If you want to be wealthy, it's best to get healthy. A salubrious lifestyle is worth the effort.

Here's the wisdom:

You need good health to think clearly, act intelligently, and schmooze diligently.

Usually, the wealthiest people are entrepreneurs. This endeavor to create everything from scratch takes an enormous toll on your health. And if you're not looking after your health, you're sabotaging your progress.

It works the same for employees, though. The more sick days you have, the fewer days you get paid.

Sometimes, however, when you're very healthy, magic happens.

Many years ago, when I lived in Florida, I worked as a retail clerk in the Orlando Mall. I sold luggage for Burdines, a department store.

One day, I found this great book about the benefit of underground swimming for the heart and lungs. Since I had a huge pool in the apartment complex I lived in, I enthusiastically began to train myself to swim underwater. I got so good at it that I could do two whole laps underwater. I developed an enviable robustness, stamina, and strength.

After about a month at my new sport, our store had a big sale. During that sale, I was so energized, so full of vitality and good cheer, that at the end of the day I had done $10,000 in sales. This was unheard of for a single department, run by a single person, for one day.

My department manager awarded me a fluffy green beach towel! (I still have it with me.)

How did my sales skills shoot up to such an astonishing level? Quite simply, I had accidentally learned how to breathe deeper and fuller and my body was in a state of vibrant energy.

Good health spills over into every aspect of life. Your relationship with yourself improves. Your relationship with others improves. And your work in the world, whatever it is, takes a quantum leap.

We take our health for granted until we lose it. We need to guard our health more than our money, for when we are healthy, the money follows.

It's easy to acquire health information on how to make your brain sharper, your lungs clearer, and your muscles more able. The bane of most people, a heavy, tired body will not be yours if you choose a healthy lifestyle of nutritious food, exercise, deep relaxation and experiencing the great outdoors.