longer separating your lifestyle from how you achieve your goals; you bridge the gaps between your energy and health and your success with a Performance Lifestyle, and eventually a high-performance lifestyle.
I, along with a community of people who are on that same path, can teach it to you as it’s an idea that none of us can genuinely take from theory to practice to mastery all on our own.
If you want a breakthrough year in 2021. We need to do it together.
JAM is a leading Lifestyle Coach and authority on living a Performance Lifestyle® with an online training academy and community that teaches people how to manage their energy like the pros and optimize the way they live for the health and high-performance they need to flourish. Located in Florham Park, NJ, he and his team run a Performance Recovery and Wellness Center.
