The “DAO” of being a “fit professioanl is a three-part framework that gives professional women a customizable plan of action for fitness success while balancing their career and relationships.
Do you want to get fit, but don’t have time to figure it out? My personal blog, DAOFitlife, and the upcoming book, is here for busy professionals who don’t have time to figure it out. I give you my insights on making fitness – physical AND spirtal – a sustainable part of your life.
If you are like me, you DON’T HAVE TIME to waste on spending hours in the gym OR to cook elaborate meals with obscure ingredients. Through years of my passion for fitness, I have accrued knowledge of what works – and more importantly, what is a waste of time. I can show you how you can revolve fitness around your life, instead of trying to do it the other way around.
Executive summary:
- This is the Decision. Action. Outlook. guide to getting in shape and changing your life.
- The DAO of being a #fitprofessional is a blueprint for getting and staying in shape for people who run on all eight cylinders and don’t have time to figure this all out.
- This is for women who want to get to the next level of fitness just like they have in their careers. This is written BY a woman who has a full-time career working for a large accounting firm.
Decision. Action. Outlook.
“The substance of the great Life completely follows DAO.”
Lao Tzu, Dao de ching
The philosophy of the “DAO” comes from the Chinese word “the way”, which is embodied in this small book of DAO de Ching. The essence of this book is being open and fluid to life like water. You can find a copy of the manuscript here. It is a short read:
https://www.with.org/tao_te_ching_en.pdf
So what does a Chinese philosophy have to do with fitness?
Without a doubt, the most talked about topic of conversation after work, family, and depending on where you are, politics, is fitness. Whether it’s getting back into the gym, trading routines and diet tips, or discussing our favorite SoulCycle instructors, fitness is a topic that I bond with clients and co-workers alike in the professional services field.
Who am I?
I am not an “influencer.” I have way less in common with fitness influencers and way more in common with you. I have a full-time career that I have dedicated most of my life working towards. My first love was my Blackberry. I experience the adrenaline rush of deadlines and client emergencies daily.
I don’t spend all day working out, or meal prepping. I don’t revolve my life around fitness. In fact, it’s the other way around.
After a particularly challenging time in my life, I turned to fitness as an outlet. The more I focused on fitness, the better I got at my job. Something suddenly clicked – can’t we all benefit from a roadmap to a healthier happier life?
Why am I doing this?
As I started this journey, I realized that there was very little content suitable for women like us. We are in the workforce, not at the gym all day taking selfies. We wear clothes with buttons and zippers. We have different priorities than people who make fitness their day job.
Our day jobs, especially for professional services like law, accounting, medicine, sales and basically any “desk job” creates an environment that is not conducive to achieving “body goals.” We are sedentary for the most part. We are in a constant state of stress that severely constrains our time to learn about best practices for nutrition and exercise. The content that does exist is in an oversaturated marketplace with conflicting messages and difficulty pinpointing a single path.
And so “DAO” began. I decided to dedicate every waking hour I was not working to connect fitness with the corporate world. I wrote this book because I realized that every decision we make impacts our well-being in some way. What we all need is a set of best practices to make the most important decision of all – a decision to put ourselves first.
You can relate to having a vision and putting it into action. You own your career and worked really hard to get here. The same process you used to chase your career aspirations applies to your fitness aspirations. Both take hard work, but are totally worth it in the end
So why am I doing this? Because I want you to have all the resources you need in ONE place, filtered from all the BS you don’t have time to waste going down rabbit holes distilling and digesting.
What is the “DAO?”
The “DAO”, mean a “path” in Chinese. The path to being a successful professional is one many of you have probably walked. You went to the A-list schools, climbed the corporate ladder, landed the job of your dreams….or at least a promising career with salary and benefits. Or maybe you successfully started your own business.
This is for women who conquered the boardroom and now want to conquer next level body goals and next level mind-body fitness. And it’s written by someone just like you – who gets what it’s like to start your day at 730 or 8am and end your last call at 8pm because you had to talk to the team in Asia; who has an overflowing email inbox, gets “pinged” 20+ times a day, and has a triple-booked calendar; who understands that the little slivers of free time we have absolutely cannot be wasted on brilliant marketers and their “get thin quick” agendas.
What I bring to the table is the necessary tools you need to get fit from the lens of someone who works a white or gold collar job just like you. I am here to tell you it IS possible to have both the career and the body you want
What are the obstacles?
Anyone who has been in any kind of professional services job can relate to this list that makes success in fitness a challenge:
- Constraint on time to prepare healthy meals and exercise
- Mostly bad food choices in travel, meetings, and conferences
- Constant client entertaining and menu eye candy
- Starting out too aggressively and then giving up because it is not sustainable
- Wasting time “doomscrolling” and on social media
Those are external barriers. There are also internal barriers, like unwillingness to wait for change in our instant gratification culture, or fear of doing something different. Or quite simply, not even knowing where to start or what to prioritize.
How is DAOism a solution
My simple three-part framework—Decision, Action, Outlook—gives everyone an easy-to-follow plan of action that can be customized: the DAO of being a fit professional. The DAO is a three-part path to total transformation from the inside and out.
As professionals, we don’t need the latest gimmick or quick fix on Tik-tok. We need sustainable solutions. This is why I created the DAO framework. It offers a blueprint for action and a sustainable solution for busy people who don’t have the time to figure it out.
Decision. Action. Outlook.
Decision. Action. Outlook. These three principles form the acronym, “DAO,” parallelling the Chinese word “dao,” which means “path.” DAO is not just an acronym—it is a way of living to be fit and happy. It is the only way to live if you have the same ambitions for fitness as you do for your career.
Daoism, also spelled Taoism, is an indigenous religio-philosophical tradition that has shaped Chinese life for more than 2,000 years.¹ In the broadest sense, a Daoist attitude toward life can be seen as joyful and carefree. This is why I chose this as my approach and framework. Integrating fitness into an intense career lifestyle can seem daunting, but if you follow the DAO framework, it will get more effortless and bring you happiness, both along the way and when you reach your milestones. This isn’t just about getting fit—it’s about transforming yourself and changing your life. And in order to do that, you have to change your mindset. The body cannot change unless the mind does. The DAO is about untangling old beliefs and habits that are standing in your way and changing your perspective on fitness, and more importantly, your life.
You’ve Already Done That, So You Can Do This
You have already reached a huge milestone. You decided to do something different than what you are doing right now. And by taking different actions, you will change your perspective. Not only will your outlook change, that outlook will help you get to the next decision for an even better life.
You’ve probably already walked the path to being a successful professional, attending the A-list schools, climbing the corporate ladder, and landing the job of your dreams—or at least a promising career with salary and benefits. Or maybe you’ve successfully started your own business.
These milestones can translate to fitness as well. Like most forms of success, it doesn’t happen overnight, but when you reach that next level, it becomes intuitive.
The Three Crucial Steps: Decision. Action. Outlook.
You can follow the DAO right now in these three steps:
- Decide. Make a decision to either accept where you are at or don’t. If you don’t accept where you are at, then decide to do something about it.
- Act. Action is the only way forward. Even if it’s only an incremental five minute per day routine so that you do it every day. You have already taken the first action by starting down this path.
- Outlook. After having done something, meditate and visualize how you feel afterward. Chances are that having come fresh off of taking action, you will want to do it again.
Yes, you can.
I can without reservation say you CAN excel in a demanding career and be fit. It’s actually a lot easier than you think – easier than probably some of the analysis you have to do or numbers you have to crunch on a daily basis.
You can commit to a better life.
While my program is simple, with options for easy meals and quick workouts, it is also going to require a commitment of time and hard work from you – but so did law school, business school, getting your doctorate, and whatever else you had to chase to live your dream. How to “get thin quick” is not the point.
You can make this work, even with your schedule
The DAO to being a #fitprofessional will help you transform your daily habits until fitness is intuitive, just like your profession.
You can make this work during “busy season”.
You can make this work during a demanding and frequent travel schedule.
You can make it work, no matter how many emails you have to answer.
The key to making it all work
While my program is simple, with options for easy meals and quick workouts, it is also going to require a commitment of time and hard work from you – but so did law school, business school, getting your doctorate, and whatever else you had to chase to live your dream. How to “get thin quick” is not the point. The DAO of being a fit professional will help you transform your daily habits until fitness is intuitive, just like your trade.
When you make something a priority, everything becomes easier, right? You have to take the dog to the vet. Priority. A project is due at 5pm. Priority. Your loved ones? A priority. In the same way, fitness must be a priority, if you want it badly enough. This book will give you strategies to save time and make room for fitness, but you have to commit to making it a priority.
You don’t have to quit your job and become a yoga instructor to be in the best shape of your life. You do have to learn to draw boundaries and be prepare for pushback. That is why my approach is not just about what you see in the mirror. It is to metamorphisize your entire frame of mind. When that happens, the changes to your body will follow.
This is the DAO. This is the way.
The DAOFitlife Blog & Book
The DAO blog, and the upcoming book, is here for busy women who don’t have time to figure it out – written from the perspective of the busy career woman who gets it. There is no promise of instant gratification or overnight success. But there is a path to life-transforming, next level, love what you see in the mirror results. This is the DAO. This is the way.
