Deep down the rabbit hole of X late one night, I found what appeared to be a very healthy and ripped, Andrew Tate following, entrepreneurial man who posted, “How you do one thing is how you do everything. This is why I won’t buy from successful people who are fat.” 🤬

I’m sure many of us can agree that this was a stupid hot take (that’s putting it mildly), but over the next few months… I saw more people (some I really respect) repeating the phrase… “How you do one thing is how you do everything.” They left off the stupidity that the first guy added, but the sentiment across all the comments on these posts was the same:

If you say you’re successful in business, but have a terrible marriage or a bad body, then you’re not really trustworthy with your business success either.

I came to absolutely hate this phrase. It’s quippy line juiced by algorithms and Insta-perfect people who portrayed success in all areas: money, relationships, and health.

Today I want to share with you why I think this phrase is both true and false, and how — after letting my triggers die down — have been able to bring some nuance to this discussion that is important. I’ll use myself as an example.

In 2018, I was considered quite successful in business. I had made my first $1,000,000, was on track to double that, and kept a healthy profit margin. However my relationships were a MESS. Health wise, no issues or sickness, but definitely not fit or athletic.

I was doing one thing very well, one thing very poorly, and one thing I wasn’t even paying attention to (taking it for granted essentially).

The phrase was not true for me. My success was real (still is), it is not just an IG spin of wealth hiding mountains of debt, and my marriage was also a disaster, and I wasn’t even thinking about working out or becoming fit.

And I’m pretty sure this isn’t just me. I can find lots of people who profile like this.

It’s hard to fight a battle on multiple fronts. And Maslow agrees. His hierarchy of needs, popularized in psychology in 1943, described how a person who is hungry and starving, will not have any energy to ponder their life’s purpose.

You can’t fight a battle on multiple fronts and expect for any of them to go truly well.

Another example I learned from my sister Nicole. She called it the four burners. If you think of a stove with four burners, the burners represent work, family, health, and friends. VERY successful people usually can only have 2-3 burners going at once. One or two of them will be less attended to. For example, a successful entrepreneur might have a great work life, a close family, and lots of fitness, but maybe lack in the socialization dept. Another person might have a great social life, great work life, and great fitness, but never be home and spending time with his/her family. Another might be super fit, have a great family life, and great friends, but not focused on prioritizing a career.

The phrase “How you do one thing is how you do everything” simply isn’t true.

Or is it?

If we fast forward my life another four years, I continued to have big success in business. To the point where my financial stability edged towards independently wealthy. The battle against scarcity and poverty was quieting down. And it was then that I started to tackle my stressful relationship.

I moved to another battlefront because I had the bandwidth to focus on it.

And truth be told, I’ve been in this battle for the last 2-3 years. It’s been one of the most painful and difficult things I’ve ever done, and also amazing to experience a subsequent healthy relationship and healing in ways I didn’t know I needed.

Now we come to present day. We’re in the second half of 2024 and my relationships in my life are healthy and stable. There is no battle to fight. And so what happened? I moved to another front…this time, my health.

I’ve been blessed with great health, and no major issues or problems for my adult life. Fit & athletic however…definitely not my specialty. But a combination of aging, excessive Covid research 🙄, health anxiety, plus BANDWIDTH to focus on preventative health and a fiancé who has been supportive and encouraging, has set me on a journey to become more fit.

The habits and beliefs I used to become successful in business, are the same habits I’m using now to focus on fitness.

Beliefs such as:

1. The journey and process is as important as the goal
2. Little changes over time make a big difference
3. I am not a victim or less capable than the people I admire who are further along than me
4. I need to celebrate small wins
5. I need help and support from others who know more than I do
6. I have to have a reason for the habit vs just a desire for the end result
7. The transformation needs to take into consideration my whole self and life, not just the “image” I want to project

How I did (and do) business, how I tried to exit my relationship and heal, and how I am focusing now on my health – are the same.

“How you do one thing is how you do everything.”

I’m going to change that phrase if you’re cool with it?

“The habits and beliefs you hold dear in one area of your life will show up in other areas of your life as you take time to focus on that area.”

Taking a snapshot of a human being at one point in time and judging their wealth, health, or relationships against what you think they should look like, or how much dissonance might be between those different areas for him/her… is just virtue signaling and judgement. Plain and simple.

The good news is that if you can look at your life right now and say, “Things might be a mess here but I have been really successful in ______________” — that is a sign that there are habits and beliefs that got you there… that you CAN ACCESS when you have the bandwidth to tackle another area.

If you’re super athletic and successful with a sport, but a mess with your finances, there is no judgment. When you are ready to fight that battle (or if you are), the habits that got you success in sports will be available to you with finances.

The goal is to look for where you’re doing well, and dig deep into what helped you get there. And then translate that into other ares that need work – WHEN YOU ARE READY or when there is bandwidth to do so.

And the inverse is also true. Where there are bad habits and limiting beliefs, it’s important to not let those carry over to other areas like a virus that spreads among people.

For me, this has settled the debate in my head about the “true-ness” of a statement that most people use on social media to be Judgy McJudgersons.

It’s true and false both.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Julie