Are you a founder who is grinding harder but getting nowhere? Your health habits might be why. Let’s dive into the founder health habits you need to have to scale past $1M in revenue.
In this founder-focused session, I share the brutal truth about why 75% of businesses fail within 15 years – and it’s not what you think.
After being stuck at $300K revenue while 50 pounds overweight and numbing with alcohol, I discovered that every business problem is actually a personal problem in disguise.
Here’s the transformation framework that took me from struggling founder to $1M+ advisory business.
Focus Hour: Founder Health Habits
Watch LinkedIn Live: https://www.linkedin.com/events/founderhourlive-stopspinning-st7363694171301310467/theater/
Welcome to Focus Hour. Today’s topic is founder health habits. My promise to you is that I’m going to help you trade scattered effort for a focused plan this week.
If we haven’t met, my name is Simon. I am the founder and CEO of Structure and the Aligned Program, which is a program out of our company that’s focused on helping founders get unstuck and stop spinning so they can start growing again and get that clarity and traction that we’re all looking for to know that we are headed in the right direction, aligned and connected with our vision so that our goals can happen.
For the Frustrated Founders
I made this for the frustrated founders. If this is you, you know what I’m talking about. You’re staring at the ceiling at 3 am, stuck in a loop, straining your family to carry your team, wanting growth, but it feels random and distant.
You probably feel like if I quit, everything falls apart. If I keep going, I’ll fall apart.
Let’s get real
Your freedom vehicle that you created feels like a prison. Every decision, crisis, and dollar is on you to make, to move, to create. If you’re not creating the dollar, nobody else is.
You might think if I push harder it’ll finally click. This is a trap, but this is so real.
Grinding – if I just try a little harder, if I just keep going, it’ll finally click. I was answering support emails and processing payroll at midnight. You might have been there too, or you might be there right now.
I want you to know I’m here because I’ve been there too. I’m not just sharing this from a podium with book smarts. This is lived experience, real deal. I was 50 pounds overweight, numbing with alcohol, building a successful company while failing myself and my family, feeling alone, stuck and spun out.
Most of my evenings after work, which went late – 6, 6:30 – and started early, ended with Netflix, whiskey, and guilt.
Why am I doing this?
Why am I showing up on LinkedIn, putting myself out there, sharing my story, being vulnerable? It’s because I lived every moment of this pain. This was my story. I was there, and I want to help you as a founder grow through these pains instead of running from them.
What I learned is that the power was in growing through them. That’s really hard. It’s hard to figure out what that should look like, what things you should be doing or not doing, and who you need to become.
The Transformation
Here are two side-by-side pictures. On the left, we’ve got me in 2022 with my wife Rebecca. She looks very happy, and I look very unhappy, which is kind of how it was. This was in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho during a video shoot for a client.
If I look at that guy, he was 50 pounds overweight. He was doing anything for anyone who would pay him a dollar. I was a functional alcoholic. I remember that night – I was probably still a little bit hungover from dinner and drinks the night before. That night I had I don’t know, 3 or 4 old fashions, and that was the norm.
I was…
- Dealing with constant sinus infections.
- At a $300,000 flatline.
- Struggling, stuck, spinning, not able to break through.
Fast forward to 2024
This picture with my son Peter. This is a different guy. He’s living in a place that he dreamed of living. He’s doing things with his family that he dreamt of doing. I lost those 50 pounds over those few years.
I’m doing what I’m best at.
I have a clear 10-year vision and one-year goals – not wandering anymore.
I’m investing in myself instead of drinking all the time. I work out 3 or 4 times a week with a macro diet, and I have a million-dollar business and a family who’s following my lead.
Today I’m locked in
My marriage runs on midday syncs, not midnight arguments anymore, because I have time. I have space. I’ve created my life around prioritizing my marriage, prioritizing those conversations. My kids get a daddy day every week – one on one, not all of them every week, but one of them, and we rotate through. They don’t just get my evening leftovers.
I’m running a million-dollar advisory company, consulting and coaching with ambitious, high-performing, successful founders and their teams without working 80-hour weeks myself. I’m able to give them my best so they can give their team their best.
I don’t say this because I want you to think Simon’s amazing. Between Tuesday’s first session and today’s second session, my feedback from my team was, “Hey Simon, you’re really empathetic and relatable with a great story, but tell me more about what your life looks like now. Help us see what’s possible. Tell us – you have transformed, and we’ve all watched you transform, but not everyone on the call knows that. So tell us, show us.”
At this point today, I’m not perfect, but I have become the kind of visionary leader who can grow a business – any business – and grow any area of my life with clarity and control. That’s where I want to help you get today because it’s possible.
I don’t want you to think that I did this alone. Nobody does it alone. Nobody goes to millions of dollars a year, nobody creates a legacy by themselves. My mentors helped me turn my mess into a transformation. I haven’t sold a hundred-million-dollar company yet, but I did rebuild my health, reconnect with my family, and grow my business past a million without burning out.
The Five Domains
If I can break through, why not you? Founders almost always think that their growth problem is strategy or sales. Sales fixes all, and sometimes it does. Or operations – there’s systems or plans that aren’t working out. That fixes things too. But what I’ve learned is that underneath it all, every business problem is really a personal problem in disguise.
Business is personal. One of the meanings of that is that you as a founder are such a key component to your business growth. If you are dying, your business isn’t going to be growing. If you’re growing, it’s going to be growing.
There are 5 domains that every founder needs to align before they can fully accelerate:
1. Vision
Do you know where you’re going, or are you just hoping next month won’t be worse? Where there is no vision, people perish. If you want to be growing but you don’t have a vision that you have dreamed up, written down, articulated in any form, you’re working against growth.
2. Health
Do you have the rhythms that help you grow, or are you just running on fumes and burning out? Your body is the first business you lead. If you want to grow, you need to invest in yourself and your physical ability to grow. It’s the most obvious thing in the whole world, but most of us overlook it.
3. Leadership
Are you the leader your business needs, or are you actually just an overpaid firefighter? A lot of us are firefighters in our business – we’re just reacting to every flame that comes our way, trying to spray it out as fast as we can to keep the whole thing from burning down.
4. Execution
Are your actions on a daily basis, your team’s actions and your goals aligned with the vision that you set out? When vision and execution are going in different directions, that’s misalignment. The goal is, how can we execute the vision?
5. Culture
Is your team an extension of you, or are they an extension of someone else? If you’re showing up chaotic, stressed, grinding, unclear, your team is going to be chaotic, stressed, grinding and unclear. What you really want them to mirror is clear, thoughtful, intentional, exponential.
Health Focus
Let’s dive into founder health habits. Your body is the first business you lead. Here’s my question: Would you invest in a business run by a founder who’s constantly exhausted, overweight, anxious, numbing just to get through the day? Would you hire a coach or go to a doctor who’s constantly exhausted, anxious, numbing just to get through the day?
Why would you ask your team, your investors, or your customers to invest in you while you run yourself into the ground? This hits hard for me. Those years where I was 50 pounds overweight and drinking – we were funneling $300,000 through the business with a dozen clients and a couple team members, and they were following that guy.
Burnout isn’t a badge of honor. Grinding isn’t a rite of passage. If this is you, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re actually a business risk wrapped in ego, fear, and scarcity.
The Paul Bunyan Story
I want to tell you about Paul Bunyan. In the story, Paul is a big, tall performer, hacking down trees with his axe, crushing everybody. He’s successful, he embodies this incredible doer. But this scrawny guy comes in with a saw – this newfangled technology. Paul’s like, “I’m going to beat this guy with the saw using my axe.”
They do this competition cutting down trees in a forest. Paul’s thinking he’s got this wrapped – there’s no way this thing can keep up. But the saw outcompetes Paul and crushes him. He has an identity crisis – who am I? Why couldn’t I do this?
Paul, in that moment when he’s trying to outwork a system, didn’t matter how hard, fast, or long he swung his axe. The blade was dulling, he was tiring out. He lost not because of a lack of effort – he gave it his all – but a lack of edge. He was working too hard and not smart enough.
I’ve heard this from founders: “I’m doing the best I can. I’m working the hardest I can. You’re getting everything from me you can, and it’s still not good enough.” The truth is, it’s not that you’re not trying hard enough. You just don’t have what it takes to do what you want to do yet. This lack of edge ties into health.
The Stakes
The stats are real: 20% of businesses fail in 2 years, 50% in 5 years, 75% before 15 years. But it gets worse – 30% of founders get divorced (double the US average), and 72% struggle with mental health, clarity, depression, and suicide.
I share these not to crush you, but because it’s important to know what’s at risk. It’s not just your business that can fail – your life can fail too. There’s more at stake. But it doesn’t have to be this way. When you sharpen your blade, you don’t just survive, you feel alive.
Dan Martell Example
Dan Martell – his wife said, “Dan’s the wealthiest man in the room, not because of his watch or his cars, but because of his health.” He has fancy things, but when she looks across the room and sees a lot of high-income earners, founders, entrepreneurs, achievers, there are very few that are healthy. Those are the people that have the true wealth.
Peter Drucker said, “Leadership begins with self-management. You can’t lead others before you lead yourself.”
Alignment Anchors
I want to share something called alignment anchors. These are what I use in my life and teach. Just the other day, I took my family to San Diego for SeaWorld. We stayed in a hotel, and throughout the week I was really starting to burn out and struggle, spin, feel disconnected and stressed and anxious. When we came home, I lit up – totally back to normal. I realized it was because I wasn’t anchored in my daily routine. I didn’t have those anchors to hold me, keep me stable, keep me feeling full and energized.
The Seven Anchors:
- Sleep – 7 to 8 hours of sleep = rested founder
- Lifting weights – 3 to 4 times a week. You’ll become more resilient because lifting is hard and painful, and it helps teach you to embrace pain and see pressure as a privilege = resilient founder
- Walk – 10 to 15,000 steps a day. This improves your mental health, makes you clear-minded, focused = clear-minded founder
- Eating – 80 to 90% whole foods diet = fueled founder
- Quitting/reducing vices – things like alcohol, weed, porn. These will bring you down, drain your energy. They feel good in the moment but hurt you later = disciplined founder
- Surround yourself with positive people = connected founder
- Work and rest – both for purpose and energy = inspired founder
These anchors help you become a rested, resilient, clear-minded, fueled, disciplined, connected, and inspired founder. Who doesn’t want to follow someone who has these traits?
90-Day Roadmap
If you’re looking at this thinking it’s a lot, I understand. It took me years – 3 years where I lost 50 pounds and doubled my business. If you’re just starting, here are the 3 lead dominoes:
1. Sleep
Try to get 7 to 8 hours between 10 PM and 6 AM. This turns your body into a recovery machine, giving you the focus and stamina your business actually needs. Sleep is literally one of the most important things – it unlocks everything else. The trick is going to bed at the right time. Going to bed early enough will unlock your ability to get up early.
2. Walk
Getting 10 to 15,000 steps a day is the simplest performance hack before supplements or gadgets. You don’t have to get a gym membership. Movement clears your mind and builds capacity to lead. This can be as simple as your watch reminding you every hour to stand up and take a walk.
3. Eating
Target 80 to 90% whole foods. This is probably the hardest of the 3, but if you’re sleeping and energized, if you’re walking and moving, you’re going to start feeling better and wanting to eat better foods. Simple swaps like eggs instead of cereal in the morning, chicken salad instead of burgers at lunch, salmon with rice instead of frozen dinners. Fuel your body with clean energy.
Founder Health Habits Audit
Rate yourself on each area from 1-4 and add them up out of 20:
- Sleep Quality & Consistency: How well are you sleeping 7-8 hours nightly?
- Physical Fitness: How consistent are you with exercise/movement?
- Nutrition: How clean and intentional is your eating?
- Stress Management: How well do you handle pressure and recovery?
- Energy Levels: How consistent is your daily energy throughout the day?
What’s one habit that if you committed to for the next 60 days might change your life and your business?
The Future is Yours
This isn’t about guilt or pressure. This is about desire. The goal isn’t to make you feel bad about where you are – it’s to help you see what’s possible for you. Every visionary leader started exactly where you’re at right now.
Are you swinging harder with a dull axe, or taking time to sharpen the blade? This isn’t about grinding harder or adding more to your plate. It’s about doing the right things and unlocking the focus to where you’re present, alive, and in control.
Growth and progress often has more to do with subtraction than addition. In music, “the rest is as important as the note.” If you imagine a song with nothing but notes and zero pauses, all it would sound like is noise. You use silence as power.
Being fully present, alive, and in control is being more of you, and this is what your family, your business, your team really needs.
Closing Story
My very first coach, James Warwick – I reached out to him blindly on LinkedIn when I was struggling as a founder. We met at coffee for a great hour. I remember getting up to refill my coffee, going to the bathroom, coming back and sitting down. He said, “You know, Simon, you know what your real problem is? You know why you’re struggling to get clients or get your business off the ground?”
He said, “You’ve got this sticker on your head right here. You’re walking around this coffee shop going a million miles per hour. You’re lasered in, and the focus is admirable. But the truth is, you just look busy. ‘Don’t talk to me. I’m busy. I’ve got too much going on. I don’t have time for you.'”
The truth is, I lost not because of a lack of effort, but because I didn’t have what it takes to do what I wanted to do yet. I said I wanted to grow the business, but what was really standing in the way was me and my inability to see what I wasn’t seeing, or my inability to be the person that I needed to be to have that impact on the business.
Next Steps
If you want to go deeper on this stuff with me:
- Free Alignment Audit – A PDF that walks through a scoring system on all 5 domains. Just DM me on LinkedIn or comment “audit”
- Aligned Intensive – A 60-day sprint to help you get unstuck and turn around. Direct work with me in cohort style. $3,000
- Aligned Program – The intensive plus additional deep dives and accountability. 12-month program for $15,000
I’ll keep showing up every Tuesday and Thursday, 1 PM Mountain time. Thank you for watching, for joining, for letting me share this. It’s truly an honor to show up and share my story, to teach what I know, what I’ve learned, what I’ve lived in a way that hopefully helps you break through in your business and your life.
Imagine…
- Leading your business with focus and clarity.
- Being fully alive, fully in control, moving closer to your vision every day.
- Your team – because of who you are – is getting better, the strategy getting sharper, and the results getting bigger.
When you’re rested, when you’re resilient, when you’re clear-minded, growth compounds. Growth happens. Growth is inevitable. This is the hardest thing you’ll ever do, but the goal is becoming someone who, no matter what room you enter, you will have an impact.
Founder health habits key points
What you’ll learn:
- The 5 domains every founder must align before they can accelerate
- Why your body is the first business you lead
- The 3 “alignment anchors” that changed everything (90-day roadmap included)
- How to stop being a “business risk wrapped in ego, fear and scarcity”
- The Paul Bunyan principle: Why working harder isn’t the answer
Key timestamps:
- 0:00 – The frustrated founder’s dilemma
- 8:00 – My transformation story (before/after)
- 14:00 – The 5 domains of alignment
- 23:00 – Founder health habits deep dive
- 33:00 – The 3 alignment anchors
- 41:00 – 90-day roadmap for beginners
- 44:00 – Founder health habits audit tool
- 49:00 – Q&A and next steps
Key problems addressed:
- 6:48 – How do you break out of the founder trap of feeling like quitting means everything falls apart but continuing means you’ll fall apart?
- 8:07 – What does transformation from a struggling founder to successful leader actually look like?
- 14:01 – What are the five domains every founder needs to align before they can accelerate their business?
- 16:57 – Why do every business problem stem from personal problems in disguise?
- 19:43 – What is the most important domain to focus on first as a founder?
- 23:01 – Why should founders prioritize their health when trying to grow their business?
- 24:36 – How do you avoid being a business risk to your team and investors?
- 26:02 – What can founders learn from the Paul Bunyan story about working harder versus working smarter?
- 29:00 – What are the real statistics about founder failure and mental health struggles?
- 33:25 – What are the specific daily habits that create a successful founder mindset?
- 37:52 – What is the 90-day roadmap for founders who feel overwhelmed by health changes?
- 38:00 – How do you optimize sleep as a founder for maximum business performance?
- 39:10 – Why is walking 10,000-15,000 steps daily critical for founder success?
- 40:02 – How do you transition to eating 80-90% whole foods without overwhelming yourself?
- 44:29-How do you assess your current founder health habits and identify areas for improvement?
- 45:45 – What is the one habit that could transform your life and business in 60 days?
- 49:17 – How do you recognize when your personal behavior is limiting your business growth?
The hard stats
- 75% of businesses fail before 15 years
- 30% of founders get divorced (double the national average)
- 72% struggle with mental health issues
Top 3 founder health habits:
- Sleep: 7-8 hours between 10 PM – 6 AM
- Walk: 10,000-15,000 steps daily
- Eat: 80-90% whole foods
