the six pack is a side effect, not the goal

nobody actually wants abs. they want what abs represent: the proof that you kept a promise to yourself every single day when nobody was checking.

i think a lot about why physical goals matter so much to people who are otherwise deep in strategy and capital and decision making all day. it's not vanity, or it's not only vanity. it's that the body is the one system that gives you unfiltered, undeniable feedback. you can talk yourself into believing a business plan is working when it isn't. you cannot talk yourself into believing you did the workout when you didn't. the mirror doesn't negotiate.

that's actually what makes it valuable as a training ground for everything else. the discipline required to eat one clean meal a day, every day, without exception, is the exact same muscle required to hold a pricing line when a prospect pushes back, or to say no to a shiny opportunity that would dilute focus. training the body is training the decision making apparatus, just with faster feedback cycles and lower stakes.

omad, one meal a day, sounds extreme until you realize the actual benefit isn't the caloric math. it's that it removes an entire category of decisions from your day. you're not negotiating with yourself about lunch. you're not spending willpower on food choices you could be spending on harder problems. the constraint becomes a form of freedom, which is a pattern that shows up everywhere once you notice it. fewer choices, more energy for the choices that matter.

heavy duty training works on a similar principle. brief, intense, infrequent, then recover. it's the opposite of the hustle culture instinct to do more, longer, harder, constantly. the body doesn't grow during the workout, it grows during the recovery. that's a lesson that transfers directly to how you should think about a team, a venture, even a relationship. the growth happens in the space after the effort, not in adding more effort on top of effort that hasn't been absorbed yet.

so when you look in the mirror, what are you actually checking for, the six pack, or the evidence that you kept your word to yourself today?