23: Your Health is Connected to Your Business

Ah the infamous "I don't have time to take care of myself." As business owners, entrepreneurs, wives, husbands, parents, cousins, neighbors—we often are the last person that we take care of. And why is that? Because not caring for ourselves seemingly doesn't affect anyone else. It's not letting anyone else down. The truth of the matter is, by not caring for ourselves we are quietly letting down everything around us.

This week on The Gutsy Podcast, we're going to talk about how the health of your business depends on the health of your mind and your body. It's really challenging to run a successful business and put your all in when your mind and your body are busted as hell. We live in a society where being busy and running ourselves into the ground is glorified. We equate success with having to be busy. And I'm going to put you guys on the stand here and say you guys glorify the shit out of your busy lives.

"Oh, I had this person to go here and I had to drop them off there. And then I had to work until midnight. And I had this dance class there. And I had that violin class here. And then I had to have these three different meetings. Then I was on a conference call until midnight. And, and I didn't even have time to eat today." And we wear that like a motherfucking badge. Like at the end of the day we expect some sort of trophy for being so busy that we couldn't even feed ourselves.

And then we turn it into this glorious role in life that people look up to and think, "Oh my gosh, Amy is so special. She does so much stuff that she can't even feed herself." And then everyone wants to be like Amy because she looks like she has it all together. And she wears nice clothes and her business is operating great and growing. So we assume that to achieve what she has, we have to do all those things along with it.

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Transcript

Laura Wallace: 0:00

You're listening to The Gutsy Podcast, where we talk about all things real, raw, and ridiculous about running a business authentically. I'm Laura Wallace, also known as the Laura Aura, lover of all things inspirational, owner of Worx Graphic Design, and your host on this journey through entrepreneurship. I'm here to help you get out of your head and back into action as a passionate business rock-star. Tune in every Tuesday and Thursday as we fuel your gutsy. Ah the infamous"I don't have time to take care of myself." As business owners, entrepreneurs, wives, husbands, parents, cousins, neighbors—we often are the last person that we take care of. And why is that? Because not caring for ourselves seemingly doesn't affect anyone else. It's not letting anyone else down. The truth of the matter is, by not caring for ourselves we are quietly letting down everything around us.

: 1:03

This week on The Gutsy Podcast, we're going to talk about how the health of your business depends on the health of your mind and your body. It's really challenging to run a successful business and put your all in when your mind and your body are busted as hell. We live in a society where being busy and running ourselves into the ground is glorified. We equate success with having to be busy. And I'm going to put you guys on the stand here and say you guys glorify the shit out of your busy lives.

Laura Wallace: 1:35

"Oh, I had this person to go here and I had to drop them off there. And then I had to work until midnight. And I had this dance class there. And I had that violin class here. And then I had to have these three different meetings. Then I was on a conference call until midnight. And, and I didn't even have time to eat today." And we wear that like a motherfucking badge. Like at the end of the day we expect some sort of trophy for being so busy that we couldn't even feed ourselves. And then we turn it into this glorious role in life that people look up to and think,"Oh my gosh, Amy is so special. She does so much stuff that she can't even feed herself." And then everyone wants to be like Amy because she looks like she has it all together. And she wears nice clothes and her business is operating great and growing. So we assume that to achieve what she has, we have to do all those things along with it. Now, I don't know who that quote unquote Amy is in your life, but I want you to stop idolizing them today because what you're probably not seeing is that person doesn't feel great. They're not taking care of themselves. They're tired all the time. They have put on such a strong front that now they feel like they have to maintain it. That is not your role model. I'm here to tell you that you can be successful without running your health into the ground.

: 2:57

Yes, sometimes there are seasons that require more of you. Yes, sometimes you are going to be way busier than you normally are. But none of those are a good enough reason or excuse to put your health in a hand basket and send it to hell. Look, I'm just as notorious for this as anyone else. I have caught myself time and time and time again that when I get busy, my health and my personal interests go by the wayside.

Laura Wallace: 3:27

One of my biggest areas of slip ups when I get busy is food. I know that when I've got a lot going on at work, I've got a lot of mental saturation, the last thing that I want to do when I get home is cook. So from time to time, AJ and I get in these ruts and routines where we just go out to eat because guess what? We don't have to cook it. We don't have to clean it up. We don't have to figure it out. We don't have to go to the grocery store. It eliminates all these problems or time-suckers that we have created in our lives. And then guess what? That snowballs into,"Well now I don't have lunch for the next day, so I'll just go out and grab something while I'm while I'm at work." And then that night I get home and we'd go out to dinner again and the cycle returns and goes over and over and over again. Not only is that not physically healthy, but it's not financially healthy either. We all know that you could cook the same meal at home for probably a third of the cost as if you would go out. The other problem with that is, for me personally, food and I are not exactly best friends. Well let me rephrase that. There are certain trigger foods that cause auto immune responses in my body.

: 4:41

For instance, I love cheese, but cheese doesn't love me. We have a very complicated relationship and I want it to be part of my life. But you know what? It's just not really possible. But when we're going out to eat, a lot of things have cheese in it. And the last thing I want to do is punish myself by not being able to even eat the things that I want to. So then I start eating stuff that's not good for my body, which triggers these auto immune responses, which messes up my sleeping, which messes up my neurological system. And then before I know it, oh, a couple of weeks have gone by and I'm wondering"why can't I focus at work?" In the time that it takes to go out to dinner and then to go out for lunch the next day, one of those trips could have been spent on a grocery trip. And then making the dinner could be maximized by planning out our week. By saying that I don't have time or energy to make dinner—it's just an excuse to justify a comfortable and bad behavior that I've just grown used to. It seems like it's easier to go out to dinner, but in fact I'm actually making my life 10 times more difficult. So we finally faced this matter because this is a reoccurring thing for us. It's one of our natural habits that's super easy for us to snap back into. And I am so excited because after nearly 20 years of being with this man, he has realized that he enjoys cooking, guys. I came home the other day and he had out Pinterest and was putting garlic and olive oil on Zucchini like a freaking boss. And I got to tell you, I just learned that there's nothing hotter than a tattooed dude with Pinterest open making you dinner. What we learned was we had to do something different. So up until just even a couple of weeks ago, we thought that I was really the only one that knew how to cook in our house or that enjoyed it. But AJ saw how much pressure this was putting on me and decided to start experimenting with food. And I can tell you that we have eaten in more over the last two or three weeks then we probably have over the last two or three months. By shifting this habit, he has taken on a responsibility which has lightened the load on mine. We have delicious, amazing food every single night, we're saving money because we're not going out and buying, you know, a couple extra glasses of beer and wine, our health is better because we're eating really good food—we know what is going into it—and guess what? I have lunch the next day. Now, it may have taken us a little while to find what this new groove was or how to really make this change in our life, but the point is we were willing to try. We were willing to figure out something different. Guys, I know it's a lot. Exercise here and go there and eat this way and don't do that and sleep more and take better care of yourself and do a nighttime face regimen. Look, you can't master everything, but you can start with a couple of small things and start to integrate to find out what are the areas that are affecting your health the most and what are some small changes that you can start to make on a regular basis to make a positive impact.

Laura Wallace: 7:57

Because here's the thing. When you neglect your body—it will get louder and louder and louder. It's going to continue to present ailments, sicknesses, fatigue, stress, anxiety, depression—you name it. It's not going to go away until you give it attention. And what might start off as a small headache, by continuing negative behaviors, that headache is going to turn into a myriad of things that you don't even want to wrap your head around. You can push yourself to the breaking point. Literally, you can work so hard for so long and that eventually your body is going to be like,"hmm, if you're not going to help me have a timeout, I'm going to put you in a timeout." And there's nothing worse than having to be down versus choosing to be down.

: 8:48

And guess what? Your body's not going to choose the most convenient time. Like,"Oh look, Sally has this Saturday through Monday open. We should just completely fall apart then." No. It's going to wait until you've got a bunch of deadlines. You're supposed to travel somewhere. You've got a big project coming up. It's going to explode at the time where you need YOU the most. A good friend of mine, Mary Kate McKenna, owner of Mary Kate McKenna Photography, said"If you are doing well, that's not the same as being well." And I could not agree with her more. You or your business or your life or your family could be doing well. But if you're not physically and mentally feeling well and performing at your optimal level, then you are robbing yourself and everyone around you of a higher version of who you are. So one of the very first things that you can do is really just to start to understand where you are willing to sacrifice parts of your health.

Laura Wallace: 9:47

For me it was food, right? I just told you the story about how it's very easy for us to snap into autopilot and not cook and just go out to dinner. What are some of your behaviors and how are they affecting you? Now I want you to get really real with yourself about this'cause you could be like,"Oh, I don't work out. It's no big deal." But how is that affecting you?

: 10:10

Sometimes it's also to see things from a different lens. So, we have adopted this mindset that by caring for yourself, you're being selfish. I'm going to stop you right there. We're going to flip that table around and say,"By not taking care of myself, I am robbing myself and everyone around me from something. Everyone in my business and my family and in my immediate circle will benefit greater when I have invested in my own self."

Laura Wallace: 10:39

And if that's not enough for you to change a habit, I want you to reframe it even further. I want you to say"By not caring for myself, I'm accepting to not care about my clients, my employees, my family, and my friends." Because not caring for you doesn't just affect you—it affects everything and everyone that you touch. If you've been on an airplane, you know that the stewardess always tells you to put your own mask on before you put the persons that is sitting next to you. And why? Because if your ass is passed out, you can't exactly save them. The same goes for your business guys. You have to be willing to put your own mask on to be able to raise everyone around you.

: 11:23

If the leader is tired and cranky and upset and anxious, guess what? Everything around you is going to ultimately become a reflection of you. So stop and just kind of take a mental note. How has everything and everyone been functioning around you? If you've been feeling kind of off or frantic lately, is everyone else mirroring that? Or better yet, if you've been taking care of yourself and raising the bar, how is that mirroring in your organization? If you have convinced yourself that you don't have time to take care of you, I want you to take out a journal and just for two or three days write down every activity that you do. That includes pulling up the settings on your phone and documenting how much time you're spending on social media, how many hours of TV that you're watching, how much time you spend eating out or traveling to go to those places, and any other activities that you spend your time doing. I want you to document it because what you're going to find out really quickly is you actually have quite a bit of time. You have just chosen to use it differently. I was reading an article on Huffington Post about how your health affects your business and they had a quote and I'm like, well shit, that is a mic drop. So we, particularly when it comes to working out because it's not always everyone's favorite thing on the planet to do and often our excuse is,"I'm too busy. I can't go to the gym. I can't do this." Well, this article laid down the law and said,"You're not too busy to work out. You're just unwilling to sacrifice your lazy time to work out." And I was like, DAYUUM, they are so true! It's way easier to lounge on the couch or stay in bed too long or just not do anything than it is to get up and physically move your body to the point where its sweats. Now I'm all about veg-out time just as much as the next person, but I also know that comes in conjunction and a balance with actually pushing my body to release some toxins. So while we're on the topic of working out, that's one of the very first things that you can integrate in taking care of yourself. You carry a lot of stress on your plate. You do a lot of things. You have to make a lot of decisions. Your brain is always going. Your body needs a place and a time and a and a method to release some of that feeling. Working out is an enormously healthy way for you to channel your anxiety and turn it into something productive that ultimately is going to help you and your body. Now, look, I am not a gym goer. I have tried. I have paid the memberships. I have let them lapse for months at a time. I'm paying for it, but I'm not going. I am certain that at least 87% of you have experienced this in some point in your life.

Laura Wallace: 14:12

What I found out was it's not working out that I hate—it's the method and how I was trying to work out. I was trying to put myself in a bubble where I felt like I had to do these things because this is typically what other people do. Now, I've got some great friends and some family where going to the gym works out amazing for them because that's their thing. What I found was I needed something different.

: 14:38

So you guys know that I'm a huge fan of Peloton and I'll sing it all day long. Having a Peloton completely shifted the way that I look at working out because most of the stress around going to the gym and working out was not around the actual workout—it was in the time that it took for me to get there, do the thing that I needed to do, shower, drive home, make dinner, figure out which time of day I was doing this... My bike, it's at my house. So it eliminated all of the problems that I put in front of actually being able to take care of myself. As it turns out, I actually really love working out because I love sweating. I like channeling all that pent up energy from the day or the week and just blasting it out through this bike. And the music is loud in my ear and the instructors are great and I'm in a dark, cool room and it's just, it works for me. So guess what? Working out is no longer a giant pain in the ass. It's something that I quite enjoy doing. So when you're looking at your fitness, what obstacles are getting in your way and how can you overcome those things? If it's driving to the gym that's a pain for you, look at getting something at home. Is there an APP that you can use? Hell, you can even use YouTube and find all kinds of exercise videos. Maybe it's lack of motivation. So maybe working out of home is not for you because you need to be in that surrounding of other people. So maybe finding a group class. It could simply even be the time of day that you're trying to work out. So if your mornings are already insanely hectic and you're trying to throw in a workout on top of that and you just keep bombing it, maybe try working out after you get home from work or early in the evening. What fits for one person does not have to fit for you and that's completely okay. The key here is finding something that resonates with you. I used to think that I hated to read until I realized that I was reading the wrong thing. Now I have more motivational self help books than I even can wrap my head around. When you're thinking about your health, the things that you put in your body and on your body have an enormous impact. So I want you to really start evaluating what kind of food are you putting in your body and how are you feeling after you eat it.

Laura Wallace: 16:52

As much as I love going to get fajitas and chips and salsa and cheese dip—remember what I told you about cheese earlier—after I eat that, I feel like a freaking ton of bricks. Be really mindful of the way that food makes your body feel. I want you to consciously think about the stuff that you're eating and look at it and look at the color and smell it and how does it make you feel after you've eaten it, and even in the hours and days afterwards. The thing about food is it can be a tricky little sucker because it may not affect you immediately so you think,"Oh, it's fine. Those seven chili dogs that I just downed aren't going to affect me." But then two or three days later you find yourself being insanely sluggish.

: 17:36

You also don't have to change your entire diet. You don't have to cut out entire food groups. You don't have to get all like a-wall and start only eating spinach because that's the new thing. We're talking about little adjustments, like maybe it's two extra bottles of water a day versus the coke that you were going to go grab. Maybe it's taking the leftovers versus going through the drive-thru. You don't have to uproot and change everything in your entire house in order to eat and feel healthy. I think sometimes health can be discouraging because we feel like it's an all or nothing deal. Like if we're not going to go full vegetarian, then why even bother eating healthy? Because that's clearly what we have to do. No, health is obtained in these small steps that accumulate over time. One of the other big ones, sleep. I love sleep. Sleep is my friend. I welcome it into my heart and into my arms and I have learned(and especially as I start to get older) that my body shuts down and it HAS to sleep. Now, if you're one of those crazy, awesome people that can run on four hours of sleep, more power to you. But me, I need a solid seven or eight hours to even be able to function. One of the most important parts about sleep is not only going to bed at a reasonable time, right? So if you're working on your laptop in your bed until one or two AM and then your alarm is going off at six or seven, you are not resting friend. This is going back to setting those boundaries and saying,"You know what? The electronics don't go into the bedroom. I'm not going to work up until the 11th hour right before I'm about to fall asleep." Because, I don't know about you, but when I do have to work late, it is insanely hard for me to fall asleep because my mind is on. My eyes are going. The, whatever has happened in the electronic world has impacted my brain and now I'm ready to take on the world. Look at the habits that you have prior to bed and even waking up in the morning and say,"How can I start to change some of these habits so that I can give myself a little bit more rest time?" Maybe it's going to bed a half an hour earlier or plugging your phone in the kitchen versus on the nightstand. It might be not grabbing the phone as soon as you wake up in the morning. Whatever it is, there are some small changes that you can make to allow yourself time to sleep. Guys, you, you physically and scientifically have to sleep to be able to exist in one of the last areas that you can evaluate is your mental health. Yes, your body, your physical health is insanely important, but your mind is just as important. If you are constantly stressed and overworked and staying up late and feeling like you're always chasing the ball, that will eventually take a physical toll on your body. Your mental health is a serious matter and I need you to start treating it like that, guys, because it's impossible to function and run a business when your mental health is off. There are lots of different ways that you can utilize healthy mental health habits. Sometimes it's just as simple as having, having fun, right? Like getting back to just having a good time, having a random dance party or playing in the aisles of the store or having a great cookout with friends or family. If you haven't laughed in awhile, I want you to find a scenario where you can just laugh unapologetically. When you laugh, your brain literally sets off chemicals, dopamine and serotonin, all the feel good, happy chemicals that are in your brain. Give yourself permission to be silly, have fun, dance—whatever it is that makes you happy, I want you to give yourself time and space to do those things. It could also just be downtime. Reading a great book, lounging on the couch because we all need those times as well, and if it's something deeper, something more mental that we need to work through, seeking out trusted advisers, therapists, business mentors, executive coaches. Allow people in that can help you shift whatever is holding you back. The key here guys is finding positive ways to deal with stress not only have a positive impact on your body and your mind, but it has a positive impact on your business. When you are well rested, you think sharper and clearer and more quickly. When you've had a good solid meal, something that fuels your body, you have more energy to put into the things that require you. When you have exercised, you have rid your body of toxins, allowing you more energy and mental clarity. And when you've invested in your own mental health, you can start to focus on the forward thinking, visionary things that are ahead of you versus dwelling on some of the things that have held you back. You are worth your time, money, and effort to care for your own self. Because at the end of the day—you are the only thing and person that you have. It is your responsibility to care for the body that you have been given, for the mind that you were blessed with, and the insane amount of untapped potential that is within you. When you have mental clarity and physical abilities to be able to do these things, not only are you gonna impact yourself but you're gonna be a better person for everyone around you. You're gonna run a stronger, more successful business. You're going to be a better friend, a better spouse, a better parent, and you're ultimately going to be able to live your life with a little bit more ease.

Laura Wallace: 23:19

Join me for this week's Powerback as we shift your mindset from thinking,"Oh, I wish I could be like.." into,"This is who I actually am." That person that you strive to be is just literally on the other side of a decision. Until then, follow The Gutsy Podcast on Facebook and Instagram and for more business insights, follow me personally on Instagram@ThatLauraAura. See ya next time!

Speaker 3: 23:55

[inaudible].