7 Personal Habits of Every Aspiring CEO

Being a CEO is an incredibly lonely experience.

You're constantly under pressure and unsure about whom you can trust, which leads to wasted time and riding a roller coaster of uncertainty. Battling a never-ending list of expectations, you can make this struggle worse by neglecting your health and the people important to you.

It doesn't have to be this way.

It wasn't until I stepped down from Contour that I realized my workaholic drive was destroying my body, my mind, and my personal life. Working six days a week, I spent my twenties stuck behind a laptop. Now, in vowing not to repeat the same mistakes, I'm making sure these seven habits are a part of my day.

1. Exercise daily

Having been a athlete, you can say that being a CEO is significantly more strenuous. It isn't confined to a two-hour practice or 90-minute game. There's an expectation that you always have to be positive, energetic, and decisive, which drains every ounce of your energy. Think of exercising as one of the most important meetings you have, everyday. Don't skip it, and don't make excuses.

2. Take a break
Taking a full weekend off is not a vacation. The pile of work never goes away, and not only does your team need you mentally rested, they need to learn how to execute without you. To break a hub-and-spoke culture, take a multi-week vacation to validate how strong or weak your leadership really is. If the company crumbles without you, take that as a warning sign — and a sign of a problem you may have created without even realizing it.

3. Get a weekly massage
Everyone carries stress in different ways, but a weekly massage can help relieve that tension. If your company doesn't have medical insurance, you might join places like Massage Envy, which have multiple locations and offer fairly affordable massages. Think of it as part of the expense of running a company. It's well worth it.

4. Listen
For a long time, I was a lousy listener. My version of listening was taking the whiteboard pen and sharing my perspective. The discussion made me feel good, but it didn't encourage the people around me to think for themselves. Being a great listener takes patience and a commitment to being open. It also teaches you that you don't have all the answers, so you'll find your level of stress will diminish as you realize the people you've hired do have great solutions to your company's hardest problems.

5. Prioritize people
Relationships matter. Whether they are business connections, friendships, or family, they'll be the only thing left when you're done with the company, so don't expect them to wait around while you prioritize work: Interrupting dinner with just one more phone call. Skipping a friend's birthday for a surprise business trip. Missing time with your kids because you had to take your client out for dinner. These actions speak louder than words.

6. Talk to someone
Every CEO needs a trusted confidant. Even if that's not your significant other you can hire a coach, therapist, or a consultant who can help. Pick someone you trust, who is a fantastic listener, and is experienced at helping people understand emotions. Running a company comes with a huge amount of personal conflicts you don't even recognize until you begin sharing. The process gets easier with time, but make sure you confide in someone outside of your company. Otherwise, it could lead to a loss of confidence in your leadership. It's okay to admit you have no idea what you are doing. Just find the right person to share it with.

7. Get some rest

As a rule, you should pride yourself on the hours you've slept, not the hours you've missed. There are dozens of research articles on mental performance and a lack of sleep, but here's the bottom line: As an entrepreneur, you are thinking about hard, stressful problems all day. You need more sleep than the average person, not less.

Message to Youth from the India's Youngest CEO - Sindhuja Rajamaran

Meet 17-year-old, Sindhuja Rajamaran, who became the youngest CEO, of a Chennai-based animation company called Seppan, at the age of 14 in India.

When girls of her age would go to school, study at home and spend time on social networking sites, she would be seen working from 9am to 6pm, busy taking meetings with colleagues, taking tough decisions to raise the profitability of her company.

Sindhuja was in Lucknow on Monday as a panelist at the All India Management Association convention to shape the young minds. When the girl-next-door look arrived at the Scientific Convention Centre -- the venue for the programme -- there were not many to receive her.

It was after sometime that the organizers recognized her and ushered her inside the auditorium where she was the main speaker for the final session. And when the moderator introduced her, people were surprised.

Her advice to youngsters was simple and precise: Keep the hunger of growing and pursue your dream with sincerity.

Sindhuja's journey from an ordinary school girl to the CEO of a company, that makes commercials for other companies, started at the age of 10. Her father Rajamaran, an avid animator and cartoonist, taught her animation when she was 10. Today there are five people -- all men in their early 20s -- in the company.

She has made it clear that she is not like a typical boss. “It is more of a team and I’m just a facilitator only giving the right direction to the company so that it scales new height. I’m happy all the men in the company have accepted me and it is a good young team to work with,” she said sporting a big smile.

Now it is her dream to become a successful entrepreneur and provide employment to the youth of the country.

“The education system has several flaws as it does not make youngsters employable. There is a big gap between educated youth and unemployment in the country which needs to be bridged, she said.

When asked how it feels like snatching the title of youngest CEO from another South Indian prodigy Suhas Gopinath, she says, “I had a chance of meeting him at a function in Madurai and he was very happy and also advised me how to run my company.”

By the time she was through, Sindhuja Rajamaran had indeed shaped several young minds in the audience as most of them said they too would like to employ rather than get employed.