| Photo by Alora Griffiths on Unsplash
The ancient Romans said it best: mens sana in corpore sano – a sound mind in a sound body, two things that, when kept in balance, can lead to personal – and, yes, professional – success.
I have had the privilege of working with many talented and extremely hard-working individuals in the finance industry for over 17 years – all of them juggling demanding roles and hectic schedules, with a number of them also pursuing rigorous fitness goals such as triathlons, completing an Ironman, competing in powerlifting, or getting certified in CrossFit, among others. This served as my inspiration to step up my own regimen into something more challenging as, indeed, anything is possible when you put your mind to it.
Keeping Fit is a Personal Commitment
I am training for a bodybuilding competition in the new “wellness” category in May of this year.
While it has become a prevalent category in the South American bodybuilding scene for some years now, particularly in Brazil and Colombia, wellness is a brand new division in the United States – and preparing for it involves a rigorous training program.
The training program to prepare for the competition is called “prep” and typically runs through a very intensive 16-week period. The program I am currently under was designed by Italian bodybuilding icons Mauro Sassi and Cristina Casoni. I executed the training plan in person with Milica Narancic, a professional under the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) who was the overall Fitness winner of the Arnold Classic 2018. It is pretty demanding: typical training runs for over two hours a day very early in the morning, five to six days a week.
It is grueling and physically challenging, but here’s the thing: it has immensely improved my mental tenacity and clarity. Perseverance is another benefit: giving up is not an option! Believe it or not, everything I learned from my training I apply directly to my work in Business Development. I am pumped and ready to hit the ground running when I arrive at the office every morning.
Pie-charting the Day
Training to be physically fit has also helped me train to become mentally healthy.
Being in Business Development, I have to be prepared and effective with every single interaction I have, whether it is with a client, an industry partner, or my colleagues. I must always be alert, attentive to details, and analytical.
As my professional role involves acting as a consultant for clients, I need to examine their current operations with a keen eye to design, propose, and implement a robust plan that can help improve their fund operations while being mindful of costs at the same time.
I have learned to mentally split up my day like the sections of a pie chart divided into the hours spent on each of my tasks, from work to personal errands and even the time I am asleep. In doing so, I realized that a finite amount of hours in a day exists. I seriously reconsidered my time on each activity to invest more into my professional and fitness goals. As a result, I can give more vital tasks ample attention, which has led to the best possible results.
——–
This article is reprinted from the author’s blog on LinkedIn with permission. She is now training with a new competition coach, Adam Atkinson, based in Las Vegas, and his coaching business, See You Later Leaner (SYLL). Amunategui says that since she wrote the article in 2020, she has continued to train and diet intensely.
.ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Charina Amunategui is the Executive Director of Fund Finance Business Execution at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ; a 100 Women in Finance MidCareer Bridge NYC Chair; a recipient of the 2023 Most Influential Filipina Woman in the World Award from the Foundation for Filipina Women’s Network; and the 2024 Grand Marshal of the Philippine Independence Day Parade to be held on June 2, 2024, on Madison Avenue, New York City.
