本文与《创业者》杂志合作。下文最初发表于entrepreneur.com。

在创业者当中存在一种普遍的心态——公司应该永远排在第一位，不论你从事的是什么行业。它的重要性超越了一切，包括家人、朋友，尤其是健康。

我见过许多创业者为了公司成功而牺牲了一切，有时甚至会经历悲剧性的结局。我也曾是这样的创业者，只不过我更加幸运。在我将事业作为重中之重的那些年里，我的妻子一直对我不离不弃，我没有给任何友谊造成永久性伤害（但也没有培养任何新的友谊）。而且，我还活着。

驱动创业者的，并非贪婪。如果创业唯一的回报是金钱，我们便很难证明我们所做的牺牲是有意义的。金钱就像是游戏中的得分一样。对于创业者来说，真正的动力来自创建了不起的事物，做一些能够改变世界的重要事情。正是出于这样的目的，创业者才会如此轻易地放弃其他事情。但这种观念是错误的。如今我已经幡然醒悟，所以，现在我对运动的重视程度要高于我的公司。但这样做并不容易。

我有一家成长型公司，有14名团队成员。他们相信我一定可以准时支付工资，可以为他们及其家人提供福利，可以克服重重障碍，帮助他们完成工作。我们约有40名客户，他们等着我拿出完美的成果，帮助他们的公司发展。

这意味着大量的工作任务和巨大的压力。每天需要我为公司去做的事情几乎有100件，其中半数是紧急任务，但我能够完成的不超过10件。尽管如此，我每周都会拿出至少10小时专心从事体育运动。

我将体育锻炼安排在工作日期间，并将其排在所有工作活动之前。锻炼计划是灵活的，但如果越野跑的时间和客户会面时间发生冲突，我会重新安排时间与客户会面。因为我和我的公司能够承受重新安排一次客户会面的后果，即便这意味着失去客户。但一旦我推迟锻炼安排，我就会开始一次次错过锻炼的时间，最终的结果可能就是彻底停止锻炼。

体育锻炼必须放在首位，否则公司的成功就无从谈起。

如果停止锻炼，我的健康状况就会每况愈下。而这将导致工作效率下降。我会变得沮丧。我将没有动力去做那些能够帮助公司成功的事情。我亲身体会到，在生活中某个领域的卓越，有助于在其他领域实现卓越。而体育锻炼是我生活中最容易控制的一个领域。而且结果易于衡量。我要么坚持锻炼，要么放弃锻炼。通过锻炼，可以推动我生活中其他方面的发展，包括我的公司。

很长时间以来，我一直愚蠢地以为，不将公司作为重中之重，就意味着我并没有为了公司的成功付出全力。这种观念可以理解，但它是完全错误的。

假如我有10件优先任务，我不能简单地说，将公司的优先顺序从第二位提高到第一位，便可以使公司获益。关键在于弄清楚，这些任务的排序如何产生最大的总体效益。

例如，体育锻炼让我可以更好地扮演生活中的各种角色，不论是作为丈夫、父亲、朋友，还是创业者。如果我感觉成为一名好的公司负责人更加重要，并因此停止锻炼，最终的结果可能适得其反，我在这个职位上的表现可能比之前更糟。将体育锻炼放在首位能够实现双赢。

随着公司的发展，我发现我的团队成员也陷入了同样的迷途。因此，我们在公司制定了健康激励，而且说起利用工作日进行体育锻炼，我也不会感到羞愧。我知道，如果我的团队成员将体育锻炼和健康放在工作之前，他们工作的时间可能更少，但他们自身的感觉会更好，生活更加充实，也就可以取得更理想的工作成果。（财富中文网）

注：本文作者乔舒亚·施泰姆勒是演说家、作家，并在数字营销公司MWI担任CEO。MWI公司在美国与香港设有分公司。

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

This post is in partnership with Entrepreneur. The article below was originally published at entrepreneur.com.

There’s a prevalent attitude among entrepreneurs that the business, whatever that business is, comes first. It is the high priority that trumps everything else, including family, friends and especially health.

I’ve seen entrepreneurs sacrifice all these things, sometimes with tragic consequences, to focus on making their businesses successful. I’ve also done it myself, although I’m one of the lucky ones. During the years I made my business my highest priority, my wife stuck by my side, I didn’t cause any permanent damage with friendships (although I certainly didn’t nurture any) and I didn’t die.

It’s not greed that motivates us entrepreneurs. It would be difficult to justify the sacrifices we make if the only reward were money. Dollars become mere points in a sort of game. What it’s really about is building something great, doing something that matters and changing the world. That’s what makes it so easy to brush other things off. But it’s a mistake. I know that now, and that’s why today I care more about exercise than my business. But it’s not easy.

I have a growing business with 14 team members. These men and women rely on me to make sure their paychecks come on time, that benefits are there for them and their families, and that obstacles are removed so they can get their work done. We have approximately 40 clients, who are depending on me to make sure they’re getting the results that will help their businesses grow.

This adds up to a lot of tasks, and a lot of pressure. On any given day there are easily 100 important things I should be doing for my business, 50 of which are also urgent, but there is no way I can get more than 10 things done. And yet each and every week I spend at least 10 hours on focused, physical exercise.

I schedule my workouts during the workday and prioritize exercise over all my work activities. There is some flexibility, but if there is a conflict between a trail run I need to get in, and a meeting with a client, I’ll reschedule the client meeting first. I do this because I and my business can survive the consequences of rescheduling a client meeting, even if it means losing that client. But as soon as I start pushing workouts off, I’ll start missing workouts, and once I start missing workouts, I’m close to stopping workouts altogether.

Exercise must come first, or it’s unlikely to happen at all.

If exercise stops, then my health goes downhill. With the loss of physical health my productivity at work goes down. I become depressed. I lose motivation to do the things that makes my business successful. I’ve learned firsthand that excellence in one area of my life promotes excellence in all other areas of my life. Exercise is the easiest area of my life to control. It’s easy to measure. Either I get it in, or I don’t. When I do, it lifts up all other areas of my life, including my business.

For a long time, I was fooled into thinking that if my business wasn’t the top priority, then that meant I wasn’t doing all I could do to make it successful. This is an understandable way of thinking, but it’s completely wrong.

If my life is made up of 10 priorities, then it’s not as simple as saying that if I move the business from being priority two to priority one, that the business is going to benefit. The trick is to figure out which ordering of priorities provides the maximum overall benefit.

For example, when I exercise, that makes me better in every role I have, whether it’s as a husband, father, friend or entrepreneur. If I were to stop exercising because I felt that being a good business owner was a higher priority, then ironically I would end up a worse business owner than I was when it was a lower priority. Putting exercise first creates a win-win

As my business grows, I see members of my team falling into the same trap I did. That’s why we’re working to institute health incentives, and why I’m not ashamed to talk about the time I take out of my work day to exercise. I know that if my team members put exercise and health before their jobs, they might work fewer hours, but they’ll feel better about themselves, have more fulfilling lives and they’ll produce better results with the hours they do work.

Joshua Steimle is a speaker, writer, and CEO of MWI, a digital marketing agency with offices in the U.S. and Hong Kong.